The Collapse of the Second International/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
Opportunism of Yesterday Becomes Socialist
Jingo of To-day.
The serious scientific and political question which, by means of all sorts of tricks, Katusky deliberately shirked, thus affording immense pleasure to the opportunists, consists in this: What caused the most prominent representatives of the second International to betray Socialism?
Naturally we must not put this question as though we were concerned with the personal conduct of such and such authorities. Their future biographers will have to examine the matter from the personal standpoint; but for the present the Socialist movement is not at all interested therein. It is interested, however, in an investigation of the historical origin, the significance, and the force of the Socialist Jingo current. 1. What was the origin of Socialist Jingoism? 2. Whence was its force derived? 3. How are we to combat it? Only by putting the question in this way are we able to show that we are in earnest. To discuss the problem in the terms of "personalities" simply means making use of a trick—the trick of a sophist.
To answer the first question we must examine (1) whether the Ideological and political basis of Socialist Jingoism is not connected with some former current in working-class history; (2) in what relation does the present division of Socialists into opponents and defenders of Socialist Jingoism stand to the historical divisions which preceded the war, viewing the matter from the standpoint of de facto political divisions.
By Socialist Jingoism we understand the doctrine which recognises the idea of national defence in the present imperialist war; which justifies a union of Socialists with the bourgeoisie and the governments of "their " respective countries in this war, and which refuses to preach or to support proletarian revolutionary action against "their own" bourgeoisie, and so forth. It is perfectly clear that the fundamental ideological and political contents of Socialist Jingoism fully coincides with the principles of opportunism, seeing that it is one and the same current. Opporutnism, placed in the conditions of the war of 1914–15, produces Socialist Jingoism. The main idea running through opportunism is the co-operation of all classes. The war carries this idea to a logical conclusion, adding also to the usual factors and stimuli a whole series of extraordinary ones. By means of special threats and violence, for example, the war compels disunited masses to co-operate with the bourgeoisie. This circumstance naturally increases the circle of those who support opportunism and thus fully explains the reason for the radicals of yesterday passing over into that camp.
Opportunism means the surrender of the basic interests of the masses for the temporary interests of a small minority of workers, or in other words, it means the union of a portion of the workers with the bourgeoisie in opposition to the mass of the proletariat. The war renders such a union, from the opportunist standpoint, imperative and plainly visible. Opportunism, which took decades to develop, owes its birth to the peculiarities of that period in the development of capitalism, during a comparatively peaceful and cultural existence, when one section of privileged workers were "rendered bourgeois" because a few crumbs of the profits derived from the national capital saved them from the acute misery, the sufferings and revolutionary moods of the destitute masses whose ruin was being wrought. The imperialist war is a direct continuation and completion of this state of things. seeing that it is a war for the privileges of the Great Powers, for a re-division of the colonies between them, and for their domination over other nations. To defend and to consolidate the privileged position of the "higher middle class" and of the aristocracy (and bureaucracy) of the working class—this is the natural continuation of the petty bourgeois-opportunist aspirations of this privileged section, and of its tactics during the war, corresponding to such aspirations; this is the economic basis of Socialist Imperialism of our day.[1]
Of course, the force of habit, the routine of a comparatively “peaceful” and slow evolution, nationalist prejudices, the fear of abrupt breaks and disbelief in them—all these played a secondary rôle in strengthening opportunism and in leading "Socialists" to effect a hypocritical and cowardly reconciliation with it, presumably only for a time and only for special reasons and on special occasions. The war changed the shape of opportunism which had been reared in the course of decades, raised it to a high rung and increased the number and variety of its shades. The war brought fresh adherents to the ranks of opportunism, and added to their arguments heaps of fresh sophisms; it caused many new streams and rivulets to flow into its main current, so to speak, but the main current itself has not disappeared; on the contrary, it is more apparent than ever.
Socialist Jingoism is opportunism which has become so mature that the existence of this continued bourgeois abcess within the Socialist parties has become impossible.
Men who do not wish to see the close and indissoluble bond which exists between Socialist Jingoism and opportunism, clutch at individual cases and incidents, saying, for instance, that such and such an opportunist has become an internationalist, or that such and such a radical Socialist has become a Jingo. But this is not a serious argument on the question of the development of currents, (1) The economic basis of Jingoism and opportunism in the Labour movement is one and the same—it is the union of the upper strata of the proletariat, numerically not large, with the lower middle class, both benefiting by the crumbs which fall from the privileges enjoyed by "their" national capital, in opposition to the mass of proletarians who labour and who are generally oppressed. (2) The ideological and political contents of both currents are the same. (3) Taken as a whole, the old division of Socialists into opportunists and revolutionaries—as was the case during the existence of the Second International (1889–1914)—corresponds to the new division into Jingoes and Internationalists.
