Socialism As It Is Part 32

Socialists, on the contrary, believe that industrial reforms will never lead to equality of opportunity except when carried out wholly independently of the conservatives who will lose by them. They believe that such reforms as are carried out by the capitalists and their governments, beneficent, radical, and even stupendous as they may be, will not and cannot const.i.tute the first or smallest step towards industrial democracy.

Mr. Roosevelt's views are identical on this point with those of Mr.

Woodrow Wilson and other progressive leaders of the opposite party.

Mayor Gaynor of New York, for example, was quoted explaining the great changes that took place in the fall elections of 1910 on these grounds: "We are emerging from an evil case. The flocking of nearly all the business men, owners of property, and even persons with $100 in the savings bank, to one party made a division line and created a contrast which must have led to trouble if much longer continued. The intelligence of the country is a.s.serting itself, and business men and property owners will again divide themselves normally between the parties, as formerly." Here again is the fundamental ant.i.thesis to the Socialist view. Leaving aside for the moment the situation of persons with $100 in the savings bank, or owners of property in general (who might possess nothing more than a small home), Socialists are working, with considerable success, towards the day when at least one great party will take a position so radical that the overwhelming majority of business men (or at least the representatives of by far the larger part of business and capital) will be forced automatically into the opposite organization.

Without this militant att.i.tude Socialists believe that even the most radical reforms, not excepting those that sincerely propose equal opportunity or the abolition of social cla.s.ses _as their ultimate aim_, must fail to carry society forward a single step in that direction.

Take, as an example, Dr. Lyman Abbott, whose advanced views I have already referred to (see Part I, Chap. III). Notwithstanding his advocacy of industrial democracy, his attack on the autocracy of capitalism and the wages system, and his insistence that the distinction between non-possessing and possessing cla.s.ses must be abolished, Dr.

Abbott opposes a cla.s.s struggle. Such phrases amount to nothing from the Socialist standpoint, if all of these objects are held up merely as an ideal, and if nothing is said of the rate at which they ought to be attained or the means by which the _opposition_ of privileged cla.s.ses is to be overcome. No indors.e.m.e.nt of any so-called Socialist theory or reform is of practical moment unless it includes that theory which has survived out of the struggles of the movement, and has been tested by hard experience--a theory in which ways and means are not the last but the first consideration,--namely, the cla.s.s struggle.

Mr. Roosevelt and nearly all other popular leaders of the day denounce "special privilege." But the denouncers of special privilege, aside from the organized Socialists, are only too glad to a.s.sociate themselves with one or another of the cla.s.ses that at present possess the economic and political power. To the Socialists the only way to fight special privilege is _to place the control of society in the hands of a non-privileged majority. The practical experience of the movement_ has taught the truth of what some of its early exponents saw at the outset, that a majority _composed even in part_ of the privileged cla.s.ses could never be trusted or expected to abolish privileges. Neither Dr. Abbott, Mr. Roosevelt, nor other opponents of the Socialist movement, are ready to indorse this practical working theory. For its essence being that all those who by their economic expressions or their acts stand for anything less than equality of opportunity should be removed from positions of power, it is directed against every anti-Socialist. Dr. Abbott, for example, demands only "opportunity," instead of equal opportunity, and Mr. Roosevelt wishes merely "to start all men in the race for life on a _reasonable_ equality." (My italics.)[211]

Let us see what Marx and his successors say in explanation of their belief that the "cla.s.s struggle" must be fought out to an end. Certainly they do not mean that each individual capitalist is to be regarded by his working people as their private enemy. Nor, on the other hand, can the expression "cla.s.s struggle" be interpreted, as some Socialists have a.s.serted, to mean that there was no flesh and blood enemy to be attacked, but only "the capitalist system." To Marx capitalism was embodied not merely in inst.i.tutions, which embrace all cla.s.ses and individuals alike, but also in the persons of the capitalist cla.s.s. And by waging a war against that cla.s.s he meant to include each and every member of it who remained in his cla.s.s, and every one of its supporters.

To Marx the enemy was no abstraction. It was, as he said, "the person, the living individual" that had to be contended with, but only as the embodiment of a cla.s.s. "It is not sufficient," he said, "to fight the general conditions and the higher powers. The press must make up its mind to oppose _this_ constable, _this_ attorney, _this_ councilor."[212] These individuals, moreover, he viewed not merely as the servants or representatives of a system, but as part and parcel of a cla.s.s.

The struggle that Marx had in mind might be called _a latent civil war_. It was not a mere preparation for revolution, since it was as real and serious in times of peace as in those of revolution or civil war.

But it was a civil war in everything except the actual physical fighting, and he was always ready to proceed to actual fighting when necessary. Throughout his life Marx was a revolutionist. And when his successors to-day speak of "the cla.s.s struggle," they mean a conflict of that depth and intensity that it may lead to revolution.

