H.M. Hyndman, Justice, September 15, 1894
Source: Justice, September 15 1894, p.3;
Note: This article is a review of
Le Socialisme en Danger, par F. Domela Nieuwenhuis. Edition de la
Societé Nouvelle, 1894, Bruxelles, translated into English as Socialism in Danger for Liberty in October 1894.
See also: a reply by Edward Bernstein and Hyndman's reply to Bernstein
Transcription and HTML: Graham Seaman
Last updated: February 2026
This pamphlet seems to me of considerable importance at this juncture. The matter of which it treats requires careful and thorough examination, and if the author altogether fails to bring conviction to our minds it is the duty of the critic to show plainly where he goes astray. And, first, who is the author? He is an old comrade and friend, Domela Nieuwenhuis, of Amsterdam, the best known man of the Dutch Social-Democratic party. Educated for the Church, and having adopted the career of a pastor, he abandoned his profession and has devoted his very considerable abilities and not inconsiderable private fortune to the spread of Socialism in Holland. He is, in fact, one of the few of the well-to-do class in Europe who have deliberately sacrificed position and means to the cause. Of his honesty, of his freedom from personal ambition, of his devotion to the well-being of his fellow men, there is no doubt whatever. That strain also of overwrought self-consciousness and nervous vanity and conceit which is to be found in many, if not most, Anarchists, Domela Nieuwenhuis is free from. Yet that he is a sentimental Socialist he himself would scarcely deny. He has suffered severely for his opinions as a political Social-Democrat, and if he has seen cause to change these opinions the reasons for this on the part of such a man are well worth investigation.
Oddly enough, Domela Nieuwenhuis was not very long ago an earnest supporter of the official German or the German official view of the proper tactics to be pursued in regard to the Socialist propaganda in Europe. This means that all true Socialists should turn to Berlin as to the Mecca of the modern materialist religion, and should accept, at the same time, without questioning, the oracles emitted by the Marxian Mahatma of the Regent's Park Road—Friedrich Engels to wit. When friend Domela was in Paris in 1889 he was still of this opinion. So much so that he took it somewhat ill of the S.D.F. delegates that they should not have attended the German International Congress in the French metropolis, but accepted the French invitation instead!
Now he has quite given all this up, and in the present pamphlet he protests with some warmth and not a little sarcasm against the censorship of Bernstein, the dictation of Bebel and Liebknecht, the preposterous claim that so backward a country as Germany should be regarded as the leader of European Socialism, and—unfortunately misled by the failure of the German Social-Democratic party in Parliament—against political action in a Parliamentary sense at all. We can easily understand and sympathise with the writer's revolt against the attempt to manage Dutch Socialist business from Berlin. The French, the Belgians, the Danes, and ourselves have been obliged to protest against similar impertinence. But we deeply regret that mistakes made on one side should have driven our friend into still more serious mistakes on the other. Thus, he speaks as if there were an inherent and necessary antagonism between political Parliamentary action and revolutionary Socialism. He proves with almost superfluous completeness that Marx, Engels, Bebel, Liebknecht, Kautsky, the whole German Social-Democratic party in sections and together, have at one time or another spoken, written, and voted vigorously in favour of a violent solution of the class antagonism, while referring contemptuously to mere political tactics. There the words stand reprinted in Nieuwenhuis's pamphlet. There they remain remembered in most of our minds. The "Communist Manifesto " itself is one long incitement to a forcible revolution whenever there may seem to be the slightest chance of success. Our pamphleteer is right enough about that.
But now let us consider the matter from the point of view of to-day. Granted that the German leaders have acted improperly to Social-Democrats of other nationalities; admitting that they themselves have been very unsuccessful, as compared with the French for instance, in their Parliamentary business; not disputing that they did talk of force and don't now—what then ? That we should, according to the gospel of Domela Nieuwenhuis, all turn Anarchist-Communists and abandon political action entirely. Such is our friend's serious contention. Leaving aside the fact that an Anarchist-Communist is that sort of amphibious creature which can't live on land and dies in the water; passing over also the truth that it is not enough to say on the morrow of revolution, "Let us all go and do our duty," but that experience in co-operation and administration is essential to success; we may fairly go on to discuss the abandonment of all political action as recommended by our author and as adopted—most disastrously in our opinion—by the Dutch Social-Democratic party.
The argument is this. Parliament is a bourgeois institution. If Socialists enter it they are necessarily mixed up in bourgeois politics and intrigues. They have no chance of obtaining immediate control of the power which is vested in the hands of the capitalists. Then they lose heart or become corrupted by money, or flattery, or the offer of place, and the Socialist cause is not only deprived of good men, but all the expense and toil spent on getting them into their position has been worse than cut to waste. Consequently, it is far better to avoid politics altogether, and pursue a policy of forceful if not forcible propaganda until the critical moment arrives. Thus the Socialists will keep up their revolutionary fire and propagandist enthusiasm at the highest point. So far comrade Nieuwenhuis.
Of course there are drawbacks to politics. Nobody disputes that. There are drawbacks to earning your living under capitalism, very great drawbacks, but we don't all go and commit suicide, nevertheless. We make the best of the system, working the while steadily to prepare for its downfall. We mean to use, not to destroy, what previous generations have bequeathed to us. Just so with politics. Domela Nieuwenhuis does not seem to know that the English Parliament in its long history has, to all intents and purposes, been already dominated, and it may be said transformed, by three successive classes. Each used the forms they inherited and captured to further their own class interests. Why should not the labouring class do the like? Why indeed? Are traitors and rogues wholly unknown in revolutionary parties which keep aloof from politics? Were the Carbonari, the Fenians, the Nihilists without corrupt rascals and spies in their midst? Are the dynamiters and Anarchists always above reproach? It is absurd to say that Parliament is the only place where a Socialist may betray his comrades. Positively he has less chance of doing so there than elsewhere; for what he does in Parliament must at least be done openly. Again, Parliament is the best pulpit for propaganda on the planet if properly used. It is also the place where the proceedings of the enemy can be most effectively exposed and hampered. Let anyone call to mind what a few determined Irishmen did in the House of Commons between 1881 and 1885. They don't do it now? No, they don't. Why? Because they are no longer determined. The machinery is all right: the men are all wrong. A revolutionary parliamentary party with a revolutionary Socialist organisation behind it could change the whole face of affairs in Great Britain. Of this I, at any rate, am convinced, and I believe it would be the same in Holland or anywhere else.
But now what is the alternative to political action? Force. Very good. But what force ? Comrade Nieuwenhuis himself says that all the organised force is in the hands of our enemies. Very good again. But that means that street fighting, or fighting in the open, is quite hopeless until we have converted at least a portion of the army. No mob could or would face Maxim guns for five minutes. Are we then to be driven back upon individual bomb-throwers and isolated dynamite explosionists? That is the logical conclusion from Nieuwenhuis's argument, but with that conclusion I understand our friend does not agree either. Frankly, I think confusion of thought has led him to a confusion of tactics. We cannot resort to force at this moment with any hope of success. The time may come when we shall be able to do so. Let us prepare for that time by assiduous organisation and discipline. And, meanwhile, let us get as much as possible into control of the administrative machine through political action so that we may hinder the operations of our enemies. Those who won't organise to go to the ballot box will scarcely be organised to go to the barricade. However, let us hope Nieuwenhuis will come and discuss ways and means with us here in 1896. By that time we may be able to show him what we mean by Parliamentary action.
H. M. HYNDMAN.