ABSTRACT
By the end of 1883 a growing interest in Socialism is noticeable in Annie Besant’s writings, especially in The National Reformer. In April followed a then sensational debate on Socialism between Bradlaugh and Hyndman, the former being an uncompromising individualist, in this at least a true child of his generation. “The conflict between social and anti-social tendencies has existed as long as Society itself,” writes Annie Besant in the same pamphlet. “It is the contest between the integrating and disintegrating forces, between the brute survival and the human evolution. In 1885 Besant sealed her adhesion to Socialism by joining Fabian Society, of which she was for several years one of the leading members. “In selecting the Fabian Society for her passage through Socialism Annie Besant made a very sound choice; for it was the only one of the three Socialist societies then competing with one another in which there was anything to be learnt that she did not already know.