To become convinced of the truth of the last proposition we must remember the rule that the science of Sociology (as Science in general) is concerned with mass phenomena, and not with individual cases. Take the following ten European countries: Germany, England, Russia, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In the First eight countries the new division of Socialists (according to internationalism) corresponds to the old (according to opportunism): in Germany the monthly Sozialistische Monatshefte, a stronghold of opportunism, has become a stronghold of Chauvinism. The idea of internationalism is supported by those of the extreme Left. In the British Socialist Party in England the internationalists comprise about 3–7 (66 voted for an internationalist resolution and 84 against, according to the latest account). whereas in the opportunist block (the Labour Party plus the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party) the internationalists comprise less than 1–7.[2] In Russia the revisionist "Nasha Zarya," around which the opportunists grouped, became the Jingo centre. Plehanov and Alexinsky make more noise, but we know by the experience of the years 1910–14—if by nothing else—that they are incapable of carrying on systematic propaganda amongst the masses in Russia. The main internationalist centre in Russia is Pravdism and the Russian S.D. Workers' Fraction; the later represents the progressive workers who re-established the party in January, 1912.
In Italy the purely opportunist party of Bissolati and Co. has turned Jingo. Internationalism is represented by the Labour Party. While the mass of the workers stand behind this party, the opportunists, the parliamentarians and the lower middle class back up Jingoism. In Italy during a number of months one had the opportunity of making a free choice, and the choice was not accidental, but dependent upon the difference between the class position of a proletarian who believes in mass action and that of a member of the lower middle class.
In Holland the opportunist party of Troelstra tolerates Jingoism in general. (We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the fact that in Holland members of the lower as well as the upper middle class cherish a special hatred against Germany, which is more capable than any other country of "swallowing them up." It is the Marxist party, with Gorter and Pannekoek at its head, which has produced sincere and consistent internationalists. In Sweden Branting the opportunist leader, is incensed because the German Socialists are accused of treason, but Hoeglund, leader of the Left, declares that amongst his supporters are men who also look upon them as traitors (vide Social Democrat, No. 36). In Bulgaria the opponents of opportunism accuse the German Social Democrats in their organ (Novoye Vremya) of "having committed an abomination."
In Switzerland the adherents of Grenlich, the opportunist, are inclined to justify the German Social Democrats (vide their organ, the Zurich Volksrecht), whereas the adherents of the more radical R. Grimm have turned the Berner Tagwacht into an organ of the German Left. Only two of the ten countries: namely, France and Belgium, form an exception, though even there it is not the absence of internationalists that we observe, but rather the fact that they are excessively weak and disheartened (partly owing to causes that are quite apparent). Let us not forget that even Vaillant admitted in L'Humanité having received from his readers letters of an internationalist tendency, none of which he had printed in full.
If we take the currents and tendencies as a whole, we cannot help recognising that it was the opportunist wing of European Socialism which betrayed it and went over to Jingoism. Whence did it derive its strength and its apparent omnipotence in the official parties? Kautsky, who is an adept at dealing with historical questions when concerned with ancient Rome and matters which have no close bearing upon the life of to-day, hypocritically pretends not to understand this, now that the matter concerns himself. But the thing is as clear as daylight. The gigantic force of the opportunists and Jingoes was supplied by their union with the bourgeoisie; the governments and the general staffs.
Here in Russia people are often apt to forget this and to consider opportunists as a bona-fide section of the Socialist parties. Many are tempted to think that there always have been, and always will be, two extreme wings in these parties, and that the main thing is to avoid "going to extremes," and so on, as some write in their shallow manuals.
Though the opportunists belong formally to the workers' parties, in reality we cannot get away from the fact that, objectively, they are a political contingent of the bourgeoisie and are its agents who extend its influence in the Labour movement. When the opportunist, Suedekum, notorious after the manner of Flerostratus,[3] demonstrated in a palpable way this social class truth, many good people were taken aback. The French Socialists, as well as Plekhanov, began to point at Suedekum; but had Vandervelde, Sembat or Plekhanov looked in a mirror they would have beheld Suedekum—only with a slightly different national face. Members of the German Party Executive, who praise, and are praised by Kautsky, have hastened to declare modestly and politely (without mentioning the name of Suedekum) that they disagree with the line taken by Suedekum.
This is ridiculous, seeing that with regard to the practical policy of the German S.D. Party, Suedekum alone turned out at the decisive moment to be more powerful than thousands of Haases and Kautskys put together, just as the "Nasha Zarya" is more powerful than all the other currents in the Brussels block, which are afraid to break away from it.
