It was perhaps fortunate that none of the Fabian leaders came within the
influence of the extraordinary personality of Karl Marx. Had he lived a
few years longer he might have dominated them as he dominated his German
followers, and one or two of his English adherents. Then years would
have been wasted in the struggle to escape. It was fortunate also that
the Fabian Society has never possessed one single outstanding leader,
and has always refrained from electing a president or permanent
chairman. There never has been a Fabian orthodoxy, because no one was in
a position to assert what the true faith was.
Freedom of thought was without doubt obtained for English Socialists by
the Fabians. How far the world-wide revolt against Marxian orthodoxy had
its origin in England is another and more difficult question. In his
study of the Fabian Society[43] M. Edouard Pfeiffer states in the
preface that the Society makes this claim, quotes Bernard Shaw as saying
to him, "The world has been thoroughly Fabianised in the last
twenty-five years," and adds that he is going to examine the accuracy of
it. Later he says:--
"Les premiers de tous les Socialistes, les Fabiens out inaugure le
mouvement de critique antimarxiste: a une epoque ou les dogmes du maitre
etaient consideres comme intangibles, les Fabiens out pretendu que l'on
pouvait se dire socialiste sans jamais avoir lu le Capital ou en en
desapprouvant la teneur; par opposition a Marx ils out ressuscite
l'esprit de Stuart Mill et sur tous les points ils se sont attaques a
Marx, guerre des classes et materialisme historique, catastrophisme et
avant tout la question de la valeur-travail.
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