Question and answer (1986)

From the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Does the Socialist Party of Great Britain recognise that its Declaration of Principles cannot apply to those countries where political democracy does not exist?

Capitalism is a worldwide system which gives rise to both the need for socialism and the possibility of achieving it. It is not the type of government or the mode of election which now stands in the way of socialism; the factor common to all countries from parliamentary democracies to dictatorships — is an extreme shortage of socialists.

While in Britain the development of political democracy took place along with the growth of capitalism, there are very few countries which do not now have at least the machinery associated with democracy and hold elections. All governments need the passive support of their people and elections of some kind are a convenient way of demonstrating it.

Wherever capitalism exists, however administered. workers are not immune from the contradictions which underline the need for socialism. This includes peasants who are increasingly affected by world capitalism. Apart from anything else, modem communications make it extremely unlikely that the socialist movement could grow to any size in a few countries and have absolutely no impact in the rest of the world.

How does the Socialist Party propose that the working class of those countries (without political democracy) are to organise for a socialist revolution?

In those countries where there are severe restrictions on political activity any socialists must, taking all circumstances into account, do the best they can to carry on their work for socialism, as indeed the SPGB did during the two world wars. (Elections were suspended. The Socialist Standard was subject to censorship. In World War 1 because of Defence of the Realm regulations, we suspended all outdoor meetings; platforms had been smashed and members injured, a speaker arrested and imprisoned, others "bound over to keep the peace followed in some cases by the loss of their jobs.) At times it may prove nearly impossible to continue, especially while our numbers are still so few and not only because of state-imposed conditions. We have the example of socialists in Northern Ireland who. after a very difficult time, were ready to resume a full propaganda programme at the earliest opportunity.

The prospects are not quite as bleak as might be imagined; governments are not able permanently to prevent the dissemination of ideas not condoned by the state. A 19th century example is of the German Social Democratic Party which, while the Anti-Socialist Laws were in operation recovered from the initial setback and grew to be the strongest single party, polling 1½ million votes in the 1890 election (the Anti-Socialist Laws then came to an end). Bismarck also introduced reform measures aimed at undermining support for the SPD. More recently the tight control of the media, education and so on in Poland, did not prevent the emergence of Solidarity — 10 million strong. The current situation is unlikely to be the end of the story and it is still true that the actions of the government are tempered by the likely response of the majority. The careful attitude of the authorities to the Catholic Church in Poland reflects the mass support which that organisation has. Underground publications circulate in Russia and other East European countries.

This is not to underestimate the difficulties but to underline the fact that lack of political democracy is not. at this time, the main problem

In those countries where political democracy does not exist, does the Socialist Party advocate and support reforms that could lead to political rights for workers, free trade unions etc. ?

The Socialist Party learned from the experience of the early parties of Social Democracy; having a programme of immediate reforms and the ultimate aim of revolution meant trying to implement the reforms which led to compromise — taking part in running capitalism. It was the reform programme which gained the large following of people not interested in revolution. It is the failure of parties of reform to solve working-class problems that has brought the use of parliament into disrepute. We point out that the choice is not between parliament plus reforms and socialist revolution. Parliament has not failed, it has never been used by a vast majority of socialists as a means to revolution. The vital lesson is that the issue of socialism must be kept clear; the party aiming for socialism must seek support on that basis alone.

Co-operation with other parties, or groups, for any other purpose will always be on the terms of those parties. Democratic freedoms are seldom sought as an abstract ideal. People leading campaigns for democracy are likely to have some other purpose in mind, seeing democracy as a stepping stone to economic or political power in their own sectional interest as the rising capitalist class made use of working-class agitation in securing its own political supremacy in this country. Many widely differing interests came together to overthrow the Shah in Iran; organisations were there despite the Shah s secret police and the exile of some leaders, but though this is an extreme example, it does show that it is not enough to aim to get rid of a tyrant — or for generalised freedoms.

To campaign for constitutional reform as a separate issue will only serve to perpetuate capitalism — in whatever form. All attempts to gain freedom to organise politically must go hand in hand with working for socialism — but this presupposes that there are socialists.

