ABSTRACT
NOTHING is so treacherous as the obvious. Events during the past twenty or twenty-five years have taught us to see the problem that lurks behind the title of this part. Until about 1916 the relation between socialism and democracy would have seemed quite obvious to most people and to nobody more so than to the accredited exponents of socialist orthodoxy. It would hardly have occurred to anyone to dispute the socialists’ claim to membership in the democratic club. Socialists themselves of course—except a few syndicalist groups—even claimed to be the only true democrats, the exclusive sellers of the genuine stuff, never to be confused with the bourgeois fake.
