ABSTRACT

Sociologists commonly find in the international working-class parties that the bourgeois refugees are usually assigned the task of dealing with theoretical problems and in many cases. The consequence is that, in the struggle with the bourgeoisie, the socialist intellectual will incline towards the most revolutionary tendencies. Bernstein says with good reason that, notwithstanding all assertions to the contrary, in the English Chartist movement the intellectuals were distinguished by their marked revolutionary inclinations. The history of socialism shows that the intellectuals are distributed in nearly equal proportions among the various tendencies. The struggle against the intellectuals within the socialist party is due to various causes. It originated as a struggle for leadership among the intellectuals themselves. In Germany, as in Italy, France, and in some of the Balkan states, the gravest accusations have been launched against the intellectuals. From the ethical point of view the contempt felt by the non-intellectuals for the intellectuals is utterly without justification.