We see what a distorted view of the whole thing those men have who are trying to deaden their conscience and the conscience of the workers, men like the recognized leaders of the Second International, the Guesdes, the Plekhanovs, the Kautskys and their ilk.
One thing is beyond cavil: if those men cannot understand the new duties of the party they must stay out of it, or surrender to the opportunists who hold them prisoners now. If those men break their chains there will be few obstacles to their readmission to the ranks of the revolutionists.
VIII
Lawful mass organizations of the working class were one of the distinctive traits of the Socialist parties at the time of the Second International. In the German party especially they were very strong and hence the war of 1914 marks a sudden turning point, and made the problems more acute than ever.
Any revolutionary action on their part at the time would have meant the crushing out of all lawful organizations by the policy, and therefore the old crowd from Legien to Kautsky, inclusive of the latter, sacrificed the old revolutionary objects of the proletariat to the preservation of the existing lawful organizations. They waste their time denying it. They sold the revolutionary rights of the proletariat for the mess of pottage of police toleration.
Open a pamphlet by Legien, the leader of the German trade unionists, entittled Why Trades Union Officials Should Take a More Active Part in the Inner Life of the Party (Berlin, 1915). This is a report read by the author on January 27, 1915, before a meeting of the leaders of the trade union movement. Legien incorporated in his printed report one interesting document which might otherwise have been suppressed by the military censorship. That document called Materials for the Delegates from the Neiderbarnim District (a suburb of Berlin), presents the views of the left-wing social-democrats, their protest against the action of the party. The revolutionary social-democrats say in that document: that did not and could not foresee that:
"All the organized forces of the German social-democratic party and of the trade unions stood by the government which was conducting the war, and that all those forces were being used in order to crush out the revolutionary energies of the masses" (page 34 of Legien's pamphlet).
