Socialism, Revolution and Internationalism   By: Gabriel Deville (1854-1940)

Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For a complete list, please see the end of this document.

PRICE 10 CENTS

Socialism, Revolution and Internationalism

By GABRIEL DEVILLE

SOCIALISM, REVOLUTION AND INTERNATIONALISM

A LECTURE DELIVERED IN PARIS, NOVEMBER 27, 1893, BY GABRIEL DEVILLE

Translated by ROBERT RIVES LA MONTE

CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 1907

PRESS OF JOHN F. HIGGINS CHICAGO

SOCIALISM, REVOLUTION AND INTERNATIONALISM.

I

Socialism, revolution, internationalism these are the three subjects regarding which I beg your permission to say what with no pretence of being infallible I believe to be the truth. At the risk of telling you nothing new, I will simply try to speak truth. Those who reproach the socialists for constantly repeating the same thing, have, no doubt, the habit of accommodating the truth to suit their taste for variety. On the other hand, to talk of socialism is to do what everyone else is doing at this time, but I will speak to you of it from the standpoint of a socialist, and unhappily that is not as yet equally common.

The signal and distinctive mark of modern socialism is that it springs directly from the facts. Far from resting on the imaginary conceptions of the intellect, from being a more or less utopian vision of an ideal society, socialism is to day simply the theoretical expression of the contemporaneous phase of the economic evolution of humanity.

At this point we are met with two objections.

On the one hand, because we say that socialism springs from the facts, we are accused of denying the influence of the Idea and the liberal defenders of the Idea rise up in revolt; they can calm themselves again. How could we deny the influence of the Idea, when socialism itself is as yet, as I have just pointed out, only a theoretical expression, i.e. , an idea, which we nevertheless believe has a certain influence?

We merely assert that a truth, irrevocably established by science as a valid generalization, does not cease to be a truth when it is applied to human history and socialism. This truth is the action of the environment: all living beings are the product of the environment in which they live. To the environment, in the last analysis, to the relations necessarily created by the multiple contacts, actions and reactions of the environment and the environed are due all the transformations of all organisms and, in consequence, all the phenomena that emanate from them. Thought is one of these phenomena, and, just like all the others, it has its source in actual facts. To say that socialism springs from the facts, is then simply to place the socialist idea on the same plane with all other ideas. In socialism, as in all subjects, the idea is the reflex in the brain of the relations of man with his surroundings, and the greater or less aptitude of the brain for acquiring, retaining and combining ideas, constitutes intelligence. The latter, in making various combinations out of the elements provided by the environment, may obviously lose sight of the reality which serves as its foundation, but our socialism aims never to depart from the data drawn from unbiased observation of the facts.