Socialism As It Is Part 26

That "party necessity" can drive even radical and influential Socialists into such a position may seem incredible. But when it is understood that loyalty to party also conflicts with loyalty to principle in many cases even to the point of driving many otherwise revolutionary Socialists to the very opposite extreme, _i.e._ to fighting _against_ progressive capitalist reforms purely for party reasons, this willingness to allow the Socialist organization to claim such reforms as in some sense its own, will appear as the lesser deviation from principle.

For example, Kautsky opposes direct legislation--with the proviso that _perhaps_ it may have _a certain value_ in English-speaking countries and _under some circ.u.mstances_ in France. His arguments in spite of this proviso are directed almost wholly against it, on the ground that direct legislation would take many reforms out of the hands of the Party, would cause them to be discussed independently of one another instead of bound together as if they were inseparable parts of a program and would weaken the Party in direct proportion as its use was extended.[174]

Yet Kautsky himself contends, in the same work in which this pa.s.sage occurs, that Socialists favor all measures of democracy, even when the movement at first loses by their introduction. In a word he holds that the function of promoting immediately practicable political reforms is so important to the Party, and the Party with its present organization, members.h.i.+p and activities, is so important to the movement, that even the most fundamental principle may, on occasion, be disregarded.

Democracy is admitted to be a principle so inviolable that it is to be upheld generally even when the Party temporarily loses by it. Yet because direct legislation might rob the Socialists of all opportunity for claiming the credit for non-Socialist reforms, because it would put to a direct vote a program composed wholly of elements held in common with other parties, and differing only in its combination of these elements, because the Party tactics would have to be completely transformed and the Party temporarily weakened by being forced to limit itself entirely to revolutionary efforts, Kautsky turns against this keystone of democratic reform.

"There is indeed no legislation without compromises," he writes; "the great ma.s.ses who are not experienced political leaders, must be much easier confused and misled than the political leaders. If compromise in voting on bills were really corrupting, then it would work much more harm through direct popular legislation than through legislation by Parliament, ... for that would mean nothing less than to drive the cause of corruption from Parliament, out among the people."

"Direct legislation," he continues, "has the tendency to divert attention from general principles and to concentrate it on concrete questions."[175] But if the Socialists cannot educate the ma.s.ses to know what they want concretely, how much less will they understand general principles? If they cannot judge such concrete and separate questions, how will they control Socialist officials who, as it is now, so often build their programs and decide their tactics for them? There is no mechanical subst.i.tute for self-government within Socialist organizations or elsewhere. Direct legislation will do much to destroy all artificial situations and place society on the solid basis of the knowledge or ignorance, the division or organization, the weakness or strength of character of the ma.s.ses. The present situation, however useful for well-intentioned Socialist "leaders," is even better adapted to the machinations of capitalist politicians. And because it militates against the politically powerful small capitalists as well as against the non-capitalists, it is doomed to an early end.

Kautsky, in a word, actually fears that the present capitalist society will carry out, one by one, its own reforms. For the same reason that he denies the ability or willingness of capitalism to make any considerable improvements in the material conditions of labor, except as compelled by the superior force (or the fear of the superior force) of Socialism, he would, if possible, prevent the capitalists from introducing certain democratic improvements that would facilitate reforms independently of the Socialist Party. However, the economic and political evolution of capitalism will doubtless continue to take its course, and through improved democratic methods all Socialist arguments based on the impossibility of any large measure of working-cla.s.s progress under capitalism, and all efforts to credit what is being done to the advance of Socialism, will be seen to have been futile. The contention between Socialists and capitalists will then be reduced to its essential elements:--

Is progress under capitalism as great as it might be under Socialism?

Is capitalist progress making toward Socialism by improving the position of the non-capitalists _when compared with that of the capitalists_, or is it having the opposite effect?

Even the "syndicalists," little interested as they are in reform, seem to fear, as Kautsky does, that so long as considerable changes for the better are possible, progress towards Socialism, which in their case also implies revolution, is impossible. I have shown that Lagardelle denies that Labor and Capital have any interest whatever in common.