In fact workers do not need any advice from us about the advantages of trade union organisation, and gaining a political voice. Socialists welcome the formation of independent trade unions organised along sound lines. In recent years millions of people who have been compelled to work for the multi-national companies which have taken advantage of cheap, non-unionised labour in "Third World" countries have begun struggling to improve their pay and conditions by organising in unions. Witness also the struggles of black workers in South Africa where, as elsewhere, there are many factors at work, including economic problems and the conflict of interests between different sections of the capitalist class.

While we are considerably cheered by any success achieved by fellow members of our class in the lightening of their particularly heavy loads, we also recognise the likely limitations of that success. Workers also act against their class interest, regularly voting for parties to run capitalism, and will even support anti-democratic parties and accept the use of repressive measures. Our specific and vital contribution is to keep the issue of socialism clear.

Will political democracy have to be established in the majority, if not all. of the world's capitalist states as a necessary precondition for a socialist revolution?

The short answer is yes. We always emphasise that socialism is by definition democratic and can only be established by democratic means. Parliamentary democracy is the means which, when we are in the overwhelming majority, socialists will be able to use to gain control of the machinery of government. It is not the prerequisite to the formation and spread of the idea of socialism. This is not to ignore the difficulties; we have already said that where there are particular problems socialists must do the best they can. Nor do we underestimate the usefulness of political democracy — it makes our task easier — but at this stage it is not the deciding factor, or there would be many more socialists in the more "liberal" democracies. The missing ingredient is still class-conscious socialist understanding, in democracies and dictatorships alike.

The spread of socialist ideas, the expansion of the socialist movement with its democratic aim and organisation, will ensure the fullest appreciation of democracy in every country and the speediest adoption of political democracy and independent trade unions in those countries where they do not yet exist. Workers who have understood their class position and are ready to work for socialism will insist on taking an active part in their unions. They will not rely on leaders, they will not be misled into supporting dictatorships of any kind, and they will certainly not be fobbed off by any calls to nationalist sentiment.

It is inconceivable that the growth of the socialist movement could accelerate and yet those millions of class conscious workers leave the administration of capitalism untouched — by this stage there could already be socialist delegates in some parliaments. Long before the necessary majority is near governments would have to take their views into account. It is unlikely that when most countries have got substantial numbers of socialists, a few countries will still have only a minority of socialists and be without political democracy. If this did happen the worldwide socialist movement would decide, in close cooperation with those minorities, how best they could be helped. We repeat that this event seems unlikely. There would be no question of an increasingly socialist working class in, say. America, allowing the government to prop up dictatorships in other countries.

Public and private (2025)

From the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent scandals involving the once public, and now privatised, utility businesses such as those of water, rail and gas/electric have once again reopened the age-old debate between those on the left who favour public ownership of the utilities (and much else) and those on the right who think that privatisation is the only answer to the continuing travails of these services. Perhaps it might be in order to take a deep breath and look at the historical, ideological and even psychological origins of these unlikely political allegiances.

Human beings have long loved dualities in the attempt to understand the world and private/public takes its place alongside capitalist/socialist, worker/capital, reform/revolution, democracy/autocracy among countless others within polemical discourse. It is only recently that I’ve encountered any objection to this intellectual tradition courtesy of a young relative of mine claiming that she is ‘non-binary’ in her sexuality. Having long thought that man/woman was never a satisfactory duality in the first place I was not surprised by this revelation but it does serve to show the lasting power of this ideological mechanism to both inform and provoke. I won’t go into the historical origins of left and right ideological designations but their lasting allegiance to public or private capitalist economics respectively is surprising.

Nationalisation (state ownership) has a long history and we can be certain that the rich and powerful would not put their hands deep into their pockets to pay a tax that made this possible unless they could see some financial advantage. In 1858 the British state took over the East India Company to save it from the disastrous implications of the Indian Rebellion of the previous year which endangered British imperialism and the massive profits that it made for the parasite capitalist class.