None of the cla.s.sical Socialist writers, however, has failed to grasp the absolute necessity to a successful social movement, and especially to a revolutionary one, of making the cla.s.s struggle broad, inclusive, and democratic. In 1851 Marx wrote to the Socialists: "The forces opposed to you have all the advantages of organization, discipline, and habitual authority; unless you bring _strong odds_ against them you are defeated and ruined." (The italics are mine.)

Edward Bernstein, while representing as a rule only the ultra-moderate element of the Party, expresses on this question the views of the majority as well. "Social Democracy," he says, "cannot further its work better than by taking its stand unreservedly on the theory of democracy." And he adds that in practice it has always favored cooperation with all the exploited, even if "its literary advocates have often acted otherwise, and still often do so to-day."

Not many years ago, it is true, there was still a great deal of talk in Germany about the desirability of a "dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat,"

the term "proletariat" being used in its narrow sense. That is, as soon as the working cla.s.s (in this sense) became a political majority, it was to make the government embody its will without reference to other cla.s.ses--it being a.s.sumed that the manual laborers will only demand justice for all men alike, and that it was neither safe nor necessary to consult any of the middle cla.s.ses. And even to-day in France much is said by the "syndicalists" and others as to the power of well-organized and determined minorities in the time of revolution--it being a.s.sumed, again, that such minorities will be successful only in so far as they stand for a new social principle, to the ultimate interest of all (see Chapter V). It cannot be questioned that in these schemes the majority is not to be consulted. But they are far less widely prevalent than they were a generation ago.

The pioneer of "reformist" Socialism in Germany (Bernstein) correctly defines democracy, not as the rule of the majority, but as "an absence of cla.s.s government." "This negative definition has," he says, "the advantage that it gives less room than the phrase 'government by the people' to the idea of oppression of the individual by the majority, which is absolutely repugnant to the modern mind. To-day we find the oppression of the minority by the majority 'undemocratic,' although it was originally held up to be quite consistent with government by the people.... Democracy is in _principle_ the suppression of cla.s.s government, though it is not yet the _actual_ suppression of cla.s.ses."[213]

Democracy, as we have hitherto known it, opposes cla.s.s _government_, but countenances the existence of cla.s.ses. Socialism insists that as long as social cla.s.ses exist, cla.s.s government will continue. The aim of Socialism, "the end of cla.s.s struggles and cla.s.s rule," is not only democratic, but the only means of giving democracy any real meaning.

"It is only the proletariat" (wage earners), writes Kautsky, "that has created a great social ideal, the consummation of which will leave only one source of income, _i.e._ labor, will abolish rent and profit, will put an end to cla.s.s and other conflicts, and put in the place of the cla.s.s struggle the solidarity of man. This is the final aim and goal of the cla.s.s struggle by the Socialist Party. The political representatives of the cla.s.s interests of the proletariat thus become representative of the highest and most general interests of humanity."[214]

It is expected that nearly all social cla.s.ses, though separated into several groups to-day, will ultimately be thrown together by economic evolution and common interests into two large groups, the capitalists and their allies on the one side, and the anti-capitalists on the other.

The final and complete victory of the latter, it is believed, can alone put an end to this great conflict. But in the meanwhile, even before our capitalist society is overthrown and cla.s.s divisions ended, the very fusing together of the several cla.s.ses that compose the anti-capitalist party is bringing about a degree of social harmony not seen before.

Already the Socialists have succeeded in this way in harmonizing a large number of conflicting cla.s.s interests. The skilled workingmen were united for the first time with the unskilled when the latter, having been either ignored or subordinated in the early trade unions, were admitted on equal terms into the Socialist parties. Then the often extremely discontented salaried and professional men of small incomes, having been won by Socialist philosophy, laid aside their sense of superiority to the wage earners and were absorbed in large numbers.

Later, many agricultural laborers and even agriculturists who did all their own work, and whose small capital brought them no return, began to conquer their suspicion of the city wage workers. And, finally, many of those small business men and independent farmers, the _larger part_ of whose income is to be set down as the direct result of their own labor and not a result of their owners.h.i.+p of a small capital, or who feel that they are being reduced to such a condition, are commencing in many instances to look upon themselves as non-capitalists rather than capitalists--and to work for equality of opportunity through the Socialist movement.

The process of building up a truly democratic society has two parts: first, the organization and union in a single movement of all cla.s.ses that stand for the abolition of cla.s.ses, and cla.s.s rule; and second, the overthrow of those social elements that stand in the way of this natural evolution, their destruction and dissolution _as cla.s.ses_, and the absorption of their members by the new society as individuals.