Similarly, a less partisan writer, Paul Louis, author of the leading work on French unionism ("Histoire du Movement Syndicate en France"), while he notes every evil of the coming State Socialism, yet ignores its beneficent features, and bases his whole defense of revolutionary labor unionism on the proposition that important reforms, even if aided by friendly Socialist cooperation or hostile Socialist threats, can no longer be brought about under capitalism:--

"The Parliamentary method was suited by its principle to the reform era. Direct action corresponds to the syndicalist era. Nothing is more simple.

"As long as organized labor believes in the possibility of amending present society by a series of measures built up one upon the other, it makes use of the means that the present system offers it.

It proceeds through intervening elected persons. It imagines that from a theoretical discussion there will arise such ameliorations that its va.s.salage will be gradually abolished."

The belief here appears that a steady, continuous, and marked improvement in the position of the working cla.s.s would necessarily lead to its overtaking automatically the rapidly increasing power of capitalism. If this were so, it would indeed be true, as Louis contends, that no revolutionary movement could begin, except when all beneficial labor reforms and other working-cla.s.s progress had ended.

I shall quote (Part III, Chapter V) a pa.s.sage where Louis indicates that syndicalism, like Socialism itself, is directed in the most fundamental way against all existing governments. He takes the further step of saying that existing governments can do nothing whatever for the benefit of labor, and that their _sole_ function is that of repression:--

"The State, which has taken for its mission--and no other could be conceived--the defense of existing society, could not allow its power of command to be attacked. The social hierarchy which itself rests upon the economic subordination of one cla.s.s to another, will be maintained only so long as the governmental power shatters every a.s.sault victoriously, represses every initiative, punishes without mercy all innovators and all factious persons....

"In the new order [syndicalism] there is no room for any capitalistic attribute, even reduced to its most simple expression.

There is no longer room for a political system for safeguarding privileges and conquering rebels. If our definition of the State is accepted, that it is an organ of defense, always more and more exacting because it is in a society always more and more menaced, it will be understood that such a State is condemned to disappear with that society....

"The State crushes the individual, and syndicalism appeals to all the latent energies of that individual, the State suspects and throttles organizations, and syndicalism multiplies them against it.... All inst.i.tutions created by the State for the defense of the capitalist system are a.s.sailed, undermined by syndicalism."[176]

Here is a view of the State as far opposed as possible to that of Kautsky, who says truly that it is "a monster economic establishment, and its influence on the whole economic life of a nation to-day is already beyond the power of measurement."[177] For Kautsky, the State is primarily economic and constructive; for Louis it is purely political and repressive. Yet Kautsky, like Louis, seems to feel that if the State were capable of carrying out reforms of any importance to the wage earners, or if it were admitted that it could do so, it would be impossible to persuade the workers that a revolution is necessary and feasible. And so both deny that "State Socialism," which they recognize as an _intervening stage_ between the capitalism of to-day and Socialism, is destined to give better material conditions, if less liberty, than the present society. Both the economic and political revolutionists are, on such grounds, often tempted to agree with the reformists of the party and of the labor unions, in leveling their guns exclusively against the private capitalism of to-day--I might almost say the capitalism of the past--instead of concentrating their attack on the evils that will remain undiminished under the State capitalism of the future. The reformists do this consistently, for they see in the constructive side of "State Socialism," not a mere continuation of capitalism, but a large installment of Socialism itself, and have nothing more to ask for beyond a continuation of such reforms.

Revolutionary Socialists are inconsistent, because they may admit that the conditions of the working people under "State Socialism" may be far better than they are to-day, without invalidating their central position that the greater evils of to-day will remain, and that there will be no progress towards Socialism, no matter what reforms are enacted, until the Socialists are either actually or practically in power.

When the Socialists have become so numerous as to be on the verge of securing control of the government (by whatever means), it is unlikely that the privileged cla.s.ses will permit peaceful political or const.i.tutional procedures to continue and put them completely at the mercy of the non-privileged. In all probability they will then resort to military violence under pretext of military necessity (see Part III, Chapter VIII). _If when this time arrives, the Socialists have not only a large political majority, but also the physical power to back it up_, or seem about to secure this majority and this power, then indeed, though not before that time, the capitalists may, possibly, begin to make concessions which involve a weakening of their position in society, _i.e._ which necessitate more and more concessions until their power is destroyed. The revolutionary reformers, if we may apply this term to Kautsky and his a.s.sociates, are then only somewhat premature in their belief that the Socialist Party is _now_, or will _very shortly_ become, a real menace to capitalism; whereas the political reformers are under the permanent illusion that capitalism will retreat before paper ballots.

