Karl Kautsky on Socialism and Trade Unionism. (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Annual Congress of the German Socialists held during the last week of September, the most important questions discussed were the “Relations of the Socialist Party to the Trade Unions,” and “The Political General Strike.” The Executive and General Councils of the Party submitted a resolution (introduced by Bebel) which was drawn up so as to fully satisfy those elements in the Trade Unions and the Socialist Party that believed in the Trade Unions having a free hand in their actions, while being expected to co-operate with each other when mutually deemed practicable and advantageous.

Kantsky and 32 other comrades moved as an amendment the, following addition : —

“In order, however, to insure on the part of the Trade Unions together with the Party uniformity of thought and action, which is an indispensable condition for the victorious progress of the class-struggle of the Proletariat, it is absolutely necessary that the Trade-Unions be dominated by the spirit of Socialism. It is therefore the duty of every member of the Party to act in this sense within the Trade Unions, and to consider himself bound by the resolutions of the Party Congresses in his actions in Trade Unions as well as in all others of a public character. This is demanded in the interest of the Trade Union movement itself, as the Socialist movement is the highest and most far-reaching form of the class-struggle of the proletariat, and no working-class organisation, no working-class movement can completely accomplish its aims unless it is permeated by the spirit of Socialism.”

In support of the foregoing amendment Kautsky said :

“As to our proposed addendum, which the Executive decline to support, I must confess that their action has disappointed me very much. I thought that in that addition we said nothing that should not be self-understood by every comrade, and that one cannot reject what is self-understood. I believe that this resolution is necessarily as a consequence of the resolution justified by Bebel. I consider that resolution to be incomplete. If our addendum is not accepted what does Bebel’s resolution say ? It recognises that it is necessary to take, from time to time, action together with the Trade Unions. I am fully convinced that the joint action of the Party and the Trade Unions must he the future form of action. Bebel recognises that the form of future action must be that the functionaries of the Trade Unions in every case arrive at an understanding. But here the resolution ends. Yet here only begins the difficulty. Then the question arises, what happens if such understanding is not come to? The reply is very simple. If it does not come to an understanding, it does not come to action. How can we come to action ? Our own Party has, the larger it has grown, become in a certain sense an awkward apparatus. It is not easy to bring new ideas into that apparatus. And should the case arise that the Trade Unions are wanting a rest, what prospects would there open up before us by the Trade Unions hanging on as a brake to the already so awkward party organisation. And just because we recognise that we have in each case to co-operate with the ‘Trade Unions it becomes necessary for us to see to it that the Trade Unions should he composed of such elements as to ever make it impossible for these Unions to act as brakes upon the Party. And therefore it is the duty of the Party to deal with the Trade Unions in such a way as to prevent them from hampering the Party. That that should he done in the interest of the Party requires no explanation. The question, however, may be raised—and I believe that is the reason for opposing our addendum whether the Trade Unions would not suffer by this joint action : whether the Socialist propaganda would do harm to the Trade-Unions? I am of the opinion that, the Trade Unions would lose nothing but on the contrary that they would profit by such action, because they would thereby be enabled to accomplish their great task. And now only I come to the point I was really anxious to make clear. It is the question whether it would be detrimental to the Trade Unions if they acted in the spirit of Socialism, I deny its being detrimental. Upon what are based the powers of the Trade Unions to attract members ? Firstly, upon their system of mutual benefits and, secondly upon the character of a fighting organisation. Now the system of mutual benefits is such as to limit the power of the Trade Unions to attract members very considerably. By the offer of mutual benefits the Trade Unions reach but a small circle of the workers. That is proved by the position of Trade Unions in England. The benefits granted, the amount fixed for the same, and those for contributions, depend upon the wages of the contributors. The greater the amounts of benefit granted the more the Trade Unions get confined to such of the workers as may receive high wages. That is proved by the Trade Unions in England, which for the last ten years have been in a state of stagnation while the membership of the German Trade Unions has increased by leaps and bounds.

