Left road to . . . nowhere (1977)

From the August 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The IMG, CP, SWP, the WRP and the rest of the motley odds and ends of the so-called “left” have much in common. None of them has anything to do with Socialism and they all cherish the illusion that, by taking up every transient issue produced by capitalism and submerging themselves in the day-to-day incidents of the system, they are fighting the class struggle. Capitalism obligingly swamps them with an endless deluge of such issues and, armed with their bottomless buckets called “immediate demands”, or reforms, they attempt to empty the oceans.

If they would look at the history of Labour and Social Democratic parties in Britain and Europe, they would see that the path of the “day-to-day struggle” is in fact a blind alley. It is the pathway to despair and apathy, littered with discarded slogans and forgotten causes. Capitalism produced crises and unemployment a century ago, when the Social Democrats first set out on the rotten road of reformism, and to-day still creates world-wide unemployment, social turmoil and commercial conflict. During those hundred years the productive powers of society have not only multiplied and spread over most of the earth, they have undergone continuous technological refinement through the application of scientific knowledge. With the capacity for abundance ever extending, capitalism with its market economy, class ownership and profit motivation, continues as always to generate crises, poverty, starvation and wars. Within the framework of the wage-labour-and-capital relations of production there can be no other outcome.

This is the simple lesson which the IMG, SWP and CP etc. find so hard to learn. They throw themselves mindlessly into the morass, as though reforms had just been invented. They do untold damage to the cause of Socialism by fraudulently calling their latest catch-phrase a “socialist” policy and helping to sustain the myth that nationalization is a Socialist idea. The manifest failure of a century of reforms and nationalization to alter the fundamentally subject position of the working class or to solve a single major social problem, seems never to register on their muddled minds. The exploitation of wage-labour by state or private capital remains the foundation upon which all the outrages and contradictions are built, yet the reformist left resolutely pursue the effects and ignore the cause. Theirs is a thoroughly irrational and unscientific approach. They cling to failed and futile methods, treasuring above all else their slogans and illusions.

For young workers to be ensnared and waste their precious lives chasing the elusive will-o’-the-wisp nostrums of these groups is a great tragedy. To the extent that they syphon off the discontent and unrest which workers naturally feel towards the conditions of capitalism and channel it up the cul-de-sac of “demonstrations anonymous” and “dial-a-slogan”, they help draw the sting of workers’ resentments and thereby to prolong capitalism.

Limited objectives do not lead to an ever-widening circle of more ambitious demands. They lead to more and more limited objectives, to frustration, disillusionment and apathy.

The task of doctoring the daily ills and woes of capitalism is one for those who believe that the worst effects of the system can be mitigated without removing the system. This is the classic assumption of all political parties with limited objectives. Socialists hold the opposite view; that running capitalism is for the capitalists and supporters of capitalism. A Socialist, by definition, is one who seeks as the immediate issue the removal of the system, precisely because only Socialism can end the social problems engendered by it.

Whether the irony of their situation ever strikes the various leftist groups is hard to say; they never get a look-in at running capitalism, they act in a purely advisory capacity. They do much of the donkey work of drumming-up support, sounding out the latest bellyache, keeping the pot boiling and counselling the major parties as to what promises it might be wise to make at the next election. Then, without so much as a “thank you”, those parties incorporate the latest whims into their programmes and the plums of office go to them. This has been the end result of all their frothing and fuming about Women’s Lib, abortion, equal pay and workers’ control. Whether the actual legislation reflects the muddled aspirations of the agitators, and whether the carrying into practice of such legislation meets what was hoped for, are other matters. The workers have been placated and another battle won—for capitalism. Exactly the opposite result of what the agitators claimed was their purpose. So it has been, over the whole spectrum of reforms. The pitfalls, loopholes and snags that were “unforeseen” last time will be good for another ride on the merry-go-round and waste another decade by prolonging capitalism.

It is at least possible that some of the propaganda pundits of the ruling class are aware of the entirely tame and harmless nature of the leftists, but see an advantage in playing them up as wild and dangerous elements. Clearly, if the media openly embraced them as kindred spirits of the ruling class, it might tip the workers off and impel them to examine their own interest more carefully. A villain is a good thing to have around. He is a knock-about fellow that nobody likes and a very useful scapegoat. The skilful use of newspapers, radio and TV can convince a lot of people that strikes are never really warranted; there are no real grievances, it is the lefties making trouble, costing “the country” money and losing the company business. Those sensationalist rags published by the Left with their countless photographs of demo’s and banner-bearing workers, think this is a marvellous and jolly good revolution. Next week or next month another strike and another demo.

They regard the working class as a simple giant that needs taking by the hand and leading into the class struggle. Their concept of the class struggle is whatever miscellaneous issues happen to be floating at any given time. The fact that they apply themselves to this unending profusion of issues, with no apparent result, does not prompt them to re-examine their assumption. They airily dismiss the Socialist case that only the direct propagating of Socialist ideas is relevant to the struggle for Socialism. The crystallizing of class-consciousness in the minds of workers means articulating the need to abolish the wages system and the class society of capitalism itself. Class-consciousness involves organized political action with the single aim of making the means of production and distribution the common property of society, this, necessarily on a world-wide basis.

Political action for Socialism means the complete abandonment of reformism. The two ends. Socialism and reforms, are irreconcilable opposites. It is political action to secure reforms which has led to the discrediting of Parliament as a means of changing society. Logic is not the strong point of leftist opponents of Parliamentary action. They have been guilty of advocating the use of Parliament for a task which is impossible, namely the passing of reforms to solve capitalism’s inherent problems. Then, in their folly, they blame the machine for their lack of knowledge as to its real use for workers. Parliament has never been used by a conscious working class to get rid of capitalism. Only the SPGB, from its inception, has argued the need to use Parliament in this way.

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels elaborate the lesson from history in the principle “that all class struggles are political”. The working class of the world cannot end the political power of the capitalist class without gaining control of the centres of political power themselves. What is at issue is the ownership of all the means of production. This cannot be settled at the factory gate by industrial action and it cannot be settled on the street from behind barricades. These methods leave the coercive state in the hands of the capitalist class and can only lead to anarchy and defeat. It is quite absurd to pretend, as leftists do, that millions of workers will carry on a violent struggle against the state and sacrifice life and limb, but will be unwilling to co-operate in the democratic process of voting. The advocates of “direct action” never expect a majority of workers to understand their position and act rationally. It is only desperate minorities without the backing of Socialist ideas who see revolution in terms of barricades and blood. Socialism is not possible without majority understanding.

Leftist methods are alien to the Socialist objective. The argument that members of the armed forces, police and civil service would side with the capitalists only weakens their already very feeble case. Control over these state agencies is in the hands of the majority party in Parliament. If a violent minority challenge the state, the coercive machine will act under the orders of those voted into power. It will be seen to be doing the will of the majority. Any violent minority would be seen to be acting against a great consensus. They could not win. While a majority of workers support capitalism (as now), their attitudes are reflected, in the armed forces and police. The personnel in these outfits, apart from a few wealthy professionals, are members of the working class. Their families, parents and friends are also members of the working class; they cannot be isolated from the general ideas of society. When millions of workers are opting for Socialism, every section of society will reflect their attitudes and ideas.

As a self-styled vanguard, the left reject the ballot-box because they are contemptuous of those they expect to blindly follow them and whose blood they would shed to gain power themselves. The SPGB has been patiently explaining Socialist principles since 1904; leftists are still groping in the dark. 

Harry Baldwin

Correspondence: The Ballot or the Barricade? (1928)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent writes asking questions as to the need for the Socialist movement to make use of methods of violence. Here is his letter :—

East Street, S.E.

To the Editor, Socialist Standard.

I wish to put some questions to the S.P.G.B., and hope you will answer them in an early issue of the S.S., as there are several sympathisers of the S.P.G.B. resident in Bermondsey who await your reply with considerable interest. Now, for my questions.

1. You say in your “Declaration of Principles” that the S.P.G.B. is out to conquer Political Power, etc. Now, as the Party disavows “Violent methods,” how are you going to do it?

