The Collapse of the Second International/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
The Imperialist Era Calls for Internationalist
Tactics and Revolutionary Mass Acticn.
Let us now sum up.
The collapse of the Second International was expressed most clearly in the scandalous betrayal by a majority of the official S.D. parties of Europe of their convictions and their solemn resolutions passed at Stuttgart and Basle. But this collapse, which meant a complete victory for opportunism, turning, as it did, the S.D. parties into National Liberal and Labour parties, is merely the outcome of the whole historical period during which the Second International functioned—from the latter part of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. The objective conditions of that period created and nurtured opportunism, for it was a transition period which witnessed the completion of bourgeois and nationalist revolutions in Western Europe and the commencement of Socialist revolutions. In some European countries we observe, during this period, splits in the Labour and Socialist movements, which, on the whole, follow along the line of opportunism (England, Italy, Holland, Bulgaria, Russia). In other countries we observe a long and persistent struggle of currents fought on the same lines (Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland). The crisis created by the great war tore off the coverings, brushed aside conventionalities, laid bare the abscess which had long since come to a head, and revealed opportunism in its true rôle—that of an ally of the bourgeoisie. It is now indispensable that this element, as regards organisation, become completely separated from the [revolutionary] working class parties. The imperialist epoch will not tolerate the existence in one party of two elements comprising the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat and of another element composed of a semi-lower middle class aristocracy of the working class, availing itself, as it does, of the crumbs which fall from the privileges enjoyed by "its " nation swaggering as one of the "Great Powers." The old theory of opportunism as a lawful current in a united party, a party adverse to "going to extremes," now means a gross deception practised on the workers and the greatest obstacle to the forward march of the Labour movement. Open opportunism which immediately repels the mass of the workers is not so dreadful and harmful as this theory of the "golden mean," which justifies, by Marxist phraseology, opportunist practices and proves, by a series of sophisms, that revolutionary action and the like is not advisable. The most prominent representative of this theory and, at the same time, one of the most prominent authorities of the Second International, Kautsky, has proved himself a first-class hypocrite and a genius in the matter of prostituting Marxism. All those who are in the least degree honest, class-conscious, and revolutionary in the German S.D. party turn away with indignation from an "authority" eagerly defended by the Suedekums and Scheidemanns.
The proletarian masses—nine-tenths of whose old leaders have probably gone over to the bourgeoisie—turned out to be disunited and helpless when met face to face with the orgy of Jingoism, the pressure of military regulations, and the censorship. But the objective revolutionary situation created by the war and ever gaining in depth and extension will inevitably create a revolutionary frame of mind; it also steels and enlightens all the best and most class conscious proletarians. A quick change in the mood of the masses is not only possible but becomes more and more probable—a change similar to that connected with "Father Gapon's movement" in Russia at the beginning of 1905, when from backward proletarian strata in a few months, and sometimes weeks, grew an army millions strong, which followed the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. It is impossible to know or say whether a mighty revolutionary movement will develop soon after this war or in the course of it, but one thing is certain—nothing but work in this direction deserves to be called Socialist work. The battle-cry of civil war is the one which unifies and directs this work; it is the battle-cry which helps to unite and to link up those wishful to help in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against its government and its bourgeoisie.
In Russia a complete separation of the revolutionary S.D. proletarian elements from the lower middle class opportunist elements has been prepared by the whole history of the Labour movement. Those who cast aside this history and declaim against "splitting the movement" render this movement the worst possible service and deprive themselves of the possibility of grasping the process of the formation of a real proletarian party in Russia. This party has been evolving in a struggle with different forms of opportunism, a struggle lasting many years. Of all the "Great" Powers taking part in the present war Russia is the only country which has recently passed through a revolution. The bourgeois basis of the revolution—in which the leading rôle was being played by the proletariat—could not fail to separate the bourgeois and the proletarian currents in the Labour movement. During the whole period, lasting approximately twenty years (1894–1914), in the course of which Russian Social-Democracy existed as an organisation, linked up with the mass movement of Labour (and not merely as an ideal current as it existed during the years 1883–1894), a struggle went on between the revolutionary proletariat and the petty bourgeois opportunist currents. The "economic tendency" of the years 1894–1902 was undoubtedly a current of the latter order. A whole series of arguments and traits of its ideology, distortion of Marxism á la Struve, reference to the "masses" to justify opportunism, and so on. All these forcibly remind one of the present-day vulgarised Marxism of Kautsky, Cunow, Plekhanov and others. It would be a grateful task to remind the present generation of the parallel that runs between the old S.D. papers, the Rabochaya Mysl and Rabocheye Delo, and Kautsky of to-day.
The "Minimalism" of the following period (1903–1908) was the immediate successor to the "economic tendency," not only as regards ideology, but also organisation. During the Russian revolution it pursued tactics objectively implying the dependence of the proletariat on the Liberal bourgeoisie and giving expression to petty bourgeois opportunist tendencies. When, during the subsequent period (1908–1914), the main stream of the Minimalist current produced the "liquidator movement," the class significance of this current became so obvious that the best representatives of Minimalism continually protested against the policy of the "Nasha Zarya" group. And this group, the only one which had performed systematic work amongst the masses during the last five or six years— in opposition to the revolutionary Marxist party of the working class—turned Socialist-Chauvinist when the war 1914-5 broke out! And this in a country where autocracy still exists, where a bourgeois revolution is far from being completed, where 43 per cent. of the (truly Russian) population oppressed the majority belonging to peoples of other nationalities. The European type of development under which certain strata of the lower middle class, especially the intellectuals and an insignificant portion of the aristocracy of Labour can "benefit by" the privileges derived from the position of "their" nation as a "Great Power"―could not help manifesting itself in Russia. The Russian working class and the Russian S.D. Labour Party have been prepared by the whole of their past history for "internationalist" tactics, that is to say, tactics which are consistently revolutionary.
P.S.―This sketch was already in type when Kautsky and Haase jointly with Bernstein published in the papers their manifesto. They had perceived that the masses were moving in the direction of the Left. Thus, these gentlemen are now ready to "make peace" with those of the Left at the price, of course, of keeping "peace" with the Suedekums. Indeed, they are "Maedchen fuer alle" (prostitutes)!