And why is that? The English workers themselves have recognised that. They have themselves said that the English Trade Unions are decaying because they have not the Socialists which should imbue them with the Socialist spirit. What is the difference between the English working-class movement and the German ? The English working-class movement has the benefit system much better organised than the German workers have, because there is no State Insurance in England, and in spite of the superior benefit system the English Trade Unions are in a state of stagnation. In England we have the neutrality of the Trade Unions, they are lacking Socialist principles and that proves that, it is Socialism which has caused the progress of the German Trade Unions. Socialists have founded the German Trade Unions, Socialists are its administrators, and it is the Socialists who have imparted to these Unions the vigour they possess. No party in Germany commands such respect as the Socialist Party. The German Socialist Party is the representative of all the exploited—of all men and women who are up in arms against the present system of exploitation. And the free Trade Unions may show themselves ever so free and neutral, yet they are regarded by the mass of the people to he Socialist. That is fortunate for the Free Trade Unions, for the entire confidence which the mass of the people bestow upon the Socialist Party they also place in the Trade Unions and that constitutes the main strength of the Trade Unions. If we push that more in the future we shall only increase the power of attraction of the Trade Unions. With the power of attraction is closely related the Party discipline. If we create a class of comrades for whom that discipline does not exist: we only weaken what is the strongest lever of the class-struggle of the proletariat, which is the greatest help to the Trade Unions themselves. We must under all conditions insist upon Party discipline. The Trade Unions will not fare badly upon observing it. The Socialist Party has never passed a Resolution which has injured the Trade Unions or hampered their agitation. After all only such affairs come here into question which enter the sphere of the Trade Unions as well as that of the Party ; but if once the case should arise that the Trade Unions should feel themselves injured in their own sphere by a Resolution of the Party, that could only be if the Trade Unions place the particular interests of their members higher than the common interest, and then we should so much more insist upon the common interest being placed higher and that it should prevail. I point to France where for a time a number of comrades were permitted to stand outside Party discipline. When Millerand became Cabinet Minister it was declared :— A Cabinet Minister acts under such peculiar conditions that he stands outside Party discipline. That created the category of a comrade on leave for whom the Party discipline does not exist. And soon, also, the members of Parliament took a fancy to that position. They, too, were averse to standing under Party discipline. Finally, also, their constituents declared that there was no need for themselves being obedient to discipline with the result that the solidarity of the Party was with the greatest difficulty sustained by various amputations and by the expulsion of 18 members of Parliament from the Party. This example should be a warning to us. We must under no circumstances permit that a special class of comrades be created who are given a discipline of their own. I admit that a comrade who is at the same time a Trade Unionist may experience a serious conflict of conscience ; but we want to make that impossible by seeing to it that Party and Trade Unions, Party Congress and Trade Union Congress may equally be possessed of the Socialist spirit. What my addendum demands is already being practised in Germany in a number of towns where the members of the Party are zealously active in the Trade Unions as for instance in Hamburg and just there the relations are most harmonious. There the Party as well as the Trade Unions thrive. The addendum contains by no means a declaration of war against the Trade Unions, on the contrary it aims at creating a basis upon which alone successful and uniform action of the Party and Trade Unions together could be made possible.”

Evolution and Revolution. (1905)

From the July 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “New Method” is evolutionist. The “New Method” is reformist. The “New Method” stands above all for legality. In order to fully understand it in all its beauty, in all its power, we must first study its conceptions of evolution, reform, and legal revolution. Let us proceed in this order and commence with evolution.

The partisans of the “New Method”, quite honestly, without doubt, put certain stupidities into the mouths of revolutionists, which naturally appear to them quite in order. The revolutionists, they say, believe that the social revolution will be the result of a coup, a struggle with the police, or, better, to employ the favourite expression of (is it necessary to name the minister?) “the stroke of a magic wand”. The revolutionists are travestied as social magicians or miracle-workers; and the realists of state Socialism — in theory very idealist — never miss an occasion of showing their sovereign contempt for these dreamers of impossible catastrophes. They alone are in complete agreement with modern science, founded on the principle of evolution. The revolutionists are romanticists, Utopians. Has not Bernstein himself said that Marx even was but a common Blanquist?

What is the truth?