It seems to me, that by this disavowal the Party cannot claim to be “Revolutionary” in any sense of the word, nor Marxian, either. Marx, in his “Address to the Communist League,” insists that the workers “must prepare for the bloody struggles that lie ahead of them.” Engels also says much the same in his “Revolutionary Tactics.” Lenin, in his “State and Revolution,” page 25, says, “We have already said above, and shall show more fully at a later stage that the teaching of Marx and Engels regarding the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the Capitalist State—it can not be replaced by the Proletarian State (the Dictatorship of the Proletariat) through mere withering away, but, in accordance with the general rule, can only be brought about by a violent revolution.” See also “Hymn of Praise” sung in its honour by Engels, and fully corresponding to the repeated declarations of Marx, in the concluding passages of the “Poverty of Philosophy” and the “Communist Manifesto” with its proud and open declarations of the inevitability of a violent revolution. Lenin, himself, said, “The substitution of a Proletarian State for the Capitalist State is impossible without a violent revolution.” (Page 26 Ibid.)

2. My own point of view is as follows : Assuming that the whole of the working-class voted the Socialists into “Office” or “Power,” it is in the power of the oligarchy to refuse to let the workers’ Socialist representatives take their “seats,” and declare their election to have been gained by fraud, etc. Assuming this to have taken place, the Socialists could only contest the legality of the election in the Courts. The Courts being dominated by capitalists the result would be a “foregone conclusion,” the workers would then have to appeal to force of arms.

3. As the S.P.G.B. has opened an Election Fund, with all that is implied by Election Funds, how is this going to bring about a speedy termination to the present system of exploitation? I have written this under the impression that although anti-Socialist papers like the “Herald,” “Sunday Worker,” and “The Communist,” etc., often ignore letters and criticisms, the Socialist Standard always gives a straight forward reply to relevant questions, etc. 

I remain, Yours faithfully,

Robert Chapman.

Reply:

Is Violence Revolutionary?

It will be seen that our correspondent starts off by assuming that revolution implies violence, and that since we do not advocate violence, therefore we are not revolutionary. This is an assumption which will not bear examination. The Socialist Party aims at changing the foundation of society, at replacing the private ownership of the means of production by common ownership. It is therefore a revolutionary party. Conversely, the use of violent methods to secure minor reforms does not turn a reformist party into a revolutionary one. The use of violence by the suffragettes in pre-war days did not entitle them to be described as revolutionary ; they were not seeking to revolutionise society. The American miners on strike at Herring, Illinois, a few years ago, who used machine guns against the employers’ armed strike breakers, were only resisting a wage decrease; they did not want to overthrow Capitalism, and were not revolutionary.

Violence, What For?

On looking closely into our correspondent’s statements and quotations, we see that he has himself not troubled over much to define precisely what is the object of the methods of violence advocated by him. The Socialist Party lays it down that Socialism pre-supposes the conquest of the powers of government and the conversion of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, from “an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.” We lay it down, further, that the vote is the only means open to the workers in developed Capitalist countries to conquer the powers of government. Mr. Chapman (see paragraph 2 of his letter) says that the workers “have to appeal to force of arms,” but he does not explain what would be the purpose of the appeal to arms. This is a very important point, because, having rejected the possibility of conquering the powers of government by means of the vote, he is forced into the position taken up by the Communists, and illustrated by his quotation from Lenin. That position is the setting up of a “Workers’ State,” based on Soviets, in opposition to the existing State at present under Capitalist control, and the destruction of the latter by the former.

Thus we have the Workers’ Weekly (official organ of the Communist Party) stating that, “The power of the Capitalists must be wrested from them. The workers must set up their own State” (February 24th, 1923); and again, “The workers must destroy the Capitalist State, and set up their own Workers’ State, before they can make any real change” (March 17th, 1923).

Now this doctrine, shared by our correspondent and the Communists, is a piece of impractical and dangerous romanticism. It is not revolutionary. It leads not to Socialism, but to the shambles.

 That it is impractical will be obvious to those who will give it serious consideration, and remember that the conduct of warfare has developed and is developing even faster than industry itself. The Capitalist State has a strongly disciplined regular army, possessed of all the latest, most costly and most highly technical means of destruction. Mr. Chapman talks lightly of the workers “appealing to force of arms.” What arms? Where can the workers get and keep and manoeuvre tanks, bombing planes, poison gas and liquid fire plant? Where is the money with which to buy them ? How could they learn to use them even if they had them? And, above all, will the Capitalist class permit this concentration of hostile forces and implements? It is too fantastic for words. Mr. Chapman himself exposes its colossal unreality. He says the workers would have to appeal to force of arms against the hostile decision of Capitalist courts : does he imagine that these same hostile Capitalist courts would have turned a blind eye on the rebels during the years of preparation for the appeal to force of arms?

Lenin's Inconsistency.

But Lenin on occasion contradicted his own Communist doctrine. Writing in 1916 (reprinted in the Class Struggle, May, 1919), he said :—

“Socialists are willing to utilise the present Government and its institutions in the struggle for the liberation of the working class, and also insist on the necessity of so using the Government in the creation of a suitable transition form from Capitalism to Socialism.“

Lenin’s claim that Marx’s and Engels’ writings give him support in his other doctrine is fantastic. Throughout their works both of them emphasise the necessity of obtaining possession of the State machinery, and point the way to that end through the use of the vote. It is implicit in the Marxian theory.

The Attitude of Marx and Engels. 

Our correspondent refers to certain writings of Marx and Engels. A significant point about the quotations is the dates at which the various passages were written. “The Address to the Communist League” was written by Marx in 1850; “The Poverty of Philosophy” was written by Marx in 1846; and the ‘”Communist Manifesto” in 1847. Of the works referred to, the only one written late in life is “Revolutionary Tactics,” by Engels. This is a preface to Marx’s “Civil War in France,” and was written by Engels in 1895. We will return later to this question of the dates of these works.

Mr. Chapman says that Engels in this preface (Revolutionary Tactics) gives support to the advocacy of violence, but curiously enough our correspondent does not quote any passage to support his claim. This is all the more curious when it is remembered that Engels devotes a large part of his space precisely to this question.

The simple fact is that Engels draws exactly the opposite conclusion, and unhesitatingly condemns armed revolt. It is impossible to avoid the belief that our correspondent made his statement without troubling to verify it from Engels’ writings. Let us see what Engels says in 1895 :—

Engels on the Use of the Vote.

“The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed that the conquest of universal suffrage, of democracy, was one of the first and most important tasks of the fighting proletariat, and Lassalle had raised the issue again. When Bismarck now found it necessary to introduce universal suffrage as the only means of interesting the masses of the people in his designs, our workers were not slow to make a serious use of the opportunity, and they sent August Bebel to the first constituent Reichstag, From that day to this they have utilised the suffrage in a manner which has rewarded them a thousandfold, and been an example to the workers of all other lands. The result of all this was that the bourgeoisie and the Government grew far more afraid of the constitutional than of the unconstitutional activities of the working-class party, and came to dread the results of an election far more than they dreaded the results of a rebellion. For here also the conditions of the struggle had been notably modified. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting and barricades, the methods that had proved universally decisive, down to the year 1848, had in effect become obsolete.“ (Translation by E. & C. Paul in the Plebs, January to April, 1921.)

Engels then goes on to show how the development of the instruments of war and the organisation of the armies had themselves, apart from other factors, utterly destroyed the possibility of armed workers overpowering or demoralising the regular armed forces.

In face of this, our correspondent’s claim is astounding.

Europe in 1918.

Now for the earlier works. Our correspondent refers to “repeated declarations of Marx in the concluding passages of the ‘Poverty of Philosophy’ and the ‘Communist Manifesto.’“ It is surprising and regrettable that he did not give us some of these “repeated declarations.” The “Poverty of Philosophy” does, it is true, end up with the quotation of two flamboyant lines from a poem by George Sand, in which she referred to the choice between “Combat or death; bloody struggle or extinction.” Our correspondent surely does not ask us to read into the selection of a purple passage of this kind to round off a peroration, the intention of Marx to convey a serious general lesson to the workers?

But our correspondent, in selecting these early works, has overlooked the essential point that Liberal and National movements in Europe in 1848 are not a model for a Socialist movement in a fundamentally different Europe in 1928, and, moreover, neither Marx nor Engels, then or thereafter, drew such a conclusion as he fastens on them ; they never omitted to stress the importance of gaining control of the machinery of government, as distinct from destroying it.