In 1871 that well-known ‘socialist’ Otto von Bismarck embarked on massive state investment and control of many industries including railways, mining, agriculture, road building and, of course, the military. Needless to say that this was done, not to improve working conditions, but to accelerate German industrial development so that it might compete on the international stage both economically and militarily whilst simultaneously making unimaginable profits for his Junker supporters. Ironically Bismarck was also known as a ‘state socialist’ as well as a ‘state capitalist’ because of his introduction of a ‘welfare state’ which was supposed to blunt the increasing popularity of socialism. To do this he consulted the traitor Ferdinand Lassalle who had come up with the crackpot theory that the bourgeois state was politically neutral and could be used by the proletariat to reform capitalism until socialism was achieved. To this day leftists still use this as a programme for socialism, conveniently forgetting that it was instigated by one of socialism’s greatest enemies.

Because of these historical contradictions we have ended up with an unholy mess of Orwellian definitions of what socialism, capitalism, state capitalism, state socialism, democracy, public, private, etc. really mean. In the popular mind we can safely say that many believe socialism to be state ownership of industry and that capitalism represents ‘private’ ownership. The fact that sometimes the exact opposite is true represents the internal contradictions of capitalism and its subsequent ideological claims which, in our tabloid sound-bite media, is way too complex for their narrow political agendas. Remember that mainstream political parties are effectively PR organisations for the continuation of capitalism and have no interest in historical, economic or political truth. To celebrate the meaninglessness of it all we have two wonderful British examples: public schools are private schools and companies that go ‘public’ are secretive private enterprises with a veneer of public transparency.

The concepts of public and private predate, of course, the vicissitudes of contemporary political debate. The right to a ‘private life’ is a rather new social concept given that our species is intensely social and has lived communally for aeons. There have been many who have had to operate under secrecy for religious and ideological reasons but this is rather different since all those in power suffer from degrees of paranoia and are always suspicious of privacy in others. Hypocritically these same people are always the first to claim the right to privacy and secrecy under the name of national security.

So what does privacy really mean? Is it the need to separate yourself from others due to the shame that accompanies sexual preference or corruption or criminal intent or is it a basic human need for occasional solitude so that the contemplation of the ‘self’ can occur? True introspection is rare so it’s reasonable to suspect that the right to ‘private property’ and the bourgeois cult of individuality lie more at the heart of the contemporary concept of privacy. Your wealth is due to your own efforts and has nothing to do with the exploitation of the labour of others. This is the lie at the centre of the concept.

Privacy, with its modicum of ‘control’, militates against the reality of interdependence, the recognition of which is our only hope as a species. Individuals and their families locked up in their mortgaged jerry-built houses with security cameras and an inbuilt fear of ‘the other’ are infinitely more insecure than those who live in communities of mutual aid and respect. Divide and rule is one of the strongest propaganda tools available to the tiny parasitic elite that rule us so don’t be fooled that state ownership is public ownership because the state only exists to prevent those who create wealth from accessing it. Any state-owned business will be systematically underfunded to keep the taxes of the rich at a bare minimum with all of the subsequent industrial unrest that this inevitably causes.

We are sometimes told that ‘socialist sects’ should all join up in a mass coalition to have more power but it doesn’t matter a jot how much power you have if you are ignorant of the origins of your ideologies and the true nature of capitalism whether it’s in traditional bourgeois form or of the state capitalist incarnation – neither can, or will, improve your life.

Wez.

Michael Harrington quotes (1977)

From the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Count Bismarck was the first of the anti-socialist “socialists”. In 1878 he outlawed any organisation advocating socialism. In 1882 he was telling the Reichstag: “Many of the measures we have adopted are socialistic and we need more socialism in our state”. He had shrewdly understood that the socialists had mass appeal and was determined to use socialist slogans to fight socialism.

Socialism by M. Harrington (Bantam Books)

Man has socialised everything except himself. He has rationalized his work and nature and the very planet in every respect save one, and just as the socialists predicted more than a century ago, he is in conflict with an environment that he has brilliantly and thoughtlessly created. His genius threatens to overwhelm him.

