loyers' property. This had brought the police, and sometimes the
military, on the scene, and numerous arrests had followed. Another
mistake made by the inexperienced strikers was that they had neglected
to create a reserve fund from which they could draw the means of
subsistence when they no longer received wages and could no longer
obtain credit at the factory provision store. Efforts were now made
to correct these two mistakes, and with regard to the former they were
fairly successful, for wanton destruction of property ceased to be a
prominent feature of labour troubles; but strong reserve funds have not
yet been created, so that the strikes have never been of long duration.

Though the strikes had led, so far, to no great practical, tangible
results, the new ideas and aspirations were spreading rapidly in the
factories and workshops, and they had already struck such deep root
that some of the genuine workmen wished to have a voice in the managing
committee of the Union, which was composed exclusively of educated men.
When a request to that effect was rejected by the committee a lengthy
discussion took place, and it soon became evident that underneath the
question of organisation lay a most important question of principle. The
workmen wished to concentrate their efforts on the improvement of their
material condition, and to proceed on what we should call trade-unionist
lines, whereas the committee wished them to aim also at the acquisition
of political rights. Great determination was shown on both sides. An
attempt of the workmen to maintain a secret organ of their own with the
view of emancipating themselves from the "Politicals" ended in failure;
but they received sympathy and support from some of the educated members
of the party, and in this way a schism took place in the Social Democrat
camp. After repeated ineffectual attempts to find a satisfactory
compromise, the question was submitted to a Congress which was held
in Switzerland in 1900; but the discussions merely accentuated the
differences of opinion, and the two parties constituted themselves into
separate independent groups. The one under the leadership of Plekhanof,
and calling itself the Revolutionary Social Democrats, held to the Marx
doctrines in all their extent and purity, and maintained the necessity
of constant agitation in the political sense. The other, calling itself
the Union of Foreign Social Democrats, inclined to the trade-unionism
programme