Except France and the Rhine Provinces and England, Europe in 1848 was still predominantly feudal. The capitalist class had not yet won their way to political supremacy, and the modern centralised nation-States had not come into being. To the force of Nationalism and Liberalism was added the largely blind discontent of a working-class movement just coming to birth. Marx and Engels thought that it might be possible for the workers to take advantage of the conflict between capitalist Liberals and the absolutist monarchies and their feudal supporters to win away the support of the State troops and rush the revolutionary movements forward to Socialism over the heads of the Capitalist and Nationalist leaders, who, of course, would not want to achieve by their revolt any such a result as that. The justifications for that error of judgment (frankly admitted to be such in later years) were many. Lack of experience led Engels and Marx to underestimate the potentialities of growth and expansion which lay in the Capitalist system. They also counted (not unreasonably at that period) on the possibility of demoralising the State troops by means of barricades and armed street demonstrations. Again, at that time there were not in existence throughout Europe, as there are to-day, either an immense administrative civil service and local government or a stable system of democratic government based on an extended franchise.

Engels, writing in 1895, candidly admits his error (“Revolutionary Tactics“).

“Yet upon us, too, time wrought her revenges, proving illusory the views we then entertained. Nay, history went farther than this, for the march of events served not merely to trample down our errors, but served further to bring about a complete transformation of the conditions in which the proletariat has to fight. The campaigning methods of 1848 are utterly obsolete to-day. . . .“

Engels particularly points out that even before 1848 victory of the armed workers over regular troops was “among the greatest of rarities,” and that by 1895 “there have been many further changes, all in favour of the regular troops.”

Since 1895, and especially since 1914, the position has changed again almost out of all recognition, and such an armed revolt to-day is ludicrous.

The Need to Capture Political Control. 

The “Communist Manifesto” (page 21; Reeves’ edition) says : “We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.”

The “Address to the Communist League,” to which Mr. Chapman also refers, was an address to the German workers dealing with the actual situation facing them in Germany in 1850, and proposing methods of action to be followed before and after the anticipated victory of the German Capitalists over their feudal absolutist enemies. It did not pretend to apply to the working class outside Germany, where different conditions existed, still less to conditions which came into existence during the following 30 or 40 years, and which, as Engels confesses, he and Marx could not, and did not then foresee.

In any event, the phrase which Mr. Chapman claims is a quotation from the Address is not to be found in the text taken from Max Beer’s ”Inquiry into Dictatorship,” and published in the “Labour Monthly” (September, 1922).

Marx urges the workers to obtain arms and organise independently of the capitalist liberals before and during the struggles which were expected to give the capitalists supremacy, but for the period “after those struggles, during the time of their ascendancy over the defeated classes and the proletariat” he lays down definite plans for contesting elections and running workers’ candidates in opposition to the democrats, and “for whose success all must work with every possible means.” He deals further with the policy to be followed by the workers with reference to the budget and other parliamentary work. In this section Marx made no mention whatever of an armed struggle by the workers.

Marx on the Franchise. 

If further evidence is needed of the value placed by Marx upon the use of the vote for the conquest of power, we have only to remember how he worked for the winning and the extension of the franchise. The following two letters to Dr. Kugelmann illustrate this :—

“K. Marx to Dr. Kugelmann. 

January 10th, 1866.

We have been very busy organising a large meeting in favour of universal suffrage, and at this meeting only working men spoke. The effect was very great and “The Times” in two consecutive numbers discussed the question in a leader.“ (Printed in “Social Democrat,” May, 1902.)

K. Marx to Kugelmann. 

October 6th, 1866.

“The agitation for universal suffrage here, in which I have had a large share, is growing more and more.“ (Social Democrat, May, 1902.)

Let Us Suppose  . . . !

Then Mr. Chapman asks us to consider the situation which might arise if the capitalists destroy their own constitution in order to prevent the workers coming into control after the winning of an election. He omits, however, to consider the effect of such a move on the capitalist system and on the capitalist class themselves. Democratic, representative government is essential to the stable and continued working of the capitalist system. It is the foundation on which rests the political machinery and its enormous and complex administrative departments. If the ruling class destroy this basis by repudiating the very means by which they themselves gained their control, they not only risk early administrative chaos, they also commit eventual political suicide, even although the move may serve their immediate purpose. It is the imperative pressure of the needs and developments of the capitalist social system which has compelled and is still compelling the capitalists to broaden the electoral basis of their control. If they cannot resist this pressure now, what chance have they of putting back the clock after further years of representative government during which ever-increasing numbers of the workers learn to use and to value the vote? The capitalist parties everywhere exploit the electioneering value of being “constitutionalists.” Even the so-called dictators invariably parade the fact that they are constitutional in origin and practice ; they all know the value of preserving certain legal forms and formulas. Mussolini, who came into power through the deliberate action of governments elected by popular vote on a wide franchise, so far from repudiating the elective basis of his position, has added millions to the number of electors. In January, 1925, the voting age was reduced to 25, and is now to be reduced to 21, and even to 18 for married men.

The capitalist class could not prevent this development in its infancy; they cannot now stay its growth. Every year it becomes more difficult and the consequences more dangerous to them to narrow the franchise.

But let us suppose that at the eleventh hour the minority of capitalist “die-hards” does succeed in rushing the more timid and more circumspect majority into a rash venture of this kind. The possibility is small and remote, but were it big and imminent, that would only add weight to the Socialist policy as against the policy of armed revolt. If the final struggle takes on non-parliamentary forms, then it is of the utmost importance that the Socialist working class should have on its side the powerful plea that its position is constitutional. Once the working class are predominantly Socialist it is a simple matter, involving; no sacrifice or material delay for them to record by means of the vote that they are the majority. Mr. Chapman wants the workers to throw away a card of so great value. If the workers are compelled to make use of their economic organisation to bring industry to a standstill, and to appeal to the armed forces to support the constitutional majority against the usurping minority, nothing at such a time could exceed in importance the possession of the backing of constitutionalism. This will strengthen them and serve to undermine and split the backing of the capitalist parties and armed forces.

In his final question, our correspondent talks vaguely about “all that is implied by election funds,” but gives no inkling whatever of his meaning. If Mr. Chapman thinks that he has read in these columns or elsewhere a statement by the Socialist Party that we believe that the opening of an election fund will “bring about a speedy termination” to capitalism, I can only suggest that here again he is criticising without taking the trouble to read and understand. If he will consult our Declaration of Principles, he will see that we claim that the political organisation of a Socialist working class and their use of the vote to capture the machinery of government, and thus control the armed forces, will put them in a position to bring about a speedy termination of this system of society. If Mr. Chapman has further objections to this position, or any feasible alternative, we shall be pleased to hear it.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: Socialism and parliamentary action. (1926)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter from a correspondent in Glasgow is printed in full and our reply follows :—

To S.P.G.B.

Comrades,

The S.P.G.B., holds that supreme power in present day society is political, and is centred in Parliament, owing to the fact that Parliament controls the armed forces.

As proof of this, it is stated that Parliament votes the necessary money for maintaining the armed forces, from year to year. The S.P.G.B. say that to get control of the armed forces is to get control of political power; and logically deduce from this that when a class-conscious majority of the electorate sends Socialists to Parliament they will control the armed. forces. That, from that day forward, “everything in the garden will be lovely,” and that Capitalism will die a sudden death.

But I am afraid that there are one or two things the S.P.G.B. has forgotten, such as, that Parliament only controls the armed forces when the Capitalist class have a majority there; that, as a Socialist majority will not take away their (the Capitalists’) money, the latter will still be able to pay (and handsomely at that) for the maintenance of the armed forces. This, the more easily, since the officers are all members of the Capitalist class. For proof of this it has only to be stated that it takes more than the pay or salary of an officer to maintain his position, as such. As everybody knows, most of the wartime “officers” are to-day on the bureau, or begging on the streets. That the Capitalist class are preparing for “the day” is surely obvious to anyone who “has eyes to see,” when organisations such as the Secret Service, O.M.S., Fascisti, etc., are already in existence and for a purpose which they do not seek to hide.