Socialism by M. Harrington (Bantam Books)

"The Red Prussian" (1948)

Book Review from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Red Prussian; the life and legend of Karl Marx 

by Leopold Schwarzschild

Much has been written on "What Marx really meant.” This book sets out to tell us what Marx really, was.

There is, however, a startling paradox in the author's presentation. According to Mr. Schwarzschild Marx is a defamer, intriguer and political.thug. A man of many passions but no parts, possessed by an unscrupulous lust for power.

It is with mild astonishment, therefore, that we learn from the preface that "The most important facts of our times all lead back to one man—Karl Marx.” This is followed by the shattering contention, "There is no doubt if Marx had never lived our whole life would have been different ”

One can only say even at the risk of debunking Marx further in the eyes of Mr. Schwarzschild that had Birth Control been fashionable enough at the time to have put Marx among "the missing” "our life” would have been much—very much, the same, a statement Marx would have sworn to by the hairs of his beard. The old "megalomaniac” even constructed a theory debunking for all time the notion that history is a fairy-tale of the "adventures" of great men and "heroes.”

The case for the prosecution rests on excerpts and quotes mostly of Marx's and Engels' views and personal assessment of their associates. The source is the complete Marx-Engels correspondence.

It adds very little in essentials to what is known on the matter. That Marx's personal opinions were often excoriating and unjustified is ancient knowledge. That his personal opinions were often harsh but justified by subsequent events is neither ancient nor modern knowledge to Mr. Schwarzschild. Marx could even be conciliatory to views other than his own as his relations with the various sections of the First International amply testify.

Mr. Schwarzschild, indicting Marx before the bar of history as the arch-evil-maker of all time, cannot admit of any concession, or charity. He is out to get his man.

For the same reason the objective basis of Marx’s disputes with his contemporaries—disputes, over important and often decisive doctrinal differences—are no part of Mr. Schwarzschild’s evidence.

For that reason again we learn nothing of Marx's real criticism of Bruno Bauer's mystical belief in the creative power of ideas; of: his real dispute with Arnold Ruge over the nature and function of the State, or his withering analysis of the reactionary doctrines of Moses Hess’s "True Socialism”; of Proudhon’s petty bourgeois theories or Bakunin’s eclectic Anarchism.

Mr. Schwarzschild is merely concerned to use on the surface of this cauldron of simmering controversy the ladle of malice and scoop up the froth of personal remarks and chit-chat—used by all sides, incidentally—and present this froth as the essence of Marxism.

That all this is not even a part of Marxism is perhaps the most ironical commentary one can make on this book.

Marx, of course, did not affirm that morality was a bourgeois inhibition. He did deny, however, that there was some superior ethical judgment to which conflicting class-interests could be referred and successfully settled. For Marx the preaching of an abstract ethical ideal in a class dominated society was dangerous utopianism. It was against such "Utopians” that he directed his sharpest criticism.

Hegel is dealt with in a summary and largely flippant fashion. The author apparently knows nothing of the social and economic background which made Hegel such a force and compelled for a period all German philosophy and culture to stand within his shadow.

Marx is made out to be merely a slavish disciple of Hegel. It is, of course, a common-place among Marxist students that the differences between Marx and Hegel were in some aspects more emphatic than that which they had in common. The publisher's blurb informs us that the author took a degree. We might assume that it was not in Philosophy.

Risking the fact that the author's lack of knowledge of Marxism may tend to become monotonous in recounting, we are compelled to say Marx never held the view that man was a mere mechanical by-product of some mysterious ineluctable "economic process.” Consciousness—not the abstract consciousness of Hegel, but the historically class-conditioned consciousness of human beings—is central to Marx's doctrines.

Marx did not say human instincts and emotions must of necessity have an economic origin. He would have utterly repudiated the statement.