Let us first point out that all the great masters of contemporary Socialism, those very men who introduced into it the idea of evolution, and who have in some measure saturated the spirits of man with their ideas, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Ferdinand Lassalle, Peter Lavroff, were throughout their entire lives convinced revolutionists. It is an incontrovertible fact, and we will prove it.

The social work of Marx has been compared with that of Darwin in the domain of Nature. In fact, his classic work, the "Manifesto," which alone perhaps, of all books of our time, contains in a small space (some thirty pages) so many great and fertile ideas, develops quite a system of evolution in capitalist society. In the "Manifesto" we see Socialism burst forth, as the very consequence of things, from the very entrails of capitalist society. It is capitalism itself which fashions its own “grave-digger”, the proletariat organised as a class party.

The Manifesto concludes with the ultra-revolutionary declaration which follows:

  “The communists consider it beneath them to cloak their ideas and designs. They declare openly that their end cannot be realised but by the violent destruction of the existing social order. Let the ruling classes tremble before a communist revolution. The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to gain”.

Here we are very far from the theory “take care to make fear” (“Ayons peur de faire peur”) which has conducted its author to the ministry of commerce. Yet, Marx put to flight all the miracle-workers, all the manufacturers of little projects put forward as so many panaceas guaranteed to save society from the misery of capitalism. It is true that he had not foreseen the project for the participation of socialists in the central power of the bourgeois state, which renders the revolution altogether unnecessary, and, above all, dangerous. A revolutionary party which does not inspire its adversaries with fear is ripe for government. But, it will never “conquer the world”.

The idealist, Peter Lavroff, was in complete agreement with Marx, the materialist, on the question of violent revolution. Throughout all his glorious life he preached the Revolution in the name of reason, “justice and humanity”. He sought to establish scientifically that “every Socialist who thinks logically must be a revolutionist”. And he always added that the Revolution cannot be brought about without violence. Peter Lavroff introduced scientific philosophy into Russia, thus contributing more than anyone else to the overthrow of metaphysical and theological ideas in his country. He was the sworn enemy of miracles, and understood the miracle of social transformation by the word participation.

The partisans of legality are often pleased to quote a Preface of Engels where he traces a magnificent picture of the growth of the Socialist Party during the legal period. But the rascals forget to add that Engels himself protested against the publication, declaring that his ideas had been falsified through the omission of a conclusion containing an affirmation thoroughly revolutionist.

The statement of Marx is likewise invoked, that in England the Revolution could be achieved pacifically and legally. In his preface to the English translation of Capital, Engels, on including the words of his great friend, wrote: “But he never omitted to mention that he doubted very much if the ruling classes in England would ever accede to a pacific and legal revolution” (Capital. Introduction. 1887). Otherwise stated: the revolution will be superfluous if the dominant classes are in humour for committing suicide. It is perfectly evident that Marx, who thoroughly understood the economic condition of England, wished to say nothing more than that all the material and technical conditions were at hand.

In order to accomplish the Revolution nothing was wanted but the revolutionary lever. “Force is the midwife of every new society”. The pains and violence of birth cannot be overlooked on the grounds that the embryo should be allowed to develop in an easy and regular manner. One might as well overlook volcanic eruptions on considering that modern geology has abandoned the catastrophic theory of the formation of the earth. The new-born will develop pacifically, “legally”, but he comes into being revolutionary. The subterranean forces accumulate slowly, invisibly, but once arrived at a certain degree of intensity, they explode. “Revolutions in history are as necessary as tempests in nature”, writes Malon, whom our good evolutionists do not qualify as “sectary”. In truth, this class of “tempest” does not agree with ministerial combinations. But, since when do the phenomena of nature and history rest on the decrees of ministers, being “out of control”.

In 1887 at the Congress of Saint-Gall, Bebel, who of course is nothing but a romantic dreamer, declared:

“He who says that the final end of Socialism will be realised in a pacific manner does not know the final end, or, mocks us”.

Further. It is only during its scientific period that, based on the principle of evolution, Socialism becomes revolutionary. The great Utopians, Fourier, Owen, Saint-Simon were pacific in their methods. They preached the social transformation to make the “revolution” needless.