Also we should not lose sight of the fact that “specials” and other auxiliary forces (Black and Tans) were organised at short notice when occasion demanded, in the past.

The Logic of this is that Capitalism will be abolished like all past systems of society, not through the method of capturing Parliament, but at the barricades. Further does the S.P.G.B. deny that Finance Capital through the medium of the cabinet, dictates the policy of Parliament?

Hoping that this communication is published in full when answered.

Yours for Revolution,

ANTI-PARLEY.

Our Reply.

The above letter contains the usual anarchist objections to political action which have been answered continually in the “Socialist Standard.”

In the first place, we must correct some crude mis-statements of our critic. We do not say that “everything in the garden will be lovely” when a class-conscious working class controls Parliament. The capture of the political machinery is, as Marx says in the Communist Manifesto, the first step which must be taken to obtain emancipation. The succeeding conditions may be quite unlovely, depending upon the circumstances of the time and the degree of counter-revolution attempted.

The statement that Parliament only controls the armed forces whilst Capitalists are in the majority in Parliament is pure bunkum. Parliament is a machine which arose and evolved long before Capitalism. The tremendous outlay of finance and effort on the part of Capitalists to assure that the workers vote for Capitalist candidates and their lackeys shows how important control of Parliament is. Then we are told that Socialist control of Parliament will allow Capitalists to have the money to pay for the upkeep of the armed forces for their own use.

The actual fact is that the armed forces are maintained out of funds voted by Parliament. These huge sums are obtained from taxation paid by the employers out of the surplus extracted from the result of the workers’ labour. This exploitation will stop when the workers control political power and hence the funds out of which Capitalists can pay armies will cease.

The Capitalist system could not be run by bodies of employers hiring some armed bands to attack the whole working class. Capitalism depends, upon the regular and smooth conduct of affairs under which the wheels of industry can turn, commerce be carried on and profits be obtained. Therefore a constitution with delegated functions and a Parliament controlling nationally the forces of repression is an essential thing to the life of Capitalism in all “advanced” countries.

Therefore, the resolute efforts of all those aiming at conquest of the social powers to control the political machine.

Mussolini in Italy or Lenin in Russia, or the worldwide struggles of rising Capitalists—each had to first of all conquer political power as represented in the political machinery of each country.

Our policy is framed for the country in which we live, and according to existing conditions.

Parliament being the central machine of the present constitution, we are compelled to control it in our own interests as a working class.

Should the Capitalists destroy the constitution, the situation would be changed and the detail policy of the workers would be different. But this assumption of destruction of Parliamentary institutions reckons without the facts of economic life. In destroying the constitution the Capitalists would cripple their system. Capitalism in advanced countries depends upon government by elected authority, local and national and the disruption of these bodies would result in chaos, not in a system. The incitement to open warfare resulting from the abolition of Parliament would prevent that ordered working of affairs upon which Capitalism depends.

After denying the power of Parliament, our critic admits its importance and its power by pointing out that finance capital dictates the policy of Parliament.

It is obvious, then, even to our confused critic, that not merely content with having the finance, the financiers find it essential to influence the policy of Parliament. That they can do so is due to the fact that it is in the interest of their fellow Capitalists in Parliament to carry out the wishes of the bankers, etc. A Socialist working class intent upon abolishing Capitalism would have a policy directly in conflict with the interests of Capitalists—financial or industrial, and the day of Parliament carrying out the wishes of the Capitalists would be over.

While “Anti-Parley” states that the army is officered by the Capitalists, he also tells us that there is a large number of officers on the dole. Does that show that officers belong to the Capitalist class? Actually it shows that when Parliament votes no funds for them they are sacked—then they are on the dole. Officers in the main are not Capitalists. The Capitalists being few, are compelled to hire the workers to run the system, and also the civil and military forces to control it. Further, officers are helpless without an army and the army acts not according to its officers but according to instructions which are given by those in charge of political power.

If the officers do not carry out these instructions they are liable to severe punishment apart from losing their position. Our critic’s reference to the large number of officers on the dole shows how rapidly they can be trained and how many are available. If our critic studied history, recent history, he would know that officers, to maintain themselves, are compelled to transfer their allegiance to those who control political power and who can give them jobs. Look at the huge number of German officers who took well paid jobs to organise the famous Red Army of Russia. Look at the helpless state of the Czarist officers in March, 1917, when the rank and file revolted.

We are next told that the capitalists are preparing for “the day” by forming the O.M.S., Fascists, etc. These bodies depend for success upon recruiting the workers to their ranks and while they can obtain a large measure of working class support it shows the need for Socialist propaganda, for until the mass of the workers understand their class interests, they cannot be expected to act in the interests of their class.

The dangerous and misleading alternative to Parliamentary action offered by our critic is—the barricades. What, then, becomes of his argument about the officers of the Capitalist class being in command of the Army? How can unarmed workers fight the army?

In these days of powerful instruments of death dealing and after the experiences of the World War—we are told by our anarchist opponent to throw up some barricades ! The lessons of the Paris Commune, of the Rand, of Munich, of Hungary, etc., are all lost on our “anti-parley” friend. Read Engels’s introduction to Marx’s “Class Struggles in France” (1895) on the insanity of barricades in face of modern developments !

Apparently our critic has been listening to the anarchist element denouncing Parliament and as neither the anarchists nor he falls back upon the policy that reactionaries everywhere have tried to get the workers to adopt so that they can drown them in blood.

Barricade or bombs, chemical parcel post or street fights—our opponents advocate everything except the one policy—Socialist knowledge, Socialist organisation and Socialist political action by the mass of the working class.

As seen in our opponents’ alternative, the enemies of political action become dangerous to the working class.

Editorial Committee.

The French Non-Revolution (1988)

From the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Twenty years ago this month students were erecting barricades and battling with the police in the streets of Paris. Over nine million workers were on strike. Industry was at a standstill with most factories occupied by strikers.

This social explosion had started at the beginning of May when the government, hoping to stop the student unrest that had been growing over the preceding months from getting out of hand, ordered the police to arrest certain student activists including the most prominent. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, known as Danny-le-Rouge. The result was to provoke the very thing they had been hoping to avoid. Barricades went up in the student quarter on the left bank of the river Seine and fierce street battles took place on the night of 10-11 May as the police tried to reconquer the area, dispensing indiscriminate brutality to all who got in their way.

To protest against this police brutality against the students the trade unions called a one-day general strike for the following Monday 13 May. Many workers — wage and salary earners had their own grievances against the government, which had been treating them in much the same way as Thatcher has been treating workers in Britain since she came to power — did not return to work the next day or came out again later in the week and a full-scale general strike, with factory occupations, which was to last several weeks, spread throughout the country.

Some thought that France was on the brink of a revolution that would sweep away capitalism and usher in workers' control of society. But this was an illusion. In the absence of a socialist-minded working class, the most that could have happened was the collapse of the Gaullist regime and its replacement by some left-of-centre government of capitalism similar to that then in office in Britain under Harold Wilson.

De Gaulle himself had come to power as a result of an army and settlers' revolt that had begun in Algeria ten years previously. In terms of the then existing constitution — that of the Fourth Republic — the way he came to power was perfectly illegal but such changes of regime by extra-parliamentary means have been a frequent feature of French history since the French revolution of 1789. Since that time there have in fact been a number of such changes — France has had five republics, two empires, two monarchies in addition to Vichy France under Marshal Petain — and this is what the term revolution has come to mean in French politics.

Such a "revolution" — resulting in the restoration of the Fourth Republic or in the establishment of a sixth one — was indeed a possibility in May 1968 but would have had nothing in common with what socialists mean by revolution — a change in the basis of society. From a socialist point of view, a change of political regime carried out by action on the streets is no more relevant than a change of government carried out by electoral means. Both are merely ways of rearranging the political administration of capitalism. Both leave the capitalist basis of society unchanged.

