The Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 saw the first appearance of workers' and soldiers' councils, called Soviets. In 1917 the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, acting for all the Russian Soviets, became the chief competitor of Kerensky's Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, employing the slogan “All Powers to the Soviets”, used the Petrograd Soviet in their drive for power. In the October Revolution the Soviets, dominated by the Bolsheviks, replaced the Provisional Government as the government of Russia.

The year was 1920, the month September. Three men, one young and impatient, the other two calmer, less flushed, prepared their things and packed them in the tiny sailboat that was to ferry them across the White Sea. The sailboat left the shore, disappeared slowly from sight and was lost in a flood of grey. The three men were never heard from again.

During the first three decades of the Third Republic there appeared a group of left-wing republicans who became known as Radical-Socialists. As a group they had many ideas in common and tended to vote on many issues with a rather high degree of unity. However, a careful study of their voting record allows three divisions to be made among them. On the extreme Left were the hard core Radical-Socialists (HCRS). They are so designated because their voting record attained a total of about 90% on bills and orders of the day of an advanced social nature. Somewhat less consistent were the Radical-Socialists (RS) who attained at least 75%. Among the former were deputies whose stand for reform was about as consistent as that of the average Socialist. Some of the most famous were Georges Clemenceau, Camille Pelletan, Georges Perin, Tony Révillon, Désiré Barodet, Henri and Félix Mathé, Armand Duportal, Félix Cantagrel, Camille Raspati, Sigismond Lacroix, Ernest Lefèvre, Martin Nadaud, Stéphan Pichon, Emile Chautemps and Marius Chavanne. Among the Radical-Socialists were Antoine Achard, Jules Baulard, Henri Maret, Germain Casse, René Goblet, Paul Doumer, Edouard Lockroy, Gustave Mesureur, Louis-Bernard Montaut, Michel Salis, Emile Brousse, Jules Lasbaysses, Roque de Fillol, Gustave Hubbard, and Benjamin Raspati. Another group, somewhat peripheral to the present study but included in order to round it out, were the social Radicals(SR), or Radicaux de Gauche, as they called themselves after 1881. Their voting record averaged about 60%. The term “left-wing Radicals” includes all the above categories. The moderate or orthodox Radicals were really advanced liberals as regards social legislation, and do not form part of the groups examined in this essay.

Wir haben uns heute so sehr an die Tatsache gewöhnt, in einer Massengesellschaft zu leben, daß es uns schwer fällt, die besonderen Gefühle, die das Stichwort „Masse” jahrzehntelang ausgelöst hat, nachzuempfinden. Das „tiefe Erschrecken vor dem Auftreten der Massen auf der Bühne der Weltgeschichte” ist inzwischen abgeklungen und einer sachlicheren Einstellung zu den Problemen der modernen Gesellschaft gewichen. Dennoch erfreuen sich, abgesehen von der nun schon beinahe legendären „Psychologie der Massen” des französischen Gelehrten Gustave Le Bon, solche einseitigen Darstellungen wie José Ortega y Gassets „Aufstand der Massen” noch einer großen Verbreitung, so daß es nicht ganz belanglos sein dürfte, sich zu vergegenwärtigen, welche Ansichten ursprünglich über den Charakter der Massen bestanden haben und welche Traditionen sich hierfür anführen lassen.

The formal structure of Thomas More's Utopia is simple and well known. It consists of two books, the first of which contains, in the form of a dialogue between More and an imaginary traveller, Raphael Hythloday, a sharp criticism of English social conditions, the enclosure movement, the penal code and the existing pattern of international relations. The second, in the form of a lengthy tale related by Hythloday, is a description of the social, economic, political and religious conditions of the Isle of Nowhere, Utopia.