Marx and Engels on Revolution in America/Chapter 3
III.
The Historical Peculiarities of the American Labor Movement.
BOTH England and America have always offered a number of particularly knotty problems for the exponents of Marxism. In practice, both countries were characterized by the absence of a revolutionary workers' party; in the theoretical field, they led Marx and Engels to utter the well-known epigram—that the proletarian revolution could take place in a peaceful manner in England and America. Kautsky employed this phrase against Lenin in the polemic about the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin replied in his pamphlet against Kautsky:
"In the 'seventies, was there anything which made England and America … exceptions? It should be a matter of course for anyone in the least degree acquainted with the requirements of science in the field of historical problems that this question must be raised. Not to put this question signifies falsifying science and being satisfied with sophistry. If this question is raised, however, there can be no doubt of the answer; the revolotionary dictatorship of the proletariat signifies the rule of force against the bourgeois. The necessity of this rule of force is, as Marx and Engels repeatedly and at length… pointed out, primarily conditioned by the existence of militarism and of bureaucracy. At a time when Marx made this statement, in the 'seventies of the nineteenth century, these institutions did not exist in England and America! (However, they are now to be found in England as well as in America)."
The causes of the late development of these typical phenomena of the capitalist state in England were the existence of the industrial monopoly and the century-old tradition of parliamentarism. In America, the historical period of feudalism had never existed; America has been democratic from the very beginning of its existence as an independent state. While in England capitalist monopoly delayed the development of a bureaucratic-militaristic state machine, in America the diametrically opposite cause, the immaturity of capitalist development, acted in the same direction. Engels was already able in the 'eighties to state that on the one hand England's industrial monopoly had been shaken to its foundations while on the other hand, the United States was changing from an agrarian country into an industrial power. Thus, almost simultaneously, the harmonizing of the most developed and the least developed capitalist countries took place, with the general legal line of development of the bourgeois state as analyzed by Marx. The premises for the "exception" to the Marxian theory of the state, thus vanished.
In a similar fashion, but much more slowly, the approach of the American labor movement to the European type is in process. The British worker already began this assimilation to the proletarian class struggle of the continent in the 'nineties. At that time Engels established the fact of the development of a "new unionism." This new tendency in the British labor movement required forty years to mature—its most recent fruits are the radicalization of the British trade unions through the Purcell group. The class struggle of the American proletariat has had to travel a much more difficult path. The after-effects of the downfall of an industrial monopoly were easier to overcome than the influence of bourgeois ideology in America, the derivation of which from the feudal period is not evident to the American workers in consequence of the lack of an American feudalism. The penetrating eye of Engels sees in this specific characteristic of America's history the reason for American workers' well-known "contempt for theory," which was one of the greatest obstacles to the formation of a revolutionary mass party. He writes to Sorge on September 16, 1886:
"In a country as elemental as America, which has developed in a purely bourgeois fashion without any feudal past, but has taken over from England a mass ideology surviving from the feudal period, such as English common law, religion and sectarianism, and in which the necessity of practical work and of the concentration of capital has produced a general contempt for all theories, which is only now beginning to disappear in educated and scientific circles,—in such a country the people must come to realize their own social interests by making mistake after mistake. Nor will the workers be spared that; the confusion of trade unions, socialists, Knights of Labor, etc. will continue for some time to come, and they will only learn by injuring themselves. But the chief thing is that they have been set in motion…
In another letter, dated February 8, 1890, Engels draws the conclusion that this "elemental conservative" ideology of the American workers can be overcome "only through experience," and only through getting in contact with the trade unions:
"The people of Schleswig-Holstein and their descendants in England and America, cannot be converted by preaching; this stiff-necked and conceited crew must learn through their own experience. They are doing that from year to year, but they are elementally conservative—just because America is so purely bourgeois, has absolutely no feudal past, and is therefore, proud of its purely bourgeois organization—and therefore, will only be freed through experience from old traditional intellectual rubbish. Hence with trade unions and such like, must be the beginning, if there is to be a mass movement, and every step forward must be forced upon them by a defeat. But, however, after the first step beyond the bourgeois viewpoint has been made, things will move faster, just like everything in America… and then the foreign element in the nation will make its influence felt by its greater mobility."