In any event the opponents of the Gaullist regime — from the student activists to the left politicians — underestimated the determination of De Gaulle and the solidity of his regime. When at the end of May he disappeared from Paris, opposition politicians thought that he was about to go and began to stake rival claims to the posts they would like to occupy in the new government. De Gaulle had in fact gone to Germany secretly to meet the leaders of the Army. On his return, on 30 May he immediately went on radio and TV to announce that a general election would be held in June in which the issue would be: maintenance of the Gaullist regime or a left-wing government dominated by the French Communist Party (which was at that time indeed much stronger than the non-Communist left). Faced with this choice, in the election which took place on 23 and 30 June, the voters gave De Gaulle a landslide victory. The May events had resulted, not in the overthrow of the Gaullist regime but in its consolidation. Of course they also brought university reform and wage increases and other benefits for the workers but as an attempt to change the political regime in France by extra-parliamentary means May 1968 was a complete flop.

This wasn't evident immediately, at least not to the student and extreme-left activists. They argued that it would have succeeded if only the workers had taken the next step and instead of just occupying the factories had started operating them without the bosses or if only the French Communist Party (PCF) and the trade union centre it controlled (the CGT) had not betrayed the revolution by taking up a moderate, constitutional line. The Trotskyists put on their scratchy old gramophone record about the revolution having failed for want of a vanguard party to lead the workers. More interesting was the attitude of Cohn-Bendit both at the time and later.

In a book written with his brother Gabriel in August 1968. entitled Leftwing Radicalism. Cure for Communism 's Senile Disease (an obvious play on the title of Lenin's pamphlet Left wing Communism. An Infantile Disease which the PCF quoted against him and other "leftists"). Cohn-Bendit argued that the Gaullist regime could have been toppled on the night of 24-25 May if the student demonstrators who had moved over to the right bank of the Seine had stayed there after burning the Stock Exchange (or rather starting a fire inside it since stock exchanges, being built of marble, don't burn easily) and had gone on to capture the ministries of Finance and Justice a few streets away instead of returning to the left bank.

Today, however, he argues that what the opponents of the Gaullist regime should have done in May 1968 was to have called for a general election in mid-May at the height of the factory and university occupations which he reckons they would easily have won. He has even gone on record as saying that the biggest mistake he has ever made was "not to have called for an election sooner in 1968" (The Economist 14 February 1987). In other words, Dany the Red, the student revolutionary, now says that the way to have overthrown De Gaulle was through elections. As a member of the German Green Party he now actively participates in electoral activity and has even been their candidate for the post of mayor of Frankfurt.

As a matter of fact this is not all that much of a U-turn since, even in May 1968, Cohn-Bendit was well aware that the student movement, despite its revolutionary rhetoric, was in practice struggling not to replace capitalism by socialism but to replace Gaullism by some left-wing government. So it is not really a big change, that he should now be saying a better way to have achieved this would have been through the ballot box. When he spoke about "revolutionary action" he did not mean action to overthrow capitalism but merely street demonstrations, seizure of public buildings and strikes to overthrow De Gaulle. This emerges clearly, for instance, from the interview the pretentious philosopher and ex-PCF fellow traveller Jean-Paul Sartre had with him in the middle of the events and before his expulsion from France on 22 May as an "undesirable" alien (his parents came from Germany) and which was published in Le Nouvel Observateur on 20 May. Here he stated clearly that the aim was "the overthrow of the regime". explaining that in his view:

  A radical change in the structure of our society would only be possible, if, for example, a serious economic crisis, the action of a powerful workers' movement, and vigorous student activity suddenly converged. These conditions have not all been realised today. At best we can hope to bring down the government. We must not dream of destroying bourgeois society (translation in The Student Revolt, Panther. 1968).

But to say that all that could be done in the circumstances was to bring down the government without destroying capitalism is tantamount to saying that all that could be done was to replace one government of capitalism by another. Cohn-Bendit did not shrink from this conclusion:

  Suppose the workers hold out too and the regime falls. What will happen then? The left will come to power. Everything will then depend on what it does. If it changes the system — I must admit I doubt if it will — it will have an audience, and all will be well. But if we have a Wilson-style government, with or without the Communists, which only proposes minor reforms and adjustments, then the extreme left will regain its strength and we shall have to go on posing the real problems of social control, workers’ power, and so on.

So Cohn-Bendit was lucid enough to recognise that, in the circumstances obtaining in May-June 1968, the only possible alternative to the Gaullist regime was some left-wing government. In the end this did come but 13 years later, when Mitterrand was elected President and appointed a Wilson-style government with PCF Ministers. As was inevitable, since capitalism can never be made to function in the interest of the wage and salary earners, this government failed miserably to solve working class problems — just as it would have done had it come to power in 1968.

This being so, it is pertinent to ask if raising the issue of a change of regime was not a diversion from the economic objectives of the general strike such as higher wages and better conditions. Actually, the French working class behaved in a remarkably intelligent way: refusing to get themselves killed in an attempt to replace the Gaullist regime by a government of left-wing politicians, which would have brought them no benefit, they profited from the momentary weakness of the regime in place to extract higher wages and a number of other concessions.

Naturally the student and political activists (Trotskyists. Maoists and other assorted followers of Ho Chi Minh. Che Guevara and Castro) found this a rather timid attitude and blamed the trade unions for betraying the workers who, according to them, were waiting for a lead to take action to overthrow both Gaullism and capitalism. But it is clear that it was the unions who were more representative of working-class opinion and had the more realistic if less exciting attitude. Workers are not as stupid as Leninists imply in their contemptuous dictum that ’’left to themselves, workers are only capable of acquiring a trade union consciousness". Trade union consciousness alone is indeed far from socialist consciousness but it is far in advance of Leninism. As one wit has put it, it would be more correct to say that, left to themselves, students are only capable of acquiring a Leninist consciousness.

May '68 was, however, rather more than a general strike for economic ends sparked off by student riots. It also had a deep and lasting effect on social attitudes in France — decline of authoritarianism and paternalism in all fields — and it led everywhere to an interest in radical social ideas. Books by and about Marx as well as Rosa Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek, Paul Mattick and other radical thinkers became readily available (alongside, it is true, less helpful works by Trotsky). All sorts of ideas came to be discussed. Tariq Ali. who saw himself as the British equivalent of Dany-le-Rouge. even declared in June 1968 on a television programme about the student revolt "we believe in the abolition of money". Naturally, with such ideas springing up spontaneously, socialists were able to get our point of view over much more easily than normally. The revival of genuine socialist ideas may prove to be the most lasting historical effect of May 1968. In any event, we are still working to ensure that it is.

Adam Buick

Communist Rioting (1929)

From the June 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party takes its stand on the policy so clearly stated and defended by Marx and Engels that the working class must, as a preliminary to the establishment of Socialism, gain control of the political machinery of society. They can do this in the advanced Capitalist countries through political organisation and the use of the vote; the working class possessing, as they do, the overwhelming majority of votes. The Communists reject this theory of Marx founded on the lessons of everyday experience, and advocate the fundamentally different and fundamentally unsound policy of trying to create a working class armed force with which an attempt is to be made to fight and overthrow the armed forces of the Capitalist state. They reject the possibility of gaining control of the political machinery and the existing armed forces, and base their hopes instead on barricades and street fighting. Bucharin, speaking for the Executive at the 1928 Congress in Moscow of the Third International, made no attempt to hide this aim of the Communists. The following extract from his speech is taken from a report in the Communist publication “International Press Correspondence” (July 30th, 1928) :—

  Mass actions must be regarded as one of the best means in our struggle. Our tactics must be to mobilise the masses, to become masters of the streets, to attack again and again the law and order of the bourgeois State and to smash it, to capture the street by revolutionary means, in the strict sense of the word, and then to go further. Only on the basis of a whole series of such events and on the basis of the development of these events—mass actions, etc. —only through such a process can we prepare ourselves for fiercer and more stubborn mass struggles on a larger scale.