Moreover, Kautsky and the revolutionary reformers, in order to make _their_ (physical) menace effective, must continually teach the people to look forward and prepare to use all the means in their power for their advance. They are thus thoroughly in accord with the non-reformist revolutionists who, however much they may welcome certain capitalist reforms, do not agree that they will be very materially hastened by anything the Socialists can do. The non-reformist revolutionists a.s.sume that Socialists will vote for every form of progress, including the most thoroughly capitalistic, and acknowledge that _if they fail in their duty in this respect, these reforms might be materially r.e.t.a.r.ded_. But they are willing to let the capitalists take the lead in such reform work, giving them the whole credit for what benefits it brings, and placing on their shoulders the whole responsibility for its limitations. Their criticism of capitalist reform is leveled not against what it does, but against what it leaves undone.

Revolutions in machinery and business organization under capitalism, with which Socialists certainly have nothing to do, they regard also as not only important, but of vast significance, since it is by their aid alone that Socialism is becoming a possibility. And now a new period is coming in, during which the capitalists, on grounds that have no connection whatever with Socialism or the Socialist movement, will effect another equally indispensable revolution, in the organization of labor and business by _governmental means_. Revolutionary Socialists are ready to give the fullest credit to capitalism for what it has done, what it is doing, and what it is about to do--for, however vast the changes now in process of execution, they feel that the task that lies before the Socialists is vaster still. The capitalists, to take one point by way of ill.u.s.tration, develop such individuals and such latent powers in every individual, as they can utilize for increasing the private income of the capitalists as a cla.s.s, or of governments which are wholly or very largely in their control. _The Socialists propose to develop the latent abilities of all individuals in proportion to their power to serve the community._ The collectivist capitalists will continue to extend opportunity to more and more members of the community, but always leaving the numbers of the privileged undiminished and always providing for all their children first--admitting only the cream of the ma.s.ses to the better positions, and this after all of the ruling cla.s.ses, including the most worthless, have been provided for.

The Socialists propose, the moment they secure a majority, to make opportunity, not more equal, but equal.

Those Socialists, then, who expect that reforms of importance to wage earners are to be secured to-day exclusively by the menace either of a political overturn or of a Socialist revolution, and those who imagine that the Socialist hosts are going to be strengthened by recruits attracted by the role Socialists are playing in obtaining such immediate reforms, make a triple error. They credit Socialism with a power it has nowhere yet achieved and cannot expect until a revolutionary period is immediately at hand; that is, they grossly exaggerate the present powers of the Socialist movement and grossly underestimate the task that lies before it. They are seemingly blind to the possibilities of transformation and progress that still inhere in capitalism--the increased unity and power it will gain through "State capitalism," and the increased wealth that will come through a beneficent and scientific policy of producing, through wholesale reforms and improvements, more efficient and profitable laborers. They fail to see that the strength of the enemy will lie henceforth more frequently in deception than in repression. But even this is not their most fatal blunder. In attacking individualistic and reactionary rather than collectivistic and progressive capitalism, these Socialists are not only wasting their energies by a.s.saulting a moribund power, but are training their forces to use weapons and to practice evolutions that will soon be obsolete and useless. They are doing the work and filling the function of the small capitalists. The large capitalists organized industry; the small capitalists will nationalize it; in so far at least as it has been or will have been organized. Socialists gain from both processes, approve of both, and aid them in every way within their power. But their chief function is to overthrow capitalism. And as the larger part of this task lies off some distance in the future, it is the capitalism of the future and not that of the past with which Socialists are primarily concerned.

Evidently but a few years will elapse before State capitalism will everywhere dominate. In the meanwhile, to attribute its progress to the _menace_ of the advance of Socialism, is to abandon the Socialist standpoint just as completely as do the reformist Socialists in regarding capitalist-collectivist reforms as installments of Socialism, to be achieved only with Socialist _aid_.

