XIII - Conclusion

CHAPTER XIII CONCLUSION The continuity of the Fabian Society was demonstrated by the re...edition of the Fabian Essays in 1948 with a new preface added to the older two and a postscript, both additions -having for author the first-editor, Shaw. 1 It is necessary to stress this continuity because there is a saying current that Fabianism is no more. Some commentators imagine that it perished in the War of 1914 1918 or that it dissolved in -the debacle of 1931. The last post script of George Bernard Shaw would lead his readers to believe that the old Fabians of the Essays had disappeared by 1911. Mis understanding arises from the fact that little sympathy exists between the new '< Webbs," namely, the toles, and Shaw. Mrs. Cole, as she grew up into revolution, grew toward Mrs. Webb's ideas; and she took the. trouble to get the latter's sponsorship and accord when she re-used the name Fabian -and reformed the Society in 1938-1939. 2 Taking over the remnant Davies (pere) saved through the 1930's, Margaret Cole grafted a new stock onto the parent Society. Shaw aimed to defeat the sense of continuity thus achieved----'"althoughhe, like Mrs. Cole, professed Communism now-by speaking of Hex-Fabians" filling offices in the Govern ment as of 1948, stating that "fin de siecle" Fabianisn1 is now Han old wives' tale." 3 He prodded, goaded~ mocked. Even so, he assumed that Fabianism was extant: Although this volume of essays is sixty years old, and I, 1 G. B. Shaw, "Sixty Years of Fabianism," a postscript in Fabian Essays: JubUee Edition (London: Allen and Unwin, 1948).

2 Cf. Margaret Cole, Growing up into Revolution, p. 203. Mrs. Cole dis likes Shaw. She considers him a mountebank. This opinion, however, agrees perfectly with his statement, written to this student, that' Sidney Webb did more than any other man on earth to bring out George Bernard Shaw the born actor. Mrs. Cole imputes irresponsibility to Shaw but she herself finds in retrospect that the Society which the Coles -revived provided as the measure of satisfaction " fun and games in politics." 8 Shaw, " Sixty Years of Fabianism," loco cit.,p. 214. 557 558 Fabianisln in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 its editor, am ninety, it is still alive and doing its work, which was and is to rescue Socialisnl and ComlTIunisnl from the barricades, and from confusion with traditional heterodoxies of anti-clericalism, individualist anti-State republicanism [Americanisnl], and middle-class Bohe mian anarchism [Guild Socialism], in short, to make it a constitutional movenlent in which the most respectable citizens and families nlay enlist, without forfeiting the least scrap of their social or spiritual standing [class feel ing] .4 In this series of negatives is discoverable what Fabian "Socialisnl and Conlmunism" is: It is Statism. Shaw would consider Wash ington and Madison anti-state republicans in the sense of their being anti-doctrinaire and in favor of that subsidiarity which insures liberty. Shaw's summary inculcates the belief that one might even be a Catholic 5 and a Fabian. Although Socialism stood rejected by the Church on account of the very philosophy of society in which Fabians gloried as they gloried in the name of Socialist, Shaw indicates Fabianism was or is to be something else.6 The other name was and is Social Democracy; tomorrow it 4 Ibid., p. 207.

5 Cf. Sir Henry Slesser, Judgment Reserved. "Our Roman Catholic members . . . were not Socialists in the sense in which the Pope had condemned that creed," p. 151. Sir Henry had not yet become a Catholic. As an Anglican, he discovered the non-Christian basis of Fabian philosophy. 6 Cf. Leo XIII, Graves de Comm,uni [of 1901] entitled Christian Democ racy, (New York: Paulist Press, 1941). "Social Democracy •.. [holds] there is really nothing existing above the natural order of things, and that the acquirement and enjoyment of corporal and external goods constitutes man's happiness. It aims at putting all government in the hands of the people, reducing all ranks to the same level, abolishing all distinction of class and finally introducing community of goods . . . right of ownership is to be abrogated .... " p. 6. Cf. also, Quadragesimo Anno (1931), the encyclical letter of' Pope Pius XI on Reconstruction of the Social Order (New York: Paulist Press), p. 32, "no one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist." Pius XI sifts all the variants of Socialism and rejects each one: Those who look for nothing else than that certain forms of property must be reserved to the State" that a certain type of social ruler ship which in violation of all justice has been seized and usurped by owners of wealth be restored where it belongs-to the State; those who seek to contrive that class war abstain from enmity and hatred and that the war against private property be abated, "have no reason for becoming Socialists."

