Page:The Paris Commune - Karl Marx - ed. Lucien Sanial (1902).djvu/24

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

xvii

(1) a clear and widespread knowledge, among the proletarian masses, of the great historic facts and fundamental economic truths upon which socialism is established; (2) a consequent class-consciousness and class-solidarity, all pervading, ever wakeful, highly sensitive to every act of oppression committed by capitalists or their political agents, and manifesting itself by extensive organization in the economic^[1] and the political fields; it being understood that the two branches of this proletarian organization, without intrenching on each other's field, shall be closely allied, strictly conducted on parallel class lines, and strongly self-disciplined.

Aye, these are the elements upon the development of which, at a constantly increasing rate, depends the hastening of the day when the Social Revolution shall be not only achievable but achieved. In the course of their progress they must reach a point where they will make short work of retarding factors, such, for instance, as may produce Millerandisms and Kautsky resolutions; a

↑ It may seem quite superfluous to observe that that part of the proletarian organization which is here termed "economic," and which has heretofore been generally limited, in its use by the workers of English-speaking nationalities, to the single purpose of mutual protection in their daily conflicts with employers, should not be confounded with the great economic organization which it is the object of the social-revolutionary movement to substitute for capitalism. Yet this confusion is sometimes resorted to by logomachists of the anarchistic and "pure-and-simple" trade unionist schools, who oppose independent proletarian action in the political field. By vigorous amputation and gross misrepresentation of Karl Marx's words (in the Declaration of Principles of the International) concerning the necessary "subordination" of "political" movement to its great end, the economic " emancipation of the working class, they argue that the political movement is of secondary importance, that it is even demoralizing, and that the "economic movement"—by which they mean trade unionism pure and simple—not only is sufficient to bring about the emancipation of the proletariat, but can alone accomplish it. At the same time they are found in America supporting the corrupt and corrupting bourgeois parties, with all the zeal which their hatred of socialism and schemes of personal advantage can inspire, while in France they similarly make common cause with the Millerandists against the Parti Ouvrier Français.

[1] It may seem quite superfluous to observe that that part of the proletarian organization which is here termed "economic," and which has heretofore been generally limited, in its use by the workers of English-speaking nationalities, to the single purpose of mutual protection in their daily conflicts with employers, should not be confounded with the great economic organization which it is the object of the social-revolutionary movement to substitute for capitalism. Yet this confusion is sometimes resorted to by logomachists of the anarchistic and "pure-and-simple" trade unionist schools, who oppose independent proletarian action in the political field. By vigorous amputation and gross misrepresentation of Karl Marx's words (in the Declaration of Principles of the International) concerning the necessary "subordination" of "political" movement to its great end, the economic " emancipation of the working class, they argue that the political movement is of secondary importance, that it is even demoralizing, and that the "economic movement"—by which they mean trade unionism pure and simple—not only is sufficient to bring about the emancipation of the proletariat, but can alone accomplish it. At the same time they are found in America supporting the corrupt and corrupting bourgeois parties, with all the zeal which their hatred of socialism and schemes of personal advantage can inspire, while in France they similarly make common cause with the Millerandists against the Parti Ouvrier Français.

[1]