For Socialists will be judged by what they are doing rather than by what they promise to do. If political reformists and revolutionary reformists are both directing their chief attention to promoting the reforms of "State Socialism," it will make little difference whether the first argue that these beneficial measures are a part of Socialism and a guarantee of the whole; or the second claim that, though such reforms are no part of Socialism, the superiority of the movement is shown chiefly by the fact that they could not have been brought about except through its efforts. Mankind will rightly conclude that the things that absorb the chief Socialist activities are those that are also forming the character of the movement. In direct proportion as reforming Socialists spend their energies in doing the same things as reforming capitalists do, they tend inevitably to become more and more alike. Only in proportion as Socialists can differentiate themselves from non-Socialists _in their present activities_ will the movement have any distinctive meaning of its own.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] W. J. Ghent, "Socialism and Success," p. 47.

[170] Rappaport, "Der Kongress von Nimes," _Die Neue Zeit_, 1910, p.

821.

[171] _Die Neue Zeit_, Oct. 27, 1911.

[172] "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911, p. 121.

[173] "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911, pp. 132-133.

[174] "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911, pp. 131-134.

[175] "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," edition of 1911, pp. 131-134.

[176] "Le Syndicalisme contre L'etat," pp. 223-235, 239-242.

[177] "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," p. 114.

CHAPTER VI

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS

In the most famous doc.u.ment of international Socialism, the "Communist Manifesto" (published by Marx and Engels in 1847), there is a fulmination against "reactionary Socialism," which it will be seen is approximately what we now call "State Socialism." After describing the Utopian Socialism of Fourier, of Saint-Simon and of Owen, the "Manifesto" says:--

"A second form of Socialism, less systematic but more practical, tried to disgust the working people with every revolutionary movement, by demonstrating to them that it is not such and such a political advantage, but only a transformation of the relations of material life and of economic conditions that could profit them.

Let it be noted that by transformation of the material relations of society this Socialism does not mean the abolition of capitalist relations of production, but only administrative reforms brought out precisely on the basis of capitalist production, and which consequently do not affect the relation of capital and wage labor, but in the best case only diminish the expenses and simplify the administrative labor of a capitalist government.... In the promotion of their plans they act always with the consciousness of defending first of all the interest of the working cla.s.s. The working cla.s.s only exists for them under this aspect of the suffering cla.s.s.

"But in accordance with the undeveloped state of the cla.s.s struggle and their social position, they consider themselves quite above antagonism. They desire to ameliorate the material condition of life for all the members of society, even the most privileged. As a consequence, they do not cease to appeal to all society without distinction, or rather they address themselves by preference to the reigning cla.s.s."[178]

Marx points out that the chief aim of these "reactionary Socialists" was the transformation of the State into a mere organ for the administration of industry in their interest, which is precisely what we mean to-day by "State Socialism."

In contrast with this "reactionary Socialism," now prevalent in Great Britain and Australia, the Socialist parties of every country of the European Continent (where such parties are most developed), without exception are striving for a social democracy and a government of the non-privileged and not for a scheme of material benefits bestowed by an all-powerful capitalist State. Professor Anton Menger, of the University of Vienna, one of the most acute and sympathetic observers of the movement, remarks correctly that--"in all countries, at all times, the proletariat [working cla.s.s] has rightly thought that the continuous development of its _power_ is worth more than any _economic advantage_ that can be granted it."[179]

The late Paul Lafargue, perhaps the leading thinker of the French Socialist movement, a son-in-law of Karl Marx, made a declaration at a recent Party Congress which brings out still more clearly the prevailing Socialist att.i.tude. Denying that the Socialists are opposed to reforms, he said: "On the contrary, we demand all reforms, even the most bourgeois [capitalist] reforms like the income tax and the purchase of the West [the Western railroad, lately purchased by the government]. It matters little to us who proposes reforms, and I may add that the most important of them all for the working cla.s.s have not been presented by Socialist deputies, but by the bourgeois [capitalists]. Free and compulsory education was not proposed by Socialists." That is to say, Lafargue believed that reforms extremely beneficial to the working cla.s.s might be enacted without any union of Socialists with non-Socialists, without the Socialists gaining political power and without their even const.i.tuting a menace to the rule of the anti-Socialist cla.s.ses.

Capitalism of itself, in its own interest and without any reference to Socialism or the Socialists, may go very far towards developing a society which in turn develops an ever growing and developing working cla.s.s, though without increasing the actual political or economic powers of this cla.s.s when compared with its own.