May Day Madness

On the instructions of the Third International the German Communists tried out this policy on May Day. May Day street demonstrations by every party had been prohibited by the Berlin Police Authorities because of the alleged danger of conflict between rival organisations. The Communists announced in advance their intention of defying the prohibition. According to a report published in the “Daily Herald” (May 1st) and received from German Labour Party sources, the Executive Committee of the German Communist Party were prepared for 200 deaths, but nevertheless gave instructions for demonstrations to be held at all costs. The demonstrations ended in an attempt by the Communists to hold two Berlin working class districts (Wedding and Neukoln) against the police. Barricades were thrown up consisting of tree trunks, paving stones, overturned carts, etc., and Communist snipers are reported to have fired on the police from houses in these areas. Brutal methods were used by the police. In all 23 people were killed and many others wounded before the authorities finally suppressed the demonstrators. The following summary of this criminal action of the Communists, taken from the “Manchester Guardian,” is based on the first hand reports of their representative in Berlin :—

  Many of the casualties were youthful Communists, most of them were inoffensive passers-by, only a few were policemen—it does not seem that one policeman was killed. Nearly all the execution was done by police rifles and machine-guns. The Communist rioters were poorly armed —they do not seem to have had more than a few revolvers—nor do they themselves seem to have been very numerous. The police showed some restraint at first, but then fell upon their opponents with great savagery, shooting and bludgeoning rioters and casual passers-by alike.” (“Manchester Guardian,” May 7th.)

Only one policeman was injured in the actual fighting on May Day, and the following days, and he shot himself by accident. (“Daily Telegraph,” 8th May.)

The Dummy.

This incident only serves once more to indicate the futility of the whole Communist theory of armed revolt. The Capitalist class, by their control of the State machinery, control powerful armed forces possessing all the latest and most potent weapons of destruction. In addition they can and do prevent the formation of any serious rival force. Even if the workers had any means of purchasing expensive modern weapons they would have no means of training themselves to use them. The “Guardian” points out how these hare-brained “revolutionaries” sent their boy dupes into action against a semi-military police force, armed only with a few revolvers. The “Guardian” is not quite accurate. According to photographs published in the London press, they also had at least one machine gun—a dummy ! With it they attempted to scare off the police. A harassed policeman is certainly likely to lie low when he sees something which looks like a machine gun. But these Communist children had apparently overlooked the very pertinent fact that to a fleet of tanks it is a question of supreme indifference whether your machine gun is a dummy or not. The authorities brought out their tanks and their armoured aeroplanes, with troops in reserve, and the issue was never in doubt. Even if the Communists could have resisted for a few days they never explained, and do not appear to have considered, what they were going to do with Wedding and Neukoln after they had demonstrated their ability, temporarily, to hold them against the police.

Police Spies

Even the temporary success of such a move depends on a circumstance which is so unlikely as to be well nigh impossible of achievement, that is to keep the plans from the police. It is common knowledge that semi-secret organisations advocating violence as does the Communist Party are honeycombed with police agents and informers.

In Paris, also, May Day demonstrations were forbidden, and there also the Communists threatened to defy the prohibition. The police accordingly rounded up the leaders just prior to May Day and kept a large number under preventive detention. This practice serves a twofold purpose. It deprives the rank and file of their leadership and at the same time enables the police to save their spies from danger or exposure by keeping them, with other prisoners, safely under lock and key.

How prevalent spying is and how difficult to detect is shown by the case of “John Vidor,” author of “Spying in Russia.” This person (the name is apparently an assumed one) claims that he not only wormed his way into the Communist movement, but got himself sent to Russia as a member of the “Workers’ Delegation,” which went there in 1927. (See “Daily Telegraph,” 3rd May.)

The “Morning Post” periodically prints scare articles written by one of its informers who apparently holds some minor official position in the British Communist Party.

Mass Action—Mass Suicide.

History knows many instances of romantic hot-heads vainly trying to overthrow powerful Governments without considering the hopelessness of the odds against them, being, in fact, more interested in heroics and martyrdom than anything else. But it has remained for the modern Communist movement to reduce this tactic to its last futility. Ever since the formation of the Communist Parties we have seen them denouncing the alleged Labour Parties as being in fact parties of Capitalism. We have also seen them voting these parties into control of the political machinery and the armed forces of the State. Finally, having placed in the hands of Capitalist parties the power to build up armed forces for the defence of Capitalism, they then commit the further criminal folly of sending boys “armed” with revolvers and dummy machine guns against the tanks and battle-planes controlled by those whom they have voted into power. The Communists, in pursuing this policy, are a danger only to themselves and to the working class.

Edgar Hardcastle

The futility of violence (1972)

From the January 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard 

From a member of the Socialist Party of Canada

At a Party meeting a while ago a member of the audience asked what the Socialist Party of Canada would do if the capitalists established a dictatorship and banned Socialist activity.

The questioner often thinks that the workers must be ready to pit their strength against the strength of the state; they must build a military as well as a political organisation.

The thought has had tragic results. When the Communists sent their followers to the Berlin barricades during the hungry thirties, the brutal destruction of the “revolt” featured no situation to the advantage of any but the authorities, some of the virility being skimmed from the ranks of the rebels in death and imprisonment. Again, when the rise of Hitler brought the joyous cry, "After Hitler, Thaelman!” the joy ended with the disappearance of the misguided into Hitler’s prisons and ovens. Castor oil was one of Mussolini’s contemptuous answers to his opponents. And these two dictators held fast to their powers until destroyed in a capitalist upheaval.

Class conflict has taken forms other than “military” ones, and just as disastrous, as the old time Wobblies in America found during the sabotage days, when mysterious stickers appeared in a fruit belt hostile to the IWW, “Don’t put copper tacks in fruit trees, it hurts them,” and when experiments occurred in the lubricant properties of sand in journal boxes, the effects of stink bombs in theatres and the serviceability of spanners in moving machinery.

The Communists, who presently give little service to the violent revolution theme, did most to pave the way for its acceptance among current radical groups. At one time violence was basic to Communist thought and anyone who did not talk violence could not talk revolution. Communists turned in all possible ways in search of the precise situation, the “psychological moment”, that would bring their rise to power.

Some experimenting was done even with the unemployed. When the factory doors closed behind huge armies of workers during the depression years, the cry went up, “The factory of the unemployed is on the streets!” and the workers without jobs were guided in large numbers into parades and demonstrations, ostensibly to bring their plight to the attention of the authorities, actually to bring the policeman’s club onto their heads. But the great hatred for oppression intended to be generated in this way became more often a hatred for those who had led them to the shambles.

This experimenting had its ludicrous moments, as when a widely-distributed mimeographed call for the unemployed to brave the clubs and horses of the cossacks and assert their ability to assemble in defiance of a police ban, concluded with the reminder that in the event of rain the gathering would be postponed until the following day.

But the lessons of violence and invitations to violence in the workers’ movements have been mostly harsh, bringing tragedy and apathy without compensation. Like the heroes of false causes, spread under acres of white crosses, who “died bravely”, the advocates of violence see themselves also martyred, but to a worthy cause, and they fail to see the world move undisturbed over their broken bodies.

The Socialist Party of Canada and its Companion Parties do not advocate violence as a means of gaining Socialism. It cannot be gained this way. “Revolutionary situations” and “psychological moments” may bring changes in governments but not a transformation in society. This can come only from a conscious effort by the majority of society’s members.

To the question, What will we do if the capitalists set up a dictatorship? the Socialists of earlier days said "We will know what to do when that time comes!” The answer is a good one today. If the capitalists bring dictatorship when they have majority support, they will be in the driver’s seat and the Socialist minority will have to use what means are available to restore their freedom to work for Socialism. If the dictatorship is attempted in the face of a Socialist majority, the capitalists will be engaging in dangerous lunacy, for it must be clear that if all their powers could not prevent the rise of Socialist Consciousness, they have lost their power to destroy it.

And while there will be violence between today and the day of the Socialist victory, we believe that the shedding of blood will not bring that day a moment closer and cannot be more than an unhappy product of class conflict.

A Retrospect. Lessons drawn from the Socialist Movement from 1848 to 1895. by Frederick Engels. (1919)

From the December 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Concluded.

Link to Part 1

Moreover, with this successful use of the ballot, a wholly new method of proletarian warfare had gone into effect, which was rapidly extended. It was found that the political institutions, by means of which the supremacy of the bourgeoisie is organised, afford further handholds by which the working class can attack these very institutions. The party took part in the elections for State Legislatures, Aldermen and industrial courts, and contested against the bourgeoisie for every office in the filling of which a sufficient number of the proletariat had anything to say. And thus it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to a pass where they feared the lawful activity of the Labour Party far more than its unlawful activity ; they dreaded the result of an election more than those of a a rebellion. For here, too, the conditions of the struggle had materially changed. The old style rebellion, the street fight with barricades, which down to 1848 gave the final decision everywhere, had become decidedly antiquated.