Conclusion 559 may be "dynamic democracy," where H republic" is a term for it decadent form of government." Shaw implies that maybe the name Fabianism will be changed; but that whatever it is that the Essays taught-and today teach-it is a rescued " Socialism and Communism."7 Whatever it is, its originalhabitatwas in the nonIbid., p. 30. But-and this may well be a description of the British under Webb's guidance and their influence in the International-Ie for the most part they [Socialists] do not reject class warfare and the abolition of property, but merely are more moderate in regard to them. Now, when false principles are thus mitigated and in some sense waived, the question arises, or is unwarrantedly proposed in certain quarters, whether the principles of Christian truth Jlso could not be somewhat moderated and attenuated, so·as to meet Soc,ioalism,as it were, upon common ground. Some are engaged by the empty h~pe of gaining in this way the Socialists to our cause, but such hopes are vain. Those who wish to be apostles among the Socialists should preach the Christian truth whole and entire, openly and sincerely without any connivance with error. If they wish in truth to be heralds of the Gospel, let their endeavor be to convince Socialists that their demands, insofar. as they are just, are defended much more.cogently by the principles of Christian faith, and are promoted much more efficaciously by the power of Christian charity. [Italics inserted.] "Whether Socialism be considered as a doctrine, or as a historical fact, or as a movement, if it really remains Socialism, it cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic Church, even after it has yielded to truth and justice in the points we have mentioned [i.e., been mitigated and amended so that nothing reprehensible regarding class war and private property remain] ; the reason being thatiit conceives human society in a way utterly alien to Christian truth." Ibid., pp. 30 f. (Italics supplied.) 7 Shaw lumps together "Socialism and Communism." We have seen how Lenin asked Lansbury and Tillett how long he would have to wait for them and how in turn both pointed out to the dictator that his system was not real Communism-which he admitted. We have seen how Shaw told Stalin that on Lenin's tomb should be inscribed, "the inevitability of gradualness"; and how he claimed NEP was pure Fabianism. The influence of Fabianism upon Russian Communism (now an imperial and national Communism using national Communist party groups to its own.ends) is marked in a document, the last published. proceedings of the All-Russia Communist Party Congress of 1936. The ruthless expropriation which Shaw disapproved in his letter to the writer, having been repaired b;y NEP, "NEPism" is to be foregone.

The drive is set for all-out." Socialism." That the project was laid down in 1936 to infiltrate through liberals, progressives and persons capable of being used as foils for penetration and permeation, is indicated by the lack of a Report or manifesto and the insistence on "Now, Socialism" in news papers, cited. The efficacy of the example of British Socialism had been 560 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 conformist pulpits of England, where having become tolerant of conflicting theologies it espoused "morals" in substitution for theology as an integrating social force." Morals" was in turn translated into (( education" and (( respectability," as in the re edited Essays Lord Oliver reiterated. 8 By writing that" spiritual effective. The fact of its articulation in 1936 leads.one to presuppose that the practice of the" new" system had originated some time before, just as the announcement of· NEP in 1924 was preceded by its having functioned at least since 1922. The document is in Russian and may be found in the Library of Congress as HXI3.A3V7, 1937. Friends of this writer translated portions for her.

