which it inclines towards dividing up and towards equalisation. Its main distinction from anarchism is that it demands the creation of a strong central authority which shall protect it, on the one hand from the landlords and on the other from the proletariat. In this form of socialism we have the “socialisation of the land” advocated by the social revolutionists, who desire to establish small-scale production in perpetuity, who dread the proletariat, and who oppose the formation of a great and united cooperative commonwealth. In addition, among certain strata of the peasantry, we find yet other varieties of socialism more or less akin to anarchism. Here the State authority is repudiated, but the advocates of these trends are distinguished by their pacifist views (various communistically inclined sectaries, such as the Duhobors, etc.). The agrarian types of socialism will not be eradicated until after the lapse of a good many years. They will disappear as soon as the masses of the peasantry come to realise the advantages of large-scale production. We shall return to this matter later in the book.
- Slaveholding and large-scale capitalistic socialism (so-called). In this form we cannot discern so much as a trace of socialism. In the three varieties previously mentioned, we find at least some tincture of socialism, and we find in them a protest against oppression; but in the fourth variety, the one we are now considering, the “socialism” is a mere word, fraudulently employed by those who want a new shuffe of the cards. This variety was introduced by bourgeois intellectuals and was taken over from them by the socialist advocates of class collaboration (and in part by Kautsky & Co.). Of such a character, for example, was the communism of Plato, the philosopher of ancient Greece. The essential characteristic of this system was that the slaveholders’ organisation would in “comradely” fashion and “jointly” exploit the mass of slaves — who were to have no legal rights.