Socialism and the Second International

The post mortem on the second international usually starts with the idea that it was the victim of its constituent national parties. In germany as the clearest and most important example, the leaders of the s p d and the german labor unions formed a tight and productive alliance with each other. And this was true of most of the legal socialist parties across europe. Their very success made them cautious. It's easy to be revolutionary when you have nothing to lose. And now they had something to lose.