ABSTRACT
The practical utopia of Social Democracy can be seen in its voluntary associations, singing and bicycling clubs, clubs for smokers and for anti-smokers, just as the practical utopia of Bolshevism might be seen in the workings of the early Soviets and that of Fabianism in its municipal enthusiasms and summer schools. Social democracy as a project has never yet been fulfilled, but of the traditions analysed its legacy is the most potentially positive. As with Bolshevism and Fabianism, there are predictably stylised views of the nature of Social Democracy. Joseph Dietzgen was literally a home-grown utopian, a tanner by trade, without formal education. While Dietzgen was adjusting the horizon upwards, August Bebel was at the same time addressing more systematically the material dimension of the future. Peter Murphy’s critique of social democracy as a belated convert to democracy itself is thus well-aimed at Kautsky, but not at Bernstein.