It becomes of the utmost importance in such a vast struggle, on the one hand, that no cla.s.ses that are needed in the new society shall be marked for destruction, and on the other that the movement shall not lean too heavily or exclusively on cla.s.ses which have very little or too little constructive or combative power. What, then, is the leading principle by which the two groups are to be made up and distinguished? Neither the term "capitalist cla.s.ses" nor the term "working cla.s.ses" is entirely clear or entirely satisfactory.

Mr. Roosevelt, for example, gives the common impression when he accuses the Socialists of using the term "working cla.s.s" in the narrow sense and of taking the position that "all wealth is produced by manual workers, that the entire product of labor should be handed over to the laborer."[215] I shall show that Socialist writers and speakers, even when they use the expression "working cla.s.s," almost universally include others than the manual laborers among those they expect to make up the anti-capitalistic movement.

Kautsky's definition of the working cla.s.s, for example, is: "Workers who are divorced from their power of production to the extent that they can produce nothing by their own efforts, and are therefore compelled in order to escape starvation to sell the only commodity they possess--their labor power." In present-day society, especially in a rich country like America, it is as a rule not sheer "starvation" that drives, but needs of other kinds that are almost as compelling. But the point I am concerned with now is that this definition, widely accepted by Socialists, draws no line whatever between manual and intellectual workers. In another place Kautsky refers to the industrial working cla.s.s as being the recruiting ground for Socialism, which might seem to be giving a preferred position to manual workers; but a few paragraphs below he again qualifies his statement by adding that "to the working cla.s.s there belong, just as much as the wage earners, the members of the new middle cla.s.s," which I shall describe below.[216]

In other statements of their position, it is the context which makes the Socialist meaning clear. The party Platform of Canada, for instance, uses throughout the simple term "working cla.s.s," without any explanation, but it speaks of the struggle as taking place against the "capitalists," and as it mentions no other cla.s.ses, the reader is left to divide all society between these two, which would evidently make it necessary to cla.s.sify many besides mere manual wage earners rather among the anti-capitalist than among the capitalist forces.

The platform of the American Socialist Party in 1904 divided the population between the "capitalists," and the "working or _producing cla.s.s_." "Between these two cla.s.ses," says this platform, "there can be no possible compromise ... except in the conscious and complete triumph of the working cla.s.s as the only cla.s.s that has the right or _power_ to be."

"By working people," said Liebknecht, "we do not understand merely the manual workers, but _every one who does not live on the labor of another_." His words should be memorized by all those who wish to understand the first principles of Socialism:--

"Some maintain, it is true, that the wage-earning proletariat is the only really revolutionary cla.s.s, that it alone forms the Socialist army, and that we ought to regard with suspicion all adherents belonging to other cla.s.ses or other conditions of life.

Fortunately these senseless ideas have never taken hold of the German Social Democracy.

"The wage-earning cla.s.s is most directly affected by capitalist exploitation; it stands face to face with those who exploit it, and it has the especial advantage of being concentrated in the factories and yards, so that it is naturally led to think things out more energetically and finds itself automatically organized into 'battalions of workers.' This state of things gives it a revolutionary character which no other part of society has to the same degree. We must recognize this frankly.

"Every wage earner is either a Socialist already, or he is on the high road to becoming one.

"We must not limit our conception of the term 'working cla.s.s' too narrowly. As we have explained in speeches, tracts, and articles, we include in the working cla.s.s all those who live exclusively _or princ.i.p.ally_ by means of their own labor, and who do not grow rich from the work of others.

"Thus, besides the wage earners, we should include in the working cla.s.s the small farmers and small shop keepers, who tend more and more to drop to the level of the proletariat--in other words, all those who suffer from our present system of production on a large scale." (My italics.)

The chief questions now confronting the Socialists are all connected, directly or indirectly, with these producing middle cla.s.ses, who, on the whole, do not live on the labor of others and suffer from the present system, yet often enjoy some modest social privilege.

While Liebknecht considered that the wage-earning cla.s.s was more revolutionary and Socialistic than any other, he did not allow this for one moment to persuade him to give a subordinate position to other cla.s.ses in the movement, as he says:--

"The unhappy situation of the small farmers almost all over Germany is as well known as that of the artisan movement. It is true that both small farmers and small shopkeepers are still in the camp of our adversaries, but only because they do not understand the profound causes that underlie their deplorable condition; it is of prime importance for our party to enlighten them and bring them over to our side. _This is the vital question for our party, because these two cla.s.ses form the majority of the nation._... We ought not to ask, 'Are you a wage earner?' but, 'Are you a Socialist?'

"If it is limited to the wage earners, Socialism cannot conquer. If it included all the workers and the moral and intellectual elite of the nation, its victory is certain.... Not to contract, but to expand, ought to be our motto. The circle of Socialism should widen more and more, _until we have converted most of our adversaries to being our friends_, or at least disarm their opposition.