It was exactly at the time that the social reformers addressed the monarchs, assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, soliciting their “Collaboration” in social reform in the name of “social conservation”. That was also the good old time when the noble dreamer Fourier used to look daily for his “millionaire”, pacific redeemer of suffering humanity.

The triumph of the truly realistic spirit was at the same time that of the revolutionary spirit. None but empiric minds who see no farther than the tips of their noses or who have some interest in cloaking historic truth, believe that revolution is contrary to evolution of which it is, in reality, only the fatal and irresistible outcome. Thus, the Utopian period of Socialism was pacific. The scientific period adopts revolutionary tactics.

Ferdinand Lassalle, who was the promoter of universal suffrage in Germany, a man of immediate action and pacific par excellence, recognised the revolution as a means of achieving any serious reform. He pointed out that many great reforms were brought about only by revolution. For him, as well as for every modern Socialist, revolution is but a moment, a period of crisis in the “normal” evolution of society, an evolution which comes to a head.

The abyss which our ministerialists seek to find between evolution and revolution under its sudden and violent form exists but in their imagination. But there exists an insuperable abyss between revolution and ministerialism.

Translated from the French of Charles Rappoport by P. J. Tobin

A Brief Exposition of Socialist Theory. (Continued.) (1920)

From the September 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 4.

In the last article we pointed out that the modern class struggle has been fought out for years in a vague sort of way. The bulk of those who took part in it aimed merely at higher wages and improved conditions of labour, but, in spite of their activities in the struggle, there has been a steady downward tendency in the life conditions of the workers. In other words the workers have steadily lost ground in the fight.

Poverty is more wide-spread now than formerly: the dividing line between capitalist and wage-worker is more clearly defined; the former class is narrowing while the latter is broadening; and finally there is almost as much chance now-a-days for a worker to push his way into the ranks of the capitalists as there is for the biblical camel to get through the eye of the biblical needle. Even the status of the self-styled Intellectuals (technical experts, managers, writers, and so on) is declining and they are becoming as plentiful as potatoes—and commanding a corresponding price.

In spite of continual defeats, however, the economic struggle over working conditions has been fruitful. It is steadily driving the mass of the workers nearer and nearer to recognising that the way out of their troubles lies in abolishing the cause of wage slavery instead of tinkering with effects ; and that way lies on the political field in the struggle for the possession of political power.

From the point of view of fighting economically the workers possess no power except that of causing temporary dislocation of production. Any dislocation in production that lasted long enough to be serious would compel the workers to succumb first as they would feel the pinch first and most acutely. They only way they could win would be to carry the matter to its uttermost extremity by starving to death— committing suicide.

The long history of trade union activity is accompanied by the history of the steady worsening of the lot of the worker. This does not mean that the worker should abandon the fight to sell his labour-power to the best advantage. As Marx has so clearly demonstrated in “Value, Price and Profit,” such inaction would be suicidal. The tendency of capitalism is to reduce the worker to the state of a coolie, and though, in the economic struggle, this downward tendency cannot be prevented, the speed of the process is retarded—the standard of living is lowered less rapidly. Above all, the worker who is not prepared to fight for the best bread and margarine he can obtain makes poor material to fight for Socialism.

As the workers get nearer to a knowledge of their position they recognise more clearly the extent and the limitations of economic action, and consequently wage this part of the struggle more effectively.

To understand the class struggle it is necessary to distinguish clearly between the two forms in which it is manifested: the narrow, limited (though necessary) fight about the conditions under which labour-power is sold, and the revolutionary political fight for the abolition of the wages system.

All historical classes that have attained social supremacy (including the Bolsheviks) have done so by virtue of the fact that they have obtained control of the political power at the disposal of society.

In the past, before the State power had undergone the development that made it such an admirable repressive weapon, it was essential for the would-be dominant class to obtain possession of the political power before such class could become the ruling class. Now that the State has reached such perfection it is even more essential than ever to obtain control of the powers of government.