8 Cf. "Moral," Fabian Essays, pp. 96-102, where the co-founder equated morality with reason and art with spirituality. He defined the. motive for caring for the social "residuum" -itself a social menace-as1>enevolence; the. end of man's life, to U identify his life with society"; rent and interest, as "tribute"; and all property as appropriation. Olivier incidentally re produces the dialectical phenomena we have noted in the Webbs and. other Socialists: 1) An historical concatenation which his argument does not need, i.e., the story of the spoliation of the Catholic Church by Protestantism which .developed ownership of land and a system of rent and destroyed the "medieval machinery" of charity, producing the factory system from which necessarily the cooperative system must emerge; 2) the Comtean idea of progress wherewith he sees Socialism as "but a stage in the unending progression out of the weakness and the ignorance in. which society and the individual alike are born, toward the strength ·and the enlightenment in which they can see and choose their own way forward," (pp. 101 f.). Cer tainly, the historical causes of emergent cooperation lend nothing to Olivier's Positivism and do not produce. Socialism. The Comtean "progress" to enlightenment does nothing. for the historical sequence, has only accidental connection with it, and is made to produce Socialism only by Olivier's introducing "Commonsense" as Socialism. Olivier introduced Socialism into the elaborate historical structure he built for it, to which it was un natural. He might have spoken of a commonsense (of right) based on the virtue, say, of natUral justice, without using the special signal, 'c Socialism"

-that talisman proffered to a certain mentality which intended to remain outside that sphere wherein "Socialism," because it conceives of man as subject to society, is rejected by name. Again as to respectability, Olivier's concept of education equated that which induced men to act in the realm of u'secondary passions" -not crudely under primary instincts such, one im agines, as the urge to fight for right or against injustice directly or with emotion. We have given so much space to Lord Olivier, who died in 1942, because Shaw, in the 1940's, credited Olivier with the introduction of Positivism, considered by Shaw a great contribution to the Society.

Conclusion 561 standing " was not forfeited by joining the Society, Shaw meant that possibly Catholics who joined it were not excommunicated. England had no Plenary Council· of Baltitl).ore. He also meant that because Fabian. Socialism was very moral and very Protestant, it was tame and respectable. As Shaw said, respectable families had enlisted in the Movement (in fact, only respectable ones, including as of 1950 a daughter of the Chamberlains, now Lady Pakenham and an outstanding Fabian) . On this point a p;ychological factor shows up : Upper class families subjected to excoriation as parasites upon society had even in the 1920's become sensitive to the degree that great hardihood would be required for them to persist in ignoring the monitory and minatory hostility of the "socialist snobs" (to borrow Elizabeth Brandeis' expression). The uses of a genteel contumely have been well understood.

" A constitutional movement," Fabianism, as Shaw boasted, has taught the use of ballots and inculcated the use of Parliamentary acts to effect Socialism. This typical Fabian showed no fear of substituting administrative fiat for the rule of law. (In another connection the urging of ardent Fabians on the eve of the debacle of 1931 toenact Socialism by law has been reported.) Yet Shaw remarks in the same postcript that repealing in toto the Trade Disputes Act of 1927, as the Labour Party " drunk with power" did in 1946, was to "betray [the Party's] inexperience and lack of historical setise."We do not, nor does Shaw, confuse the Party and the Society. But the Government which repealed the law, in an act of class legislation,9 was made up of Fabians (not to quibble about Shaw's "ex-Fabians "---he might as well have written " arch-Fabians "-in the sense that an archbishop is an ex-bishop) "

Now' Shaw was alarmed. He aroused the· fear that class legisla tion should CQme by way of repeal rather than enactment. Shaw believed, as· did the Webbs, who wrote in substance in the " Epilogue" to their Local Government of 1927, that" Votes for Everybody makes democracy impossible.".1{) He and they seemed to .sense that democracy is not primarily a political· system but a 9 Cf. Mrs. Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 125. 10 Shaw, H Sixty Years of Fabianism," Ope cit., p. 222.

