The Collapse of the Second International/Chapter 1
The Collapse of the Second
International.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory.
By the collapse of the International is sometimes meant the interruption of the intercourse between the Socialist parties of the warring countries, the suspension of the meetings of the International Socialist bureau, International Congresses, and so forth. This is the viewpoint of some Socialists, perhaps of the majority of the offcial parties and especially of the opportunists and their supporters.
In the Russian press (vide: The Information Leaflet of the "Bund")[1] Kossovsky takes up the defence of this view with a frankness that deserves our heartfelt gratitude. Nevertheless, the editors fail to indicate their disagreement with the author’s viewpoint. Kossovsky went so far as to justify the German Social-Democrats who voted the war-credits. Let us hope that his defence of Nationalism will open the eyes of many workmen as to the capitalist-nationalist outlook of the "Bund."
Tо class-conscious workers, Socialism is a serious conviction and is not a cloak to cover up conciliatory middle-class aspirations or opposition to the Government along Nationalist lines. By the collapse of the International, these workers mean the scandalous betrayal by a majority of the official Social-Democratic parties of their convictions and solemn declarations made at the International Socialist Congresses of Stuttgart and Basle, and embodied in resolutions passed at these congresses. Only those fail to see this treason who do not wish to see it. Only those refuse to observe this betrayal whose interests are bound up in not recognising it.
Looking at the matter scientifically, i.e., from the viewpoint of the relationship of the different classes in modern society, we are obliged to say that the majority of the social democratic parties went over to the side of the rulers’ general staffs and governments in opposition to the working class. The lead in this direction was given by the German social democracy, which was the largest and most influential party in the second International. This event is of world-historic importance, and we propose to subject it to a searching analysis.
We recognise that wars, despite the horrors and calamities which they breed, are more or less useful in so far as they reveal and make for the destruction of much that is rotten and obsolete within social institutions. Further, the European war has done mankind a service, because it has revealed the undoubted weaknesses inherent in organisations of the working class. And the European war has already demonstrated that a loathsome cancer is gnawing at the very vitals of the Labour movement—a cancer as dangerous as it is evil smelling.
- ↑ A Jewish Social-Democratic organisation in Russia and Poland.— Translator