In his study of the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War entitled “The Civil War in France,” Marx gives a picture of the development of the State since the revolutions that raised the capitalists to power. The following from this description is illuminating :

  At the same pace at which the progress of modern industry developed, widened, intensified the class-antagonism between capital and labour, the State power assumed more and more the character of the national power of capital over labour, of a public force organised for social enslavement, of an engine of class despotism. After every revolution marking a progressive phase in the class struggle, the purely repressive character of of the State power stands out in bolder and bolder relief. (P. 40, Kerr edition.)

This State power (represented by the army, police, judicial machinery, etc.), now in the hands of the employing class, is used to crush any attempts on the part of the workers to secure better conditions by means of violence, and also to bring the easy-going natives in non-developed countries abroad within the pale of wage-slavery. It is the power that renders futile any attempt of the workers to disrupt present society or obtain any radical alteration in their conditions unless, as a preliminary step, they obtain control of it. So long as this power is monopolised by the master class they hold the key to the position, and can keep the chains of wage slavery firmly riveted on the workers,

Hence the revolutionary side of the workers’ activities must take the line of removing this repressive power from the hands of the masters. The means to accomplish this end lie to hand.

Unfortunately for our rulers, as they become further and further removed from active participation in productive operations, abdicating from one after another of their useful functions and cultivating an inveterate idleness, so they become less and less able to keep their society in working order without conceding a greater and greater measure of participation in political action to the workers. As capitalist society became more complicated and unwieldy, the capitalist class had to ascertain the social needs by conceding to the mass of society a greater opportunity to express itself. But this was, at the same time, digging the grave of capitalism. The franchise was not extended to the workers merely because they struggled for it; in reality the capitalists needed the aid of the workers to save their system from chaos.

To-day the State power is controlled directly by and through Parliament. Parliamentary candidates are elected and the workers form the great majority of the electors. Consequently when they wish to do so they can obtain control of the state power by sending delegates to Parliament for that specific purpose.

Apropos of Lenin and his would-be imitators it is well to note that the workers could not “smash up” the State without first obtaining control of it. Guns can’t be smashed with bladders of wind !

The line of action to be taken by the workers in the struggle for emancipation is to organise for the purpose of conquering political power. In this struggle it must be borne in mind that, as the aim of the working class party is directly antagonistic to capitalism, no help (except what is given unintentionally) will be forthcoming from the enemy—the capitalists. Consequently the working-class party must avoid compromise and political bargains as it would the plague. It must be a revolutionary, and not a reform, party.

To take part in compromise is to admit that there is a common standing ground between the opposing hosts, in other words, that capitalists can. go some of the way with us. Capitalism, however, has reached its highest point of progress in the development of the productive powers to their present extraordinary pitch. It has now become a fetter upon production and is in the crumbling stage as the growing misery of the mass of the population testify. It has ceased to be revolutionary and is now reactionary. This point will be developed further in another part of this investigation.

A party that advocates reforms leads the workers, in the first place, to waste time and energy chasing shadows, and, in the second place, to place reliance upon, and power in the hands of one or other leading personality interested either in some particular type of reform or in feathering his nest.

The only method of fighting the class struggle politically with any hope of success is to aim straight at the control of political power for the purpose of ushering in Socialism, organising solely for that purpose, avoiding all blind alleys and compromises, no matter in what fine raiment of glowing phraseology they may be clothed. ”Compromise is virtual death.” “Expediency,” happy word ! has been used from early days to cover the blackest acts of treachery and trickery recorded in history, and is the corner stone of the parties of so-called “practical politicians” who are fishing for working-class support at the present time.

In the political arena at the present day there moves an individual who owes his position to a political bargain around which much discussion rage a number of years ago. We refer to M. Millerand, the French Premier and very useful tool of the French capitalists. His entrance into a capitalist government (where he sat as an “honourable friend” beside Gallifet, the butcher of the Communards) was greeted as a great victory by the Labour Movement of the time. His subsequent activities have illustrated how hollow are the “victories” obtained by compromise.

To sum up, the class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class intensifies year by year. Its only solution lies in the political victory of the working class, the overthrow of the foundations of existing society and the introduction of Socialism. This victory can only be secured by the workers understanding their class position and organising into an uncompromising, class-conscious political organisation for the purpose of taking out of the hands of the capitalists the power with which they hold the mass of society in subjection.