562 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 social way of life; 1'1 that large numbers of votes cast on one side of a measure do not make for greater wisdom in the measure. He took refuge in his old idea of government by an elite and, like the Webbs, neglected if he did not cynically refuse to stress the demand for personal opinion, formed, held and voted by the citizen. Although like all the Fabians, he expected the freedom or leisure arising· from economic equality which industrial democracy must provide, to result in the development of talent in comfortable families, he nevertheless insisted that only five percent of the pro letariat "conceiving the job and pioneering the drive toward its divine [sic] goal" should be educated to govern. Perhaps it is well that Ellen Terry's" Dear Shaw" envisioned the" divine goal" as one unattainable; "like the horizon· or the place where parallel lines (say, railways) visibly meet, [the goal] can never be reached.

Providence forbid that it ever should." 12 He was about to addthat persons living in the new order and governed by the five percent should be required to "prove their social solvency": We should be warned that " Unless we use the world, producing and replacing as much· as we consume, and a bit over for capital we may not wake up some morning." '13 However, there is really nothing to fear; the tracks will never meet: 14 1'1 As we have reported, Shaw, Laski, and W. A. Robson, like the Webbs, believed in the rule of an elite, even of an Order. This conceptual Order seemed to be charged not only with political but with economic rule. Con ceivably, like the Apostles, they might arrive at the conclusion that deacons should be appointed for the ministry of "serving at tables." Then the elite might remain the agents of the political order-" shepherd Kings" becoming "King." "Democracy" would still serve to mold the contours of society.

Under Socialism, by means of the Party or Order, "democracy" would produce totalitarian control. (The same democratic contours infused with creative Charity informing the personality and opinion of individual citizens would produce social justice.) 12 Shaw, II Sixty Years of Fabianism," op. cit., p. 222. 13 Ibid., p. 227. (Italics supplied.) But we should mercifully not be told the night before of our imminent liquidation. 14 Between Shaw's lines we see that Fabian" Socialism" is an esoteric thing-more properly, a carrot held out to the warring sects to corral them into the Party. This writer has no hesitation in calling it a mystique, a mystique however suitable to the mentality of very pragmatic people; there fore1 the carrot figure is more apropos, Conclusion 563 Although Socialist may be substituted for Capitalist Gov ernment in twenty-four hours, it· by no means follows that industry and agriculture, religion and art and their professions, land and capital, can be transferred from private to public ownership and management in twenty four hours or completed even within twenty-four years. 15 So much for the Shavian H constitutionalism" of Fabian Socialism.

The editor of the Fabian Essays did not allude to the fact that Socialists all over the world, especially at Geneva .and in Britain, had since 1919 been cajoled into joining the Second International or the Labour Party, respectively, by the promise that the tracks would one day meet and Socialism would evolve from gradualism. Not reform, not amelioration, not social justice to owners and workers through collaboration, but Socialism, which connoted " equality" and " freedom" by abolition of Capitalism and com petition, had been promised, with s,ocialization of the means of production as merely a necessary step.16 It is plain to see that pure Socialists in Europe and Politburo Communists have reason for detesting British Fabianism. On the other hand, this is no reason why those " damnably otherwise" should love it. Socialism and Communism equated were not to be confused with, hence were not by definition, Guild'Socialism with its sub sidiary and freeassociations,H nor" anti-State" republicanism with 15 Ibid., p. 215. Italics are inserted. This is Shaw in 1948 with the Society's approval. The Shaw of 1911 or of 1924 did not speak of postpone ment.

16 Cf. "The Congress of the Labour and Socialist International," ILO Studies and Reports, Series A, No.6 (October, 1920). Bound in the Library of Congress as HD4813.l4, these reports are self-paginated. In this report occurs the expression" democratic socialism" (specifically rejected by Leo XIII in 1901). The expressed objective is stated to gather adherents in opposition to the Third International of Moscow. This report is the work of Webb aided by Snowden and it expounds the principle that while the im mediate resolution as adopted applied only to industrial socialization, .in theory socialization was applicable to all, even professional production and was a step toward the abolition of private production and competition: the aim, II To arrive at Socialism by progressive transformation [promising it would be swift] of national institutionson an internationalplan and by the suppression of classes."