"And the indifferent ma.s.s, that in peaceful days has no weight in the political balance, but becomes the decisive force in times of agitation, ought to be so fully enlightened as to the aims and the essential ideas of our party, that it would cease to fear us and can be no longer used as a weapon against us."[217] (My italics.)

Karl Kautsky, though he takes a less broad view, also says that the Socialist Party is "the only anti-capitalist party,"[218] and contends in his recent pamphlet, "The Road to Power," that its recruiting ground in Germany includes three fourths of the nation, and probably even more, which (even in Germany) would include a considerable part of those ordinarily listed with the middle cla.s.s.

Kautsky's is probably the prevailing opinion among German Socialists.

Let us see how he proposes to compose a Socialist majority. Of course his first reliance is on the manual laborers, skilled and unskilled.

Next come the professional cla.s.ses, the salaried corporation employees, and a large part of the office workers, which together const.i.tute what Kautsky and the other Continental Socialists call the _new_ middle cla.s.s. "Among these," Kautsky says, "a continually increasing sympathy for the proletariat is evident, because they have no special cla.s.s interest, and owing to their professional, scientific point of view, are easiest won for our party through scientific considerations. The theoretical bankruptcy of bourgeois economics, and the theoretical superiority of Socialism, must become clear to them. Through their training, also, they must discover that the other social cla.s.ses continuously strive to debase art and science. Many others are impressed by the fact of the irresistible advance of the Social Democracy. So it is that friends.h.i.+p for labor becomes popular among the cultured cla.s.ses, until there is scarcely a parlor in which one does not stumble over one or more 'Socialists.'"

It is difficult to understand how it can be said that these cla.s.ses have no special "cla.s.s interest," unless it is meant that their interest is neither that of the capitalists nor precisely that of the industrial wage-earning cla.s.s. And this, indeed, is Kautsky's meaning, for he seems to minimize their value to the Socialists, because _as a cla.s.s_ they cannot be relied upon.

"Heretofore, as long as Socialism was branded among all cultured cla.s.ses as criminal or insane, capitalist elements could be brought into the Socialist movement only by a complete break with the whole capitalist world. Whoever came into the Socialist movement at that time from the capitalist element had need of great energy, revolutionary pa.s.sion, and strong proletarian convictions. It was just this element which ordinarily const.i.tuted the most radical and revolutionary wing of the Socialist movement.

"It is wholly different to-day, since Socialism has become a fad.

It no longer demands any special energy, or any break with capitalist society to a.s.sume the name of Socialist. It is no wonder, then, that more and more these new Socialists remain entangled in their previous manner of thought and feeling.

"The fighting tactics of the intellectuals are at any rate wholly different from those of the proletariat. To wealth and power of arms the latter opposes its overwhelming numbers and its thorough organization. The intellectuals are an ever diminis.h.i.+ng minority, with no cla.s.s organization whatever. Their only weapon is persuasion through speaking and writing, the battle with 'intellectual weapons' and 'moral superiority,' and these 'parlor Socialists' would settle the proletarian cla.s.s struggle also with these weapons. They declare themselves ready to grant the party their moral support, but only on condition that it renounces the idea of the application of force, and this not simply where force is hopeless,--there the proletariat has already renounced it,--but also in those places where it is still full of possibilities.

Accordingly they seek to throw discredit on the idea of revolution, and to represent it as a useless means. They seek to separate off a social reform wing from the revolutionary proletariat, and they thereby divide and weaken the proletariat."[219]

In the last words Kautsky refers to the fact that although a large number of "intellectuals" (meaning the educated cla.s.ses) have come into the Socialist Party and remain there, they const.i.tute a separate wing of the movement. We must remember, however, that this same wing embraces, besides these "parlor Socialists," a great many trade unionists, and that it has composed a very considerable portion of the German Party, and a majority in some other countries of the Continent; and as Kautsky himself admits that they succeed in "dividing the proletariat," they cannot be very far removed politically from at least one of the divisions they are said to have created. It is impossible to attribute the kind of Socialism to which Kautsky objects to the adhesion of certain educated cla.s.ses to the movement (for reasons indicated in Part II).

While many of the present spokesmen of Socialism are, like Kautsky, somewhat skeptical as to the necessity of an alliance between the working cla.s.s and this section of the middle cla.s.s, others accept it without qualification. If, then, we consider at once the middle ground taken by the former group of Socialists, and the very positive and friendly att.i.tude of the latter, it must be concluded that the Socialist movement _as a whole_ is convinced that its success depends upon a fusion of at least these two elements, the wage earners and "the new middle cla.s.s."

A few quotations from the well-known revolutionary Socialist, Anton Pannekoek, will show the contrast between the narrower kind of Socialism, which still survives in many quarters, and that of the majority of the movement. He discriminates even against "the new middle cla.s.s," leaving n.o.body but the manual laborers as a fruitful soil for real Socialism.