Gilmac.

(To be continued.)

Bebel’s Answer to Jaurès on “Political Tactics”. (1904)

From the September 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

International Socialist Congress 1904

(Translated from El Heraldo de Madrid, by P. J. Tobin)

When the German Social-Democracy discussed at the Dresden Congress the proposition that is being now debated, nobody thought of bringing it before the International Congress. Nevertheless I am pleased that the Parti Socialiste de France have submitted it to the consideration of the bodies which form the great International Socialist Party, because, contrary to the opinion of Jaurès, this proposition is applicable, in the same manner as it is to Germany, to Belgium, France, Holland, and all other countries.

When Kautsky and Singer drew up the Dresden proposition they took into consideration not alone the conditions under which things exist in Germany, but also certain circumstances that are inseparable from the social ambient created by the system of capitalist production in all the countries where it reigns.

Jaurès pretends that there is such an enormous difference between Germany and France that it is absolutely impossible that an International Congress could adopt rules of Socialist conduct practised with success in one of these nations so as to apply them to the other. Jaurès suffers from a sad error, because although there are differences between France and Germany, they are not so great as he supposes.

I must point out that in the treatment of this question I do not consider it from a particular standpoint which the country where I live supplies me with, but from a general standpoint. All nations may see themselves very soon attacked by this illness that we want to put an end to now, Switzerland as Holland—

Troelstra (Holland): We are not ill.

Bebel: You are not, but you could be so tomorrow, and it is necessary to avoid this happening.

Two perfectly defined tendencies exist in the German Social-Democracy. The two were discussed in the Dresden Congress, and afterwards the proletariat decided in favour of that one which it considered as having best hit the mark. Once the subject was resolved upon, nobody has been found wanting in respect to what was agreed, nobody has produced disagreements in our great party. In France the situation is very different; between Socialists there are serious disputes which do not exist in Germany.

Jaurès admits, like ourselves, the class war, and considers its antagonisms as irreducible; but he also believes that the proletariat ought to work with the radical elements of the middle class, to ensure its own emancipation, if these elements lend themselves to help them in their struggle for liberty. These words of Jaurès enclose a censure for those who do not march in unison with the so-called “progressive” forces of the middle-class, since we spurn a means of serving the cause of the proletariat.

The censure is not just; we avail ourselves of all means for bettering the condition of our comrades the workers. We do not spurn reforms; but what we do refuse, and that in the most explicit manner, is the coming to an agreement with any faction whatsoever of the middle-class, no matter by what name it may go. An agreement of this kind cannot be of any other consequence than to make Socialism responsible for the oppression which the capitalists exercise over the masses of the working-class. Besides, this agreement would give rise to an error that being persevered in by the workers, would lead them to abandon the saving camp of Socialism to throw themselves with closed eyes into the abyss of anarchism. The policy adopted by the French Socialist Party has had two effects: to throw from its bosom the best elements for the fight, the most self-denying, and give entrance to those who accept the attitude of this party in relation to the Minister Combes in order to reach high political posts. As you see, the results of the Revisionists’ policy could not be more disastrous.

In the most flourishing period of French Ministerial Socialism, France has given spectacles which incite the passions of all those who feel the flame of Socialism burning in their breasts. Millerand, the Socialist Millerand, who received, as the most correct of courtiers, during his occupation of the Ministry, kings and queens visiting Paris on the occasion of the Exhibition of 1900, did not remember that an international Socialist Congress was about to be held at approximately the same date; more, he consented that the free exercise of the right to public demonstration should be denied the Socialists, a thing that was permitted to them in 1889. Strange paradox. The Liberal Ministry of Waldeck-Rousseau did not permit in 1900 the exercise of an individual right which the Conservative Ministry that ruled France in 1889 authorised! I cannot understand [with great indignation] how all the delegates did not uprise possessed of the same anger, to protest against the cynicism of those governors that call themselves “democratic”—

Adler (Austria): If you refer to what occurred in the Père-Lechaise demonstration, I must state that the Congress had already concluded its tasks.

