The 1910s was a decade in which theories of socialism, pacifism, and collectivism all flowered. Publicists and playwrights expressed not just belief in utopianism but a vigorous assault on the existing political and economic order. Less well known is how a group of Tory thinkers laid the foundations of a conservative counter-attack expressed with equal literary and intellectual brilliance. Foremost among them was W. H. Mallock. In The Limits of Pure Democracy Mallock argued that the pseudo-populist leaders of the political party system promise everything but deliver only the end of parties as such.