Marx did not say (vide the author) History makes men; he said the opposite, Men make History. He even said “ History possesses no riches; it fights no fight.” He added, History is nothing more than the activity of man—real living man—in pursuit of his ends. That this human activity is conditioned by the objective productive relations in which man as social groups find themselves is an interpretation of history which can be empirically established. Even academic sociologists who are not “Marxists” accept this interpretation as the most fruitful one. But as the author infers, Dr. Marx fluked his degree all these academic gentlemen might have done the same.

Finally Marx did not say what Mr. Schwarzschild says, that economics was the exclusive factor in history. The author in his zealous search through the Marx-Engels correspondence could have read Engel’s letter to Bloch on the part ideological factors play in Marx's theory. That, however, was not the sort of thing Mr. Schwarzschild was looking for.

Mr. Schwarzschild indulges in the fashionable practice of biographers by seeming to read Marx’s secret thoughts in imaginary soliloquies and conversations. The absurdities supposedly uttered by Marx in this manner are, of course, the exclusive copyright of Mr. Schwarzschild. His interpretation of Marx's theory is not the Historical Materialism of Marx but the some what hysterical romanticism of Mr. Schwarzchild.

His criticism of Marx’s economic doctrines is even below the conventional stereotyped “refutations.” Unable to refute Marx’s analysis that the objective source of profit is unpaid labour he falls back on such contentions that a source of profit is buying houses and selling them at three times their value. He is utterly unable to grasp the fact that labour is required to produce houses and therefore the basis of profit must be the element of unpaid labour contained in producing them.

He does not pursue the fascinating possibilities of this economic discovery by showing in disproof of Marx that the great increases in the wealth of present society and the vast accumulation of capital can be explained perhaps on the hypothesis of buying houses and selling them at three times their price.

He also assures us that profits are made by trading, i.e. the act of buying and selling. Here he confuses the production of profit with its realization. If labour is to be considered a source of profit then Mr. Schwarzchild’s viewpoint is that it is the dead labour of constant capital—the costs of running machines and worked up material—to which we must look. Apparently it is only living labour—the application of human labour power itself—which is denied this profit-making function.

He even tells us that many of the causes of profit-making are immaterial ones. For such a statement he offers not the slightest evidence—not even “immaterial” evidence. ’

Present-day, monopolistic, control-ridden society is referred to as a liberal capitalist system based upon thee free-play of forces. This is not the statement of John Bright a century ago but the considered opinion of a journalist called Mr. Schwarzschild in this year of grace 1948.

The author says that no economist has accepted the economics of Marx. The reason being, of course, self-evident. We wonder if even the present apologists for capitalism would accept the economics of Mr. Schwarzschild.

Mr. Schwarzschild contends that Marx refused to give a blueprint of future socialist society because it would have revealed a Super Prussian State. That Socialism cannot be a sum of ready-made proscriptions but the historic product of the living concrete conditions developing in Capitalist Society is the one thing which marks off Scientific Socialism from the utopian brands. Such a remark revealingly shows that Mr. Schwarzschild’s knowledge of Scientific Socialism could be amply accommodated with a suitable margin on the back of a postage-stamp. Incidentally, when Marx showed that Socialism must inevitably mean the establishment of a classless society the author simply says that Marx was lying.

It is rather amusing to reflect that the capitalist press, each in their different ways, have largely demolished Mr. Schwarzschild’s contentions. It is equally amusing to note that in their contradictory assessment of Marxism they also contradict each other. Thus the journal Truth comments not unfavourably on the author’s contention that “Bismark was a champion of human liberty against the soul-destroying tyranny of Marx.” The liberal Manchester Guardian review agrees with Mr. Schwarzschild’s personal assessment of Marx but disagrees with the liberal Mr. Schwarzschild’s estimate of Bismark bv stating that like Marx “Bismark had the same repellent qualities even more intensely.” The Economist's reviewer thought that the author’s tendency to exaggerate the triumphs of Liberalism contained some startling inaccuracies. He believed, however, that Marxist science is but a painful attempt to justify Marx’s dogmatic pronouncements before 1848. Mr. Crankshaw in the Observer holds, however, that “Marx’s philosophic contribution is badly under-rated by Mr. Schwarzschild” and says “here in the midst of the 20th century Dr. Marx and his dialectic very much is.” In spite of Mr. Crankshaw’s assertion that a man of lesser talent than Mr. Schwarzschild could have disposed of Marx’s theory of surplus-value Mr. George Malcolm in the most objective of the reviews in the Evening Standard regards Capital as one of the most potent books in the world. The ineffable Frank Owen in the Mail commenting on the Red Prussian asks “was Marx a great genius or monster fraud?” and never really answers it. Mr. Harold Nicholson in the Daily Telegraph “cannot believe that a man who earned the unflagging devotion of his wife and Engels could have been quite the monster Mr. Schwarzschild portrays.” Finally the Manchester Guardian's summing up that the hook “is not the last word on one who is, after all, a great historic figure” expresses the more or less general viewpoint of most of those quoted.