Bebel: That is true, but it does not matter; the delegates who were still in Paris and the French Socialist Party ought to have formulated that protest.

Jaurès, in order to explain his reasoning on the diversity of proceedings that should be applied in France and in Germany, tells us Germans: You cannot compare your situation with ours. You live under an Imperialist regime, while the regime to which we are subject is the Republican. The observation is correct. We must confess that did it depend on us, the Imperial Government of Germany would not have another instant of life. But this does not justify the attitude of the Ministerial Socialists, because the proceedings of the French Republic are so dull and arbitrary that I find myself in the sad necessity of becoming an advocate of the Monarchy.

In Germany we have liberty of union and of association, which the Authority respects. In our strikes armed force never intervenes. On the other hand, in France the liberty of union and association is constantly being trampled upon, and in all strikes, and under any pretext whatever, the Government sends infantry, cavalry, and even artillery to the field of action. Now, before this conduct which shows how great is middle-class precocity, I ask Jaurès: How is it possible to explain that a Government which proceeds in this manner has included amongst its number an individual Socialist, and now has the aid of a Parliamentary minority?

The exterior clothing with which the Monarchy clothes itself does not hide its pretensions. At first sight all of us know what a Government of the capitalist class symbolises. Nevertheless, sometimes conscience pricks, and abandoning being logical with itself, realises acts of justice to the workers, which injure the masters.

The bourgeois Republic decks itself out in raiment which cajoles the masses, lulls them with fine words, makes them promises which are on the lips but not in the heart, and this acts so that later, when workmen are assassinated in Châlons-sur-Marne, in France; in Colorado of the USA; or in Vale, of Switzerland, the cynicism, the shamelessness and criminality of these actions appear in greater relief. As you can observe, there is not the difference that Jaurès establishes between the Monarchy and the Republic. And this, I say, in reference to the economic system, takes place as well with militarism, clericalism, and other problems.

After acts such as those I have related do not be astonished that I deduce that there is an absolute incompatibility of the office of Minister to a capitalist government with the character of a militant socialist.

The force of working-class emancipation has taken root in the class-consciousness that the workers possess. I remember very well when on a certain occasion Marx and Engels were asked how was it that England being a country where industry was so developed and having so liberal and progressive a Government, how was it that under such conditions Socialism was so little evolved? They answered that the English middle-class was so astute and intelligent, that they had arranged everything so that historic and social acts were mystified, introducing confusion and division into the ranks of the working-class.

I think it to be my duty to affirm that in questions of greater importance, in those of more interest for public life and national prosperity, Germany has nothing to envy France; on the contrary, in what concerns the navy and colonial question, etc which affect the productive classes in so great a manner, France has made no concession whatever, and in Germany, yes. Further, in the fiscal system, the income tax in Prussia is an ideal compared with what exists in France.

Although it may appear strange, on account of what is now going on in France, the capitalists will never destroy clericalism, because it is an arm which in crucial moments can be used against the workers. I agree and applaud the work now being accomplished in France, but it must not be forgotten that in thirty years’ time nothing worthy of note will have been done in this sense.

If a fight of this nature were undertaken tomorrow in our country we would assist with vigour, but we would take good care not to contract any compromise that might diminish our independence, and would not abandon the defence of working-class interests, not even in moments when the struggle may be hottest. The Jaurès method is of use only in making anarchists.

It cannot be denied that this Congress is competent to give judgement on the question of tactics. Jaurès himself maintained this opinion when the Kautsky resolution was voted upon at the Congress of 1900. Moreover, if we can discuss protection and free-trade, the general strike, etc, why cannot we treat of tactics?

With respect to the design which guides us in asking that the Dresden Proposition be voted upon, everyone who knows us will say what is true, that we do not attempt to whimsically impose an opinion, but to give an advice, to furnish a rule of conduct that is the outcome of thirty-six years of experience.

Tactics may be modified, but the idea will never disappear which inspires the Dresden Resolution, an idea that the proletarian will never abandon, because it is the only one capable of carrying it to the close of its day’s labour—the expropriation of the dominant class.