And why? Because Suedekum is backed up by the bourgeoisie, the government and the general staff of a Great Power. They support the policy of Suedekum in a thousand different ways, and they obstruct the policy of his opponents by every means, including imprisonment and shooting. The voice of Suedekum is carried by millions of copies of bourgeois papers (as is the voice of Vandervelde and Plekhanov), whereas the voices of his opponents cannot be heard in the legal press, for there exists what is termed military censorship!
All are agreed that opportunism is not something accidental, or a sin, or a mistake; it is not treason committed by individuals; it is the social product of a whole historical epoch. But not every one makes an attempt to grasp the meaning of this truth. It was the possibility of acting within the law that reared opportunism. The Labour parties of the years 1889–1914 had to make use of bourgeois legality. When the crisis came they had to resort to illegal activity—but the greatest energy and resoluteness, combined with a whole series of military tricks, were needed to effect such a transition. To hinder such a transition, one Suedekum sufficed because, to speak historico-philosophically, he was backed up by the whole of the "old world"—because, to put it in practical political language, he betrayed, as he will always betray, to the bourgeoisie all the militant plans of its class enemy—the working class.
It is a fact that the whole of the German S.D. Party (and the same refers to the French and other parties) does only what pleases or will be tolerated by Suedekum. Nothing else can be done in a legal manner. Everything of an honest and really Socialist chat character done in the German S.D. Party is done in opposition to its centres by circumventing its Executive Committee and its central organ. All real revolutionary work is done by means of the infringement of party discipline, and by factions in the name of anonymous centres of a new party. Thus the appeal of the German Left Wing was published anonymously, for instance, in the Berner Tagwacht on May 31st, 1915. It is a new party, a really revolutionary Socialist Democratic Workers' Party that is in the act of growing and becoming strong, and not the old, rotten National-Liberal Party of Legien, Suedekum, Kautsky, Haase, Scheidmann and Co.[4]
Hence, Monitor, the opportunist, let out a profound historical truth in the Conservative Preussiche Jahrbuecher when he declared it would do no harm to the opportunists (he should have said "to the bourgeoisie") if the Social Democracy of to-day moved further to the Right, since in that case the workers would forsake it. The opportunists (and the bourgeoisie) need the present Social Democratic Party, which includes both Right and Left wings, and which is officially represented by Kautsky, who knows how to reconcile everything in the world by fluent and "thoroughly Marxist" phrases. In words he advocates Socialism and revolutionary action on the part of the workers, but in deeds he is in favour of Suedekum's tactics, that is to say, of joining the bourgeoisie at any serious crisis. We say at any crisis, for not only in cases of war, but also in every case when a serious political strike is on both "feudal" Germany and "free parliamentary" England or France will immediately introduce martial law under one name or the other.
From this follows the reply to the question put above: "How are we to combat Socialist-Jingoism?" The latter is opportunism which has become ripe, strong, and impudent, during the long, comparatively "peaceful" era of capitalism. It is so will defined its ideological and political theories and has so linked itself up with the bourgeoisie and the governments that we cannot tolerate such a current inside S.D. Workers' parties. One can put up with thin, weak soles for walking on the civilised pavements of a small provencial town, but one cannot dispense with strong soles studded with nails for climbing mountains. Socialism in Europe has emerged from the comparatively peaceful stage limited by narrow national boundaries. With the war of 1914–15 Socialism in Europe has entered the stage of revolutionary action; it is high time then that a complete rupture with opportunism be effected and that the latter be turned out of the workers' parties.
Of course, from our analysis of the problems imposed upon Socialism by a new era in world development, we cannot infer directly with what speed and in what forms the process of separation of the workers of the revolutionary S.D. parties from the petty bourgeois-opportunist parties will take place in the different countries. But from our analysis follows the necessity for realising clearly that such a separation is inevitable and that the whole policy of the workers' parties must be directed from this angle of vision. The war of 1914–15 is such a great break in History that our attitude towards opportunism cannot remain the same. We cannot undo what has been done. The fact that the opportunists, in a moment of crisis, turned out to be the rallying point of those elements inside the workers' parties which went over to the side of the bourgeoisie—this fact cannot be effaced from the political experience of our epoch, nor can the workers and the master class be made to forget it. Prior to the war, opportunism throughout Europe was, so to say, in its youth. The war brought it to maturity and it cannot again be rendered "innocent" and youthful. A whole social stratum comprising parliamentarians, journalists, officials in the Labour movement, privileged servants and other hangers on of the proletariat, has become bound up with its national bourgeoisie; and the latter has known how to appraise and to adapt this stratum to its own ends. The wheel of History can be neither stopped nor turned back. But we can, and must, forge fearlessly ahead, passing from the preparatory, legal organisations of the working class—at present controlled by the opportunists—to revolutionary organisations of the proletariat, which do not limit themselves to legal activity and which are capable of safeguarding themselves against being betrayed by opportunists. The proletariat is embarking upon the "struggle for power," upon the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
From this it is clear, amongst other things, how wrongly the matter is being viewed by those who obscure their own consciousness and that of the workers with the question of what is to become of such prominent authorities of the Second International as Guesde, Plekhanov, Kautsky, etc. Indeed there is no need for such a question. If these persons fail to understand the new problems, they will either have to stand aside or remain, as at present, in bondage to the opportunists. If these people free themselves from their "bondage " there will scarcely exist a political obstacle to their returning to the camp of the revolutionaries. In any case, it is absurd to substitute the question of the part played by individuals for the question of the struggle of currents and of successive stages in the Labour movement.