11 Shaw wrote this student that he made it orthodox; Mrs. Cole wrote that it never was orthodox; Mrs. Webb called it the Ubridge" to industrial 564 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 its vertically representative political system; 18 nor anti~c1erical ism-avowedly, Fabians are simply not anti-clerical; they are pro fessedly not clerical. Fabianism simply ignores the presence of that which Olivier termed, in apposition to " medieval church," " a socialistic society" \vhich was, he said, destroyed by Protestantism. It is remarkable how unnoticeable was the Catholic Church in England during the 1920's..19 Fabians spoke of it as defunct If at first sight it would seem Shaw was saying that Fabianism rejected Cole's Guild Socialism, nevertheless a 'point of agreement is' to be found in another of Shaw's lines: " Trade Unionism tends to become a dictatorship of skilled labor, opposed to the State without u,hich basic Communism is impossible." 20 For Shaw with democracy; and Attlee prefaced his studies of 1937 and 1949 with the state ment that there was no orthodoxy.

18 Anti-State republicanism being in Shaw's word "individualist" seems to describe the Jefferson-Jackson ideals of subsidiarity. This student submits that the Statism of e.g., ADA, and of "Fair Deal" centralization, has no right to claim the paternity of Jefferson or Jackson. They do not try to claim Washington or Madison. Incidentally, the figure of speech ~sed by President. Roosevelt regarding CI driving the money changers from the temple" occurs earlier in the writing of Ben Tillett, op. cit., p. 280. '19 Cf. the Reverend Gilbert C. Binyon (Fabian), The Christian Socialist Movement in England (London: SPCK, 1931),' especially XVII, pp. 154 f, where Toynbee points out the omission of Theology. The Coles knew and loved G. K.. Chesterton, who had ceased to be a Fabian before the War and before he became a Catholic. He lectured to the Nursery on "Liberty" in 1927 (PN XXXVIII January, 1927.) .Unmentioned were Belloc, and A.C., and Robert Hugh Benson: occasionally the .writings of Father Vincent McNabb are mentioned in passing. Labour Party Catholics (many Irish who thought of the Party as the friend of Ireland) no doubt believed that to seek to procure a municipal sewage system for all, electric light for. the poor, national highways and II socially controlled" rails, coal, and water--:-was hardly" revolution:' A learned critic of Socialism,L. von Mises misunder stands the Christian attitude toward material progress, finding it incon sistent in Catholics to "bless" railroads and wires, in his Socialism, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), p. 423. Catholic workers in England in the 1920's found the arguments between the Popes and the Webbs far over their heads. Pius XI retorted to I" the Soviet Socialism,a New Civili /lation? with a blunt negative: It is a rationalized barbarism, said Divini 'Redemptari".

2() Shaw, 4f Sixty Years of Fabianism," QP. cit., p. 222 (italics supplied). This recalls Kinssley Martin's revelation of the reason Fabians disregarded -and destroyed-the Whitley Council system.

Conclusion 565 his Statism embodied, as he declared time and again, in the perfect Fabiahism of the New Economic Plan,21 as for Cole,· who peers beyond the monolith that is only the shadow of a political entity, the State is the servant of Communism, that which sees to it that worker control and economic equality are sustained. 22 Apparently, 21 Cf. "The Trade Union Movement in Soviet Russia," ILO (Geneva) Studies and Reports (London: King and Son, 1927). Each chapter is divided· into two sections: 1) Under Communism, 2) under NEP, which represented for Russia a temporary deviation. (Ibid., p. 17.) Herein we find stated the conclusion that the nationalization of the Trade Unions is inevitable, and the words which draw Cole and Shaw together: Communistic Trade Unionism which "is not opposed to the State in the abstract meta physical meaning of the word." Cf. ibid., p. 5, citing Lozovsky (Secretary, Red International Labor Union. Cf. Lorwin, op. cit.,p. 662).

