Whenever the party gained any success at the polls, the socialists in public office and the party leaders found it necessary to “do something” immediately.  The rank and file might be willing to talk of the millennium, but preferred to take it in instalments instead of waiting for it to come some centuries after they were dead.  And so the socialist party, as fast as it gained any practical power, became “opportunist” and worked for moderate practical reforms.  The leaders did this with many misgivings lest the masses might become so reconciled to the present order that they would refuse to rise in revolt.  In that case the revolution never could happen (altho it was inevitable).

As the party socialists did more to improve the present, they talked less of the distant future state.  They ceased their criticisms of “mere temporizing” “bourgeois” reforms, and began to claim these as the achievements of the socialist party.  They began to write of the remarkable growth of social legislation in Europe and America in the past half century under such titles of “socialism in practice” and “socialists at work.”  This was despite the fact that these reforms were all brought about by governments in which the socialist party had no part whatever or was a well-nigh insignificant minority.  This bald sophistry, or self-deception, was easily possible by confusing the word “socialist” as relating to the abstract principle of social action, with socialist as applied to their own party organization.  It is as if the Republican party in the United States were to claim as its own all the works of the republican spirit and principles of government in the world from the party’s organization to the present time.

Sec. 21. #Alluring claims of party socialism.# In thus changing the emphasis of its claims, the socialist party has been somewhat put to it to retain any clear distinction between itself and other parties of social reform.  It has done this however by continuing to proclaim the ultimate desirability of reorganizing all society without leaving any productive wealth in private hands.  It has had no misgivings prompted by the experience of the world.  Its case continues to be far the strongest in its negative aspect, the exposure of the evils in present society.  To many natures the claims of the socialist party have all the allurements of patent medicine advertisements.  These describe the symptoms so exactly and promise so positively to cure the disease, that they are irresistible—­especially when the regular physicians keep insisting that the only way to get well is to take baths and exercise, and stop the use of whisky and tobacco.