- ↑ Here are a few examples showing how highly the Imperialists and the bourgeois value the "Great Power" and national privileges for the purpose of splitting the workers and leading them away from Socialism. Lucas, an English imperialist, in his work, "Great Rome and Great Britain" (Oxford, 1912), recognises that the Redskins possess no equal rights in the British Empire of to-day (pp. 96–97), and remarks: "In our Empire, when white workmen labour side by side with the Redskins, they labour not as comrades: the white worker plays rather the rôle of overseer over the Redskin " (p. 98). Erwin Belger, ex-secretary of the "Imperial Anti-Social-Democratic Union," in his pamphlet, " Social Democracy After the War" (1915), praises the conduct of Social-Democracy, declaring that it must become a "pure Labour party" (p. 43), a "national," a "German Labour party" (p. 45). without "international, Utopian, or revolutionary ideas" (p. 44). The German imperialist, Sartarius von Waltershausen, in his work on the investment of capital abroad (1907), condemns the Social-Democrats for "ignoring national welfare" (p. 438), which consists in the seizure of colonies, and praises the English workers for their "grasp of realities," as is seen, for instance, in their fight against immigration. The German diplomat, Ruedorfer. in his book on the foundations of a world policy, underlines the generally known fact that the internationalisation of capital in no way abolishes an intensilifed struggle of national capitalists for power, influence, for a "majority of the shares" (p. 161), and remarks that this intensified struggle draws the workers into it (p. 175). The book is dated October, 1913, and the author speaks with complete clearness of the "interests of capital" (p. 157) being the cause of the wars of to-day, and of the fact that the question of the "nationalist tendency" becomes an impediment to Socialism (p. 176), and that the governments need not fear the internationalist demonstrations of Social-Democrats (p. 177), who are becoming more and more "nationalist" (pp. 103. 110, 176). He further says that international Socialism will be victorious if it manages to free the workers from the influence of nationalism—seeing that nothing can be effected by violence alone—and that it will suffer a defeat if the nationalist feeling attains the upper hand (pp. 173–174).
- ↑ It is customary to compare only the I.L.P. with the B.S.P., but this is wrong. We must take into consideration not the outward form of the organisation, but the essence of the matter. Take the daily papers: there were two, the B.S.P. had the Daily Herald, and the opportunist block the Daily Citizen. Daily papers express the actual work of propaganda, agitation and organisation.—Lenin.
[It will be seen that Lenin divides British Socialism into two sections in accordance with the two daily papers which were then published, viz., the Daily Herald and the Daily Citizen. Lenin correctly shows that the Citizen was reactionary, whereas the Herald struck a more rebellious note.
The Herald's policy corresponded very much to the principles of the B.S.P. but was not owned by that organisation. It seems strange that revolutionaries like Lenin seldom refer to the work of the S.L.P. it is well to remember three points. (1) The British S.L.P. had no opportunity to attend the last two International Congresses, due to the action of the larger parties, and was consequently unknown to students of the International. (2) The larger parties in Britain made it impossible for the S.L.P. to attend the International Congresses. (3) And, finally the S.L.P. was the victim of an organised policy of boycott by the opportunist parties which prevented the S.L.P. from receiving any merit in other countries for its splendid revolutionary work.
Also note that the B.S.P. is affiliated to the reactionary Labour Party.—Trans.]
- ↑ A Greek who in the year 356 B.C. set fire to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Asia Minor, to gain notoriety.—Trans.
- ↑ What happened before the historical voting of the 4th of August is very characteristic. The official party covered the incident with the veil of hypocricy, saying that the majority had decided to vote and had voted unanimously for the credits. But in the paper, Die Internationale, Stroebel exposed this hypocricy and stated the truth. In the S.D. party there were two groups, which both came with their ultimata ready, that is to say, with fractional or dissenting decisions. One group, the opportunists, comprising about 30 men, decided to vote for the credits come what may; the other group-those of the Left, comprising about 15 men—had decided, but less resolutely, to vote against the credits. When the Centre, or the "Swamp." which has no firm position, sided with the opportunists those of the Left suffered a crushing defeat and … submitted! Unity in German Social-Democracy is a hollow sham which in practice inevitably means submission to opportunist ultimata.