The Fabians realised from the first that no such revolution was
likely to take place, and that constant talk about it was the worst
possible way to commend Socialism to the British working class. And
indeed a few years later it was necessary to establish a new
working-class Socialist Society, the Independent Labour Party, in order
to get clear both of the tradition of revolutionary violence and of the
vain repetition of Marxian formulas. If the smaller society had merged
itself in the popular movement, its criticism, necessary, as it proved
to be, to the success of Socialism in England, would have been voted
down, and its critics either silenced or expelled. Of this criticism I
shall have more to say in another place.[16]
But there was another reason why this course would have been
impracticable. The Fabians were not suited either by ability,
temperament, or conditions to be leaders of a popular revolutionary
party. Mrs. Besant with her gift of splendid oratory and her long
experience of agitation was an exception, but her connection with the
movement lasted no more than five years. Of the others Shaw did not and
does not now possess that unquestioning faith in recognised principles
which is the stock-in-trade of political leadership:[17] and whilst Webb
might have been a first-class minister at the head of a department, his
abilities would have been wasted as a leader in a minority.
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