a plan supposed to be outlined by Karl Marx. "On the
morrow of the revolution" all things would be new, and at a bound the
nation was expected to reach something very like the millennium.

The case for this project was based, strange to say, not on any history
but on the Marxian analysis of the origin of the value of commodities,
and no man who did not understand this analysis, or pretend to
understand it, was fit to be called a "comrade." The economic reasoning
which "proved" this "law" was expressed in obscure and technical
language peculiar to the propagandists of the movement, and every page
of Socialist writings was studded with the then strange words
"proletariat" and "bourgeoisie."

Lastly, the whole world, outside the socialist movement, was regarded as
in a conspiracy of repression. Liberals (all capitalists), Tories (all
landlords), the Churches (all hypocrites), the rich (all idlers), and
the organised workers (all sycophants) were treated as if they fully
understood and admitted the claims of the Socialists, and were
determined for their own selfish ends to reject them at all costs.

Although the Fabian propaganda had no doubt had some effect, especially
amongst the working-class Radicals of London, and although some of the
Socialist writers and speakers, such as William Morris, did not at all
times present to the public the picture of Socialism just outlined, it
will not be denied by anybody whose recollections reach back to this
period that Socialism up to 1890 was generally regarded as
insurrectionary, dogmatic, Utopian, and almost incomprehensible.

"Fabian Essays" presented the case for Socialism in plain language which
everybody could understand. It based Socialism, not on the speculations
of a German philosopher, but on the obvious evolution of society as we
see it around us. It accepted economic science as taught by the
accredited British professors; it built up the edifice of Socialism on
the foundations of our existing political and social institutions: it
proved that Socialism was but the next step in the development of
society, rendered inevitable by the changes which followed from the
industrial revolution of the eighteenth century.

It is interesting after twenty-five years to re-read these essays and to
observe how far the ideas that inspired them are still valid, and how
far the prophecies made have been fulfilled.

Bernard Shaw contributed the first Essay on "The Economic Basis of
Soc