From the rise of a mass movement, therefore, Engels hopes not only for the revolutionization of the "native" workers, but at the same time the overcoming of a sectarian spirit and of doctrinairism amongst the foreign-born proletarians. The shifting of the center of gravity to the native workers in the trade unions is in no way intended to limit the historical role of the "foreign element," but to extend it by the exploitation of the latter's "greater mobility" and by linking together the two elements of the American working class.
Engels considered the antagonism between the native-born and the immigrants one of the principal obstacles to the development of a mass party. The danger of this antagonism consists in the fact that it coincides with the class antagonism between the labor aristocracy and the mass of unskilled wage workers. The connection of the national with the social distinctions within the working class is for him the most important reason for the slow development of the American labor movement.
"It appears to me that your great obstacle in America is the privileged position of the native-born worker. Until 1848, a native-born, permanent working class was the exception rather than the rule. The scattered beginnings of the latter in the East and in the cities could still hope to become farmers or members of the bourgeoisie. Such a class has now developed and has organized itself to a large degree in trade unions. But it still assumes an aristocratic position, and leaves (as it may) the ordinary, poorly-paid trades to the immigrants, of whom only a small percentage enter the aristocratic trade unions. These immigrants are, however, divided into nationalities, which do not understand one another, and for the most part do not understand the language of the country. And your bourgeoisie understands even better than the Austrian government, how to play off one nationality against another… so that, I believe, there exist in New York differences in the standard of living of the workers such as are out of the question anywhere else…"
In the same letter to Schlueter, dated March 30, 1892, Engels explains the rhythm of the American labor movement through the coincidence of this national and social line of demarcation within the proletariat:
"In such a country repeated starts, followed by just as certain relapses, are unavoidable. The only difference is that the starts grow more and more vehement, and the relapses less and less paralyzing, and that on the whole things do go forward. But I consider one thing certain: the purely bourgeois foundation without any fraud behind it, the correspondingly gigantic energy of development which manifests itself even in the insane exaggeration of the present protective tariff system, will some day bring about a change, which will astonish the whole world. When the Americans once begin, they will do so with an energy and virulence, In comparison with which we in Europe will be children."
Therefore, Engels considers as of the greatest importance, not the formation of a purely immigrant party, but "of a real mass movement amongst the English speaking population:"
"For the first time there exists a real mass movement amongst the English-speaking (Engels refers to the preparation for strikes to obtain the eight-hour day and to the enormous growth of the Order of the Knights of Labor in spring, 1886—just before the bomb-throwing affair in Chicago. H. N.) It is unavoidable that this at the beginning moves hesitatingly, clumsily, unclearly and unknowingly. That will all be cleared up; the movement will and must develop through its own mistakes. Theoretical ignorance is the characteristic of all young peoples, but so is practical speed of development.
"Just as all preaching is of no avail in England, until the actual necessity is at hand, so too in America. And this necessity is present in America and is being realized. The entrance of the masses of native workers into the movement in America is for me one of the great events of 1886…" (Letter to Sorge dated April 29, 1886).
In his correspondence with the American Socialists, which lasted for decades, Engels repeatedly emphasized that the German Marxist Socialist Labor Party is of much less importance than the development of a mass party of the native-born workers, even if the latter is not consciously Marxist. On the other hand he replied to the objections which were already then raised by the German immigrants, to the effect that he was thus "denying the role of the Party," and was "showing preference for the 100 per cent Americans," with the sentences of the above-quoted letter; that amongst the conscious Marxian immigrants, there still remains
"A nucleus, which retains the theoretical insight into the nature and the course of the entire movement, keeps in progress the process of fermentation, and finally again comes to the top."
Engels writes even more lucidly to Mrs. Wischnewetsky on February 9, 1887:
"As soon as there was a national American working class movement independent of the Germans, my standpoint was clearly indicated by the facts of the case. The great national movement, no matter what its first form, is the real starting point of American working class development; if the Germans join it in order to help it or to hasten its development, in the right direction, they may do a deal of good and play a decisive part in it: if they stand aloof, they will dwindle down into a dogmatic sect, and will be brushed aside as people who do not understand their own principles."
