ABSTRACT
There is some symbolic significance in these two dates. The year 1875 saw the birth of the first purely socialist party that was powerful enough to count as a factor in politics. This momentous event came to pass through the merger of the two German groups-Lassalle’s group and another founded by Bebel and Liebknecht in 1869-into the Social Democratic Party which, though at the time (Gotha program) it made considerable concessions to Lassalle’s creed,1 eventually embraced Marxism (Erfurt program, 1891) and steadily fought its way to the proud position it held in 1914 when, like all socialist parties, it met the crisis of its fate.2 Before commenting on the astounding development that brought a Marxist party, without any compromise involving sacrifice of principle, within sight of parliamentary leadership, we shall glance at the course of events in other countries and first at the English socialism of that period which on the surface offers so striking and instructive a contrast to it.
