ABSTRACT
IT IS not for me to write a history of the socialist parties. Both the settings in which they rose and fell and the ways in which they grappled with their problems call for a larger canvas and a mightier brush than mine. Also, the time has not yet come to make the attempt: though the last twenty years have brought up many valuable monographs that shed all the light we need on particular situations or phases, a vast amount of research has still to be done before a history of modern socialism in action can be written that will meet the requirements of scholarship. But certain facts are necessary in order to complement and to put into the proper perspective much of what has been said in the preceding parts of this book. And some other points that have occurred to me from study or personal observation 1 I wish to present because they seem to be interesting on their own account. For this double purpose I have assembled the fragments that are to follow, in the hope that even fragments may indicate the contours of the whole.
