English to Serbian Social Sciences History porast radničkih i socijalističkih stranaka

Not all the armies of labour were as large, solid or disciplined as in northern and central Europe. But even where workers' parties consisted rather of groups of activist irregulars, ready to lead mobilizations when they occured, the new labour and socialist parties had to be taken seriously. They were a significant factor in national politics. Thus the French party, whose memebership in 1914 - 76,000 - was neither united nor large, nevertheless elected 103 deputies by virtue of its 1.4 million votes. The Italian party, with an even more modest membership - 50,000 in 1914 - had almost a million who voted for it. In short, labour and socialist parties were almost everywhere growing at a rate which, depending on one's point of view, was extremely alarming or mavellous. Their leaders cheered themselves with the triumphant extrapolations of the curve of past growth. The proletariat was destined - one had only to look at industrial Britain and the record of national censuses over the years - to become the great majority of the people. The proletariat was joining its parties. It was only a question of time, according to systematic and statistically minded German socialists, before these parties would pass the magic figure of 51 per cent of votes, which, in democratic states, must surely be a decisive turning-point. Or, as the new anthem of world socialism put it: 'The Internationale will be the human race.'