22 Nicholas S. Timasheff, The Great Retreat (New York: Dutton and Company, 1946), p. 368 (see also pages 349 and 371), shows that what he calls the "Great Retreat" began in 1931. Timasheff is so convinced·of the thesis of his book, precisely, that Russia under the second five-year plan, which was postponed during 1931 to 1934 and altered to the U Retreat" pattern, resumed the progress interrupted in 1906 or 1914 and that Russia became an apt partner with the Great Democracies as demonstrated by her piety of nationalism at Stalingrad, that he cannot possibly perceive that the " Retreat" was a step in progress in Communistic imperialism-another great deception of the West by means of declaring "truth" in Russian semantics. Russia was the first nation (France reverted to bourgeois rule) to come through a reign of terror and then to do the next thing: Reset the old human pattern-religion, family, art, shopkeeping and artisanry~by dicta tion of the materialistic state toa people made thoroughly obedient. Tima sheff could nQt have seen in 1946 that after aggression upon a ·land, the Communist party in the incipient stage fastens upon it not the pattern of the Russia of 1945 but that of 1918.

The constitution of 1936, which, as Timasheff notes, evoked Sidney Webb's worshipful amazement, was a description of the status quo of 1932 to 1936. It tuned the Soviet Union into unison with the social democracy of Fabian ism and made of Sidney and Beatrice Webb-it is a harsh word-its first great dupes. The liquidation of Zinoviev would stand as a false oath written in blood that Communists were only Fabians. The local Communist party of Britain might become the mere nuisance it appears to be-noisy and colorful, but without the following, without a message; for the message of Stalin would be henceforth carried by "Liberals." The Party, calling itself "the vangUard of labor," would be temporarily feinting. Cf. Maurice Dobb, "Politics an4 Party in Russia," The Clarion, 26 n.s. (June, 1929), 4; and Frank Neumann, "Approaches to the Problem of Political Power,"

566 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-19Jl neither of them knows that the " Queen " State 28 is entombed in the monolithic chimera toward which they press-the All-State which is No-State. It is this writer's opinion that" fun and games in politics" 24. sup plies the key to Fabianism in British political life. This is under standable. Men, especially men so talented, the posterity of Eliza bethan ;ea dogs-not to recall the Vikings-were endowed by their creator with an inalienable right to live gloriously, adventurously. Political Science Quarterly, LXV (June, 1950), 161-181. The latter's docu mentation for the idea that the cc changes" (i.e., " retreat" or new Constitu tion) did not imply giving up "Revolution," is valuable; but his interpreta tion-that the Communist Party embraced cc Social Democracy" out of fear of Fascism-is disputable-unless "Fascism'" equates Catholicism.

23 Cf. Pius XI, On Reconstructing the Social Order (Quadragesimo Anno), 1931 (Washington, D. C.: NCWC, new translation, 1942), p. 38: "... grave evils ... have resulted from an intermingling and shameful confusion of the functions and duties of public authority with those of the economic sphere-such as, one of the worst, the virtual degradation of the majesty of the· State [the Paulist Press translation gives cc queenly" posi tion for majesty of the State], which although it ought to sit on high like a queen and supreme arbitress, free from all partiality and intent upon the common good and justice, is become a slave, surrendered and delivered to the passions and greed of men." These words described the cartelized State, also the execrable· dominance of "internationalism of finance," as well as the State which results from the. effort to make a Political system of that "Democracy" which is· con ceived as a social way of life.