Let us harbour no illusions on this point; a victory as between two armies, is a thing of the rarest occurrence. Moreover, the insurgents had seldom aimed at this. Their only object was to soften the troops by moral influences, such as in a conflict between two warring countries would be of no effect at all, or at any rate, in a far smaller degree. If this plan succeeds the soldiers refuse to obey orders or the officers lose their presence of mind and the revolt is successful. If this plan does not succeed, nevertheless, even in case the military is fewer in numbers, the result shows the superiority of their better equipment and training, of the unified leadership, of the well-planned arrangement of forces and their discipline. The most that an insurrection can attain in real tactical action is the scientific construction and defence of a single barricade. Mutual support, the disposition and utilisation of reserves, in short the assistance and co-operation of the separate divisions, which is indispensable for the defense even of a single district, to say nothing of the whole of a large city, is very imperfect, and for the most part wholly unattainable ; concentration of forces upon a vital point is out of the question. A passive defense is the characteristic form of the struggle. The attack will extend here and there to occasional sallies or flank movements, but only as exceptions, for as a rule it will be confined to occupying the positions abandoned by the retiring troops. Then, further, the military is supplied with artillery and with completely equipped and trained battalions of pioneers, which the insurgents in almost all cases wholly lack. No wonder, therefore, that even, those barricade fights which were conducted with the most heroic bravery, as at Paris in June, 1848, at Vienna in October, 1848, and at Dresden in May, 1849, ended with the suppression of the revolt as soon, as the officers of the army, unhampered by political considerations, fought according to purely military principles and the soldiers remained trustworthy.

The numerous successes of insurgents down to 1848 are due to manifold causes. At Paris in July, 1830, and in February, 1848, as also in most of the Spanish street fights, there stood between the insurgents and the military a citizens' guard, which either sided directly with the revolt or by its lukewarm and hesitating attitude caused the regular troops also to waver, and in addition to that, furnished the insurgents with arms. Wherever this civil guard at the start took a stand against the revolt, as in June 1848, at Paris, the insurgents were defeated. At Berlin, in 1848, the people won partly through an important addition of fresh forces during the night and on the morning of the 19th of March, partly on account of the fatigue and lack of care suffered by the troops, and partly on account of the hesitation of the authorities. But in all cases where a victory is won it was because the troops mutinied, or because the officers were lacking in determination, or because their hands were tied.

Therefore, even in the classical period of street fighting, the barricade was more of a moral than a material force. It was a means for breaking the loyalty of the army. If it accomplished this, the victory was won; if not the cause was lost.

Even in 1849 the chances were already poor enough. The bourgeoisie had gone over to the side of the governments; "culture and property" greeted and treated the troops marching out against the insurgents. The barricade had lost its charm. The soldiers no longer saw behind it the people, but only rebels, rioters, plunderers, "dividers-up," the outcasts of society ; the officers had in time become skilled in the tactical forms of street fighting. They no longer marched out straight ahead and unprotected against the improvised breastworks, but went around them through gardens, courts and houses. And this course, with a little skill, would be successful in nine cases out of ten.

And since then many things have changed, and all to the advantage of the military. Though the large cities have become larger, so also have the armies. Paris and Berlin have not quadrupled since 1848, but their garrisons have been increased more than that. By means of the railroads these garrisons can be doubled in twenty-four hours, and in forty-eight hours can be expanded into gigantic armies. The weapons of these enormous hosts are incomparably more effective than formerly. In 1848 they had only the smooth bore, percussion-cap, muzzle-loader ; to-day the small calibre magazine breech-loader, which shoots four times as far, ten times as accurate, and ten times as fast as the other. At that time they had only the comparatively ineffective solid balls and cartridges of the artillery ; to-day the percussion shells, a single one of which is sufficient to demolish the strongest barricade. At that time the pick of the pioneer for breaking through walls ; to-day the dynamite bomb.

On the other hand, for the insurgents all the conditions have become worse. A revolt with which all layers of the population sympathise can hardly come again. In the class struggle all the middle layers of society will probably never rally around the proletariat so exclusively that the reactionary party which rallies to the bourgeoisie will almost disappear. The 'people'' therefore will always appear to be divided, and thereby a powerful lever is wanting which was so exceedingly effective in 1848. Even if more trained soldiers are found on the side of the insurgents, it will be so much the more difficult to arm them. The hunters' and sportsmen's guns from the retail stores, even if the police should not have rendered them unserviceable by removing part of the lock as a precautionary measure, cannot by any means compete with the magazine gun of the soldiers even at close range. Up to 1848 a man could manufacture the necessary ammunition himself out of powder and lead ; but to-day the cartridge is different for every gun, and in only one particular is it alike everywhere, viz., in that it is a technical product of large scale industry, and therefore cannot be extempore, and therefore the most of guns are useless so long as one has not the ammunition specially fitted for them. Finally the new districts of the great cities have been laid out with long, straight, broad streets, as if made with special reference to operations with modern cannons small arms. The revolutionist would be insane who would deliberately select the new workingmen's districts in the north and east of Berlin for a barricade fight.

Does the reader now understand why the ruling classes are so anxious by all means to get us where the rifle cracks and the sabre slashes? And why they to-day accuse us of cowardice because we do not straightway betake ourselves to the street, where we are beforehand certain of a defeat? And why they so passionately beseech us to play cannon fodder just for once? 

These gentlemen are wasting both their prayers and their dares for nothing and less than nothing. We are not so green as all that. They might just as well ask their enemy in the next war to follow the line of formation used by Frederick the Great, or the formation in columns of entire divisions à la Wagram and Waterloo, and that, too, with the old flintlock gun in the hand. As conditions have changed for warfare, so not less for the class struggle. The period for sudden onslaughts, of revolutions carried out by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where the question involves the complete transformation of the social organisation, there the masses themselves must be consulted, must themselves have already grasped what the struggle is about and what they stand for. This is what the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is needed, and it is just this work that we are now doing, and that, too, with a success which drives our opponents to despair. 

In the Latin countries also people see more and more that the old tactics have to be revised. They have everywhere followed the German example of using the ballot and of winning every position which is accessible to them. In France where the ground has been broken up for 100 years by revolution upon revolution, where there is not a single party which has not furnished its share of conspiracies, insurrections and all other revolutionary doings; in France where, as the result of this condition, the Government is by no means certain of the army, and where the circumstances generally are far more favourable for an insurrectional venture than in Germany,—even in France the Socialists are coming to understand better and better that no enduring victory is possible for them unless they first win the great mass of the people;—that means there the peasants.

Slow propaganda work and parliamentary activity are recognised there, too, as the next task of the party. The results are not lacking. Not only has a whole string of municipal councils have been captured; even in the Chamber of Deputies there are fifty Socialists, and these have already overthrown three Cabinets and one President of the Republic. In Belgium last year the workingmen forced the granting of the electoral franchise and won in a fourth of the voting districts. In Switzerland, in Italy, in Denmark, yes, even in Bulgaria and Roumania, the Socialists are represented in Parliament. In Austria all parties are agreed that our entry into the imperial council can no longer be prevented. We are bound to get in, that is certain; the only question now is, by what door ? And even in Russia, whenever the celebrated Zemskij Sobor shall be assembled, that national convention which young Nicholas is trying in vain to prevent, we can count on it with certainty that we shall be represented there too.

It goes without saying that our foreign comrades do not relinquish their right of revolution. The right of revolution is after all the only actually "historical right," the only right upon which all modern States without exception rest, including even Mecklenburg, whose revolution of the nobility was ended in 1755 by the inheritance agreement,—that glorious charter of feudalism which is still in force to-day. The right of revolution is so irrefutably recognised in the public consciousness that General von Boguslawski out of this popular right alone derives the right of forcible usurpation which he justifies on behalf of the Emperor.

