The Threefold Commonwealth

The True Shape of the Social Question, As Shewn in the Life of Modern Man

Does not the modern social movement stand revealed by the great catastrophe of the war, demonstrating in actual facts how inadequate the thoughts were, which for years have been supposed sufficient to an understanding of the working-class movement and its purport?

It is a question forced upon us by the demands of the workers and all that these involve,—demands which formerly were kept in suppression, but which at the present time are forcing their way to the surface of life. The powers that were instrumental in suppression are partially destroyed; and the position they took up towards the forces of social growth in a large part of mankind is one that nobody can wish to maintain, who does not totally fail to recognise how indestructible such impulses of human nature are.

The greatest illusions in respect to these social forces have been harboured by persons, whose situation in life gave them the power, by word and voice, either to assist or to check those influences in European life, which, in 1914, were rushing us into the catastrophe of war. These persons actually believed, that a military victory for their country would hush the mutterings of the social storm. They have since been obliged to recognise, that it was the consequences of their own attitude that first brought these social tendencies fully to light. Indeed, the present catastrophe,—which is the catastrophe of mankind,—has shewn itself to be the very event, through which, historically, these tendencies gained the opportunity to make themselves felt in their full force. During these last fateful years, both the leading persons and the leading classes have been constantly obliged to tune their own behaviour to the note sounded in socialist circles. Could they have disregarded the tone of these circles, they would often gladly have acted differently. And the effects of this live on in the form which events are taking to-day.