Pius XII in his Christmas Message of 1944 (NCWC) defines Democracy in the light of the burden it puts on a citizen, if not positively" a postulate of nature imposed by reason itself" as something which demands holding and .expressing personal opinion for the common good. This ·means indi vidual, not bloc voting. A marvelous description of the difference between masses and people, between liberty and false "freedom," between equality and "colorless uniformity," between· authority and demogogic tyranny which uses the State to manipulate the masses so as to reduce the State to an instrument of the masses' "whims," is found in the same allocution, pp. 6-11. U Mrs. Cole in 1949 surveyed the success of the Fabianism she had recreated protesting that the Coles were not really the counterpart of the Webbs in the Society. She noted over two hundred Fabians then in Parliament and asked· herself if the new generation had been provided with all that had made her youth interesting. She answered affirmatively that the present generation had been indeed provided with" fun and games in politics." Cf.

her Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 208.

Conclusion 567 Once they quested upward to trouble the stars with architectural symbols in stone to testify to their high adventure in theology. Then voteless persons shared in the labor and rested in the beauty of the social offering that was made of a cathedral to God. All that is changed. There are no sacraments to house, no trysting places for a man's soul daring the infinite Flame. But men must playas Wisdom plays in Creation. So the modern Anglo-Saxon plays at politics. The game is to capture Power. 25 25 Igor Bogolepov Mikhailovich, once (1937) a ColQnel in the ~ed Army (in Spain) and (1930-1936) a member of the Soviet Foreign Office, testified before. the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, April 7, 1952, that among others, several American and British writers incorporated in their published works material supplied by the Soviet Foreign Office, a propaganda and infiltrative agency. Referring to the Webbs' Soviet Socialism, a New Civilisation, the testimony is as fol lows: Mr. Bogolepov: The materials for this book actually were given by the Soviet Foreign Office.

Senator Ferguson: Given to the Webbs? Mr. Bogolepov: Yes. They had only to remake a little bit for English text, a little bit criticizing, but in its general trend the bulk of the material was prepared for them in the Soviet Foreign Office ... and I participated myself in part of this work ... the chapter concerning the very humani tarian way of Soviet detention camps and jails was written by the Soviet secret police itself. Mr. Morris: You know that? Mr. Bogolepov: I received it from the Chief of one of the Divisions of the NKVD ... when he came to my office in the Foreign Office, and then I gave this material to the Vice Chief of the Western Division, Chaim Weinberg, who was attached to the Webbs and who proceeded to translate that material. Senator Watkins: Did you read the English books after they were pub lished and you have compared the information with what was given out? Mr. Bogolepov: Yes. When I came to the West I found this book and I read it with much interest. I found that the material which I prepared was so well done that the Webbs didn't change it any.

[N. ·B. This testimony is privileged matter.] BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY· MATERIALS Primary sources in order of importance include Fabian News, a monthly of which the writer examined the issue from 1904 to 1950. These sheets supplied names of members of the Fabian Society and lists of subordinate groups-such as " Fabian Women," the It Half Circle Club," " Fabian Nursery," and "Locals." Announcements of lectures, syllabi and reports thereof, and descriptions of social activities, summer schools, and common-room facjlities are also to be found there. The Fabian Society Annual Reports, used for the period 1919-1932, reveal the markedly constant membership. These contain also rather full obituary notices, accounts of book-box usage-a travelling library service-announcements of new books and pamphlets, and the extent of sales thereof, together with re ports on the financial condition of the Society. Such information testifies against those who assume that the society disappeared with the first World War. The writer made use of the Fabian Quarterly for assurance as to continuity of membership and ideas. Its dates lie outside the scope of this study. The New Statesman, a weekly, - established as an organ of Fabianism by Webb and Shaw, wa.s examined and used extensively as evidence of editorial assent, or of signed Fabian opinion, for the period 1920-1932; but the greater weight of evidence of Fabian reaction. to and from political life, 1929-1931, was gleaned from The Clarion. Blatchford's" Old Expirer" was revived by graduates from the Fabian Nursery.