But whatever may happen in other countries, the German social democracy occupies a particular position, and hence has at least for the present a particular task. The two million voters which it sends to the ballot box, together with the young men and women who, as non-voters, stand behind them, constitute the largest and compactest mass, the decisive corps of the international proletarian army. This mass furnishes already over a quarter of the votes cast; and it grows unceasingly, as shown by the elections for the Reichstag, for the separate state legislatures ; for the municipal councils, and for the industrial courts. Its growth goes on as spontaneously, steadily, and uninterruptedly, and at the same time as quietly as a process of nature. All the efforts of the government against it have shown themselves to be futile. We can to-day count on two and a quarter million voters. If that keeps up, we shall by the end of the century win the greater part of the middle strata of society, both small tradesmen and peasants, arid shall become the determining power in the land before which all other powers must bow down, whether they want to or not. To keep this growth going uninterruptedly until of itself it overtops the prevailing system of government is our chief task. And there is only one means by which this steady increase of the militant Socialist forces in Germany could be momentarily checked and even set back for a time, viz, a conflict with the army on a large scale, a blood-letting like that of 1871 at Paris. In the long run even this would be overcome. Take a party which, runs up into millions and all the magazine guns in Europe and America together would not be sufficient to shoot it out of existence. But the normal development would be checked, and the end of the conflict would be delayed, prolonged, and accompanied with heavier sacrifices.

The irony of history turns everything upside down. We, the "revolutionists," the "revolters," prosper far better by lawful measures than by unlawful measures and violence. The law and order parties, as they call themselves, go to ruin under the legal conditions which they themselves have established. They cry out in despair with Odilon Barrot; la legalité nous tue, ''lawfulness is killing us"; while we, under this lawfulness, are getting firm muscles and rosy cheeks and are the picture of eternal life. And if we do not so completely lose our wits as to let ourselves be drawn into a street fight just to please them, then there remains nothing else for them to do finally except to break down this lawfulness themselves, which has proved so disadvantageous to them.

For the present they are making new laws against revolts. Again everything is turning upside down. These anti-revolt fanatics of to day, are they not themselves the revolters of yesterday ? For example, did we conjure up this civil war of 1866 ? Did we drive the King of Hanover, the electoral Prince of Hessen, the Duke of Nassau from their legitimate and hereditary lands, and then annex these countries ? And now these smashers of the German confederation and of three grace-of-God crowns complain about revolt! Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes ? Who could permit Bismarck's worshippers to complain about revolting ?

Meanwhile let them pass their anti-revolt laws, and make them still more stringent; let them turn the whole criminal code into caoutchouc ; they will accomplish nothing except to furnish new proof of their impotence. In order to get at the social democracy effectively they will have to take entirely different measures. The social democratic revolt, which just now finds its greatest advantage in observing the laws, can only be checked by a counter revolt of the law and order party which cannot exist without breaking the laws. Herr Roessler, the Prussian bureaucrat, and Herr von Boguslawski, the Prussian general, have pointed out to them the only way by which perhaps they can get even with the workingmen who will not let themselves be enticed into a street fight, breach of the constitution, dictatorship, a return to absolutism, regis voluntas suprema lex ! Courage, therefore, gentlemen, no lip-puckering will answer here; you have got to whistle !

But do not forget that the German empire, as well as all the small states composing it, and in general all modern states, are the product of a treaty; a treaty first of the princes among themselves, second of the princes with the people. If one side breaks the treaty, the whole treaty falls, and the other side is then no longer bound either.

It is now 1,600 years ago, almost to a year, that likewise a dangerous revolutionary party was carrying on its work in the Roman Empire. It undermined religion and all the foundations, of the state. It denied absolutely that the will of the people was the supreme law; it was fatherlandless, international; it spread out over all parts of the Empire, from Gaul to Asia, and even beyond the limits of the empire. It had for a long time worked underground and in secret, but for some time past it considered it self strong enough to come out into the light. This revolutionary party, which was known by the name of Christians, also had a large representation in the army. Whole legions were Christian. When they were ordered to attend the sacrifice ceremonies of the established heathen religion to perform the honours of the occasion, the revolutionary soldiers carried their impudence so far that by way of protest they struck into their helmets peculiar emblems—crosses. Even the customary floggings by the officers, with the cat-o'-nine tails of the bar racks, were fruitless. The Emperor Diocletian was no longer able to look on while order, obedience and discipline in his army were being subverted. He took hold energetically while there was yet time. He issued an anti Socialist —or rather an anti-Christian law. Assemblies of the revolters were forbidden, their meeting halls closed or even torn down, the Christian emblems, crosses, etc., were forbidden the same as red handkerchiefs in Saxony. Christians were declared incapable of holding state offices, and could not even become lance corporals in the army. As they did not yet have at that time judges so carefully trained to observe a "respect for the person" as contemplated by Herr von Koellers' anti-revolt bill, the Christians were forbidden outright to resort to the courts at all. This exception law also proved ineffective. The Christians tore it down from the walls with contempt, aye, it is said that while the Emperor was in Nicomedia they set fire to the palace over his head. He revenged himself by the great persecution of Christians which took place in the year 303 of our era. It was the last of its kind : and it was so effective that seventeen years later the majority of the army consisted of Christians and the next succeeding monarch of the whole Roman Empire, Constantine, called by the priests the Great, proclaimed Christianity as the state religion.

Note from ALB on the English translation of this text:

First published in English in an abridged form under the heading “Revolutionary Tactics” in The Plebs, London, 1921, Vol. 13, No. 1, January, pp. 12-15; No. 2, February, pp. 48-50; No. 3, March, pp. 71-74; No. 4, April, pp. 112-14. Published in full in English for the first time in: The Revolutionary Act, New York city, New York Labor News Company, 1922.

Link.

Apparently from MECW.

This link refers to an earlier translation:

“Excerpts from The Class Struggles in France were first published in English in the journal The Marxian, New York, 1921, Vol. 1, No. 2, and it appeared in full as a separate edition by Labour News Company, New York, 1924.”

Either there was an earlier American translation (the one in the Standard is American, see spellings of defense and pretense ) or the date of the one from the Marxian is wrong. Later quotes from Engels’ introduction are from the Plebs one.

I have the 1922 SLP edition and the one in the Standard is not the same as that. In fact I’ve sent it to the MIA and it is now up here.

What would the S.P.G.B. Do If . . . ? (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader sends us the following question: —

In the event of a sudden acceleration of the revolutionary spirit among the masses leading to a strengthening of the Communist Party of Great Britain at a period of capitalist disunion, and the subsequent outbreak of armed revolt, where exactly would the counsels of the S.P.G.B. lead its adherents—to the barricades, in support of the workers' struggle for emancipation; to the “orange box," to prove from dialectical Marxism that it can't be done that way; or to the arm-chairs of the debating room, there to study and collate “contemporary history"?

Reply.

Our correspondent has got himself beautifully tangled up through not making clear to himself what he means by the terms he uses. What, for example, is the meaning we are expected to give to the term “revolutionary spirit"? If it means a sound understanding of the social problem plus a determination to achieve a social revolution by the only possible means, the capture of political power, then an acceleration of the revolutionary spirit, sudden or otherwise, will not lead to a strengthening of the Communist Party, but to a strengthening of the S.P.G.B. As, however, that will not be followed by idiotic attempts at armed revolt the rest of the hypothesis does not arise and need not be answered.

If by “revolutionary spirit" our correspondent means (as no doubt he does) an outburst of “violent reformism," then it may lead to a strengthening of the Communist Party, or the I.L.P., or the Fascist organisations or any number of other reformist organisations prepared to play the silly game of "direct action," “ armed revolt," and so on.

If such a reformist body were able (like Hitler) to rally sufficient reformists to its support, then the administration of capitalism would pass from one set of capitalist politicians to another —and capitalism would be in for another lease of relatively stable life.

If the violent reformists were a minority and attempted armed revolt against those who control the political machinery and the armed forces, then they would get what such people always get —sharp, brutal and bloody suppression.

As such an attempt would be foredoomed to failure and in any event would not be a “struggle for emancipation," but a struggle for reforms, the S.P.G.B. would oppose it in its entirety. The S.P.G.B. has no leaders and no followers, and would not therefore be offering to lead anyone anywhere. Its members being Socialists and knowing that “it can’t be done that way," would naturally go on saying so. We can conceive of no better service to the workers than to tell them in and out of season to beware of the silly sentimentalist or dangerous lunatic who advocates armed revolt and urges the workers to pit their unarmed defencelessness against the armed might of the capitalist State.

Editorial Committee