The problems of the mass party and of its relation to the trade unions, is dealt with by Engels in close connection with the, at that time, equally acute trade union problem in England. In his letter to Sorge dated December 7, 1889, he reminds the American socialists of the Hyndman Social-Democratic Federation in England—which should serve them as a warning—which was "Marxist," it is true, but which became a sect in consequence of its fanatic aversion to the trade union movement:
"Here it is demonstrated that a great nation cannot have something hammered into it in such a simple dogmatic and doctrinaire fashion, even if one has the best theory, as well as trainers who have grown up in these special living conditions and who are relatively better than those in the S. L. P. The movement is finally under way, and, as I believe, for good. But not directly socialists; and those persons amongst the British who have best understood our theory, are outside of it; Hyndman, because he is an incorrigible brawler, and Bax, because he is a savant without practical experience. The movement is first of all formally a trade union movement, but entirely different from the old trade unions of the skilltd laborers, of the labor aristocracy.
"These people are attacking the problem in an altogether different way, are leading much more colossal masses into battle, are shaking the foundations of society much more profoundly, and are making much more far-reaching demands; the eight-hour day, a general federation of all organizations, complete solidarity… moreover, these people consider their demands of the moment as only provisional, although they themselves do not yet know the goal towards which they are striving. But this vague notion is deeply enough embedded in them to influence them to elect only declared socialists as their leaders. Just as all the others, they must learn through their own experience, and through the consequences of their own mistakes. But that will not last very long since they, in contradiction to the old trade unions, deceive with scornful laughter any reference to the identity of the interests of capital and labor."
Eighteen years prior to this letter, Karl Marx wrote in his letter to F. Bolte, a member of the New York Provisional Federal Council, the following famous passage:
"The International was founded in order to set the real organization of the working class for the struggle in the place of the socialist or semi-socialist sects: The original statutes as well as the inaugural address show that at a glance. On the other hand, the International would not have been able to maintain itself, if the course of history had not already destroyed sectarianism. The development of socialist sectarianism has always been inversely proportional to that of the real labor movement. As long as the sects are justified (historically), the working class is still not ripe enough for an independent historical movement. As soon as it reaches this maturity, all sects are essentially reactionary. Meanwhile, there has been repeated in the history of the International what history proves everywhere. The obsolete endeavors to re-establish and to maintain itself within the newly gained form.
"And the history of the International was an incessant struggle of the General Council against the sects and the endeavors of amateurs, who try to maintain themselves against the real movement of the working class within the International." (Letter to Bolte, dated November 23, 1871.)
As examples of these sectarian tendencies, which time and again attempt "to re-establish and to maintain themselves" within the International Working Men's Association, Marx mentions the Proudhonists in France, the Lassaleans in Germany, and the Bakuninists in Italy and Spain. He adds in the same letter:
"It is a matter of course that the General Council does not support in America what it combats in Europe. The decisions 1, 2 and 3 and IX now give the New York Committee the legal weapon to put an end to all sectarianism and amateur groups, and in case of need to expel them."
The decisions, 2 and 3 of the London Conference of the I. W. M. A., forbid all sectarian names of the sections, branches, etc., and provide for their exclusive designation as branches or sections of the International Working Men's Association with the addition of the name of the locality. Decision IX emphasizes the necessity of the political effectiveness of the working class, and declares that the latter's economic movement and political activity are inseparably united.
This dialectic relationship of the economic and the political aspects of the labor movement, were already at that time one of the chief problems in the tactical discussion in America. In a postscript to the same letter to Bolte, Marx again defines the inseparable unity of the economic and the political struggle in one of those famous passages, which are again and again quoted by European Marxists, but which today very few know are written for the socialists of America, just like Marx's criticism of the sects.
"N. B. to political movement: the political movement of the working class naturally has as its goal the conquest of political power, and to that end is necessary of course, a previous organization of the working class, developed to a certain degree, which arises of itself from the latter's economic struggles.
"On the other hand, however, every movement in which the working class as a class faces the ruling classes and attempts to force its will upon them by pressure from without, is a political movement and in this manner there everywhere arises from the scattered economic movement of the workers a political movement, that is, a movement of the class, in order to fight for its interests in a general form, in a form which possesses general, socially compulsory force. When these movements are subordinate to a certain previous organization, they are just as much means towards the development of the latter organization.
"Where the working class is not yet sufficiently advanced in its organization, in order to undertake a decisive campaign against the collective power, i. e., the political power, of the ruling classes, it must under all circumstances be trained for this by incessant agitation against the hostile political attitude of the ruling class towards us. Failing, it remains a plaything in the latter's hands …"