All of which must be most disconcerting to an author who sets out to prove that Marx was a cross between an educated half-wit and an Al Capone.

Anybody with the barest knowledge of Marxism can read it with tolerant amusement. But the book is 16s. and that is a lot to pay for amusement, even these days. If it is merely relaxation the reader wants then “Itma” or “ Dick Barton ” is much more entertaining and wholesome.

Ted Wilmott

The Commune of Paris, 1871. (1923)

From the March 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

To all Socialists throughout the world, the 18th of March recalls to their minds the first organised attempt on the part of a section of the working class to administer the affairs of society in the workers’ interest. We speak of the Commune of Paris in 1871.

To convey a clear understanding of the Commune, it is necessary to give a brief outline of some of the events which led to the uprising of the Parisian workers on the 18th of March, 1871.

In 1849, an enterprising gentleman, named Louis Bonaparte, nephew of the first Napoleon, was elected President of the French Republic, and three years later he was proclaimed Emperor of the Second Empire.

For the events which enabled Bonaparte and his gang of hangers-on to become masters of France, readers are referred to Marx’s brilliant and profound monograph, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.”

Of the establishment of the Second Empire, Engels says “that meant the appeal to French chauvinism, which implied the demand for the reacquisition of the frontier of the First Empire lost in 1814.” The existing frontier no longer satisfied the requirements of the Jingoes, in view of the fact that during the Bonapartist regime France had experienced a rapid industrial development. To the French ruling class the redeeming feature of the Bonapartist Government was its policy which favoured speculation and industrial activity, resulting for them in enrichment to a hitherto unheard of degree. Industrial expansion made necessary occasional wars and extensions of frontier, and the frontier which most interested the French Chauvinists was the left bank of the Rhine.

Gradually a growing section of the ruling class began more and more to express their dissatisfaction with the foreign and domestic policy of Bonaparte; whilst on the other hand, the discontent of the workers manifested itself in a way disturbing to the peace of mind, of not only the section of the ruling class opposed to Bonaparte, but to Bonaparte himself.

Among the workers, an organisation called the International Working Men’s Association, founded by Marx and Engels in 1864, was carrying on an agitation throughout Europe; and in France, the agitation was such, that Bonaparte had 60 of its most active members arrested.

Thus, confronted with the growing unpopularity among the ruling class, and fearing an uprising of the workers, Bonaparte sought refuge in satisfying the aspirations of the French Jingoes by declaring war on Prussia on the 15th of July, 1870. But the war proved disastrous for France. After various encounters, one French Army was driven into Sedan, where Bonaparte, with 80,000 men, surrendered. After this, battle after battle was lost by the French. Even the new Army under Marshal Bazaine, which had been raised to stave off the march of the Prussians on Paris, was surrounded at Metz, where Bazaine, with 180,000 men, surrendered.

As a consequence of the first great defeat at Sedan, an uprising occurred in Paris on the 4th of September, 1870, which sounded the death-knell of the Second Empire. The Republic was again proclaimed, and Thiers, who had been a statesman under the old Monarchy of Louis Phillipe, was appointed as its head.

During the war, the mass of the workers, like the great bulk of the workers during the late European war, were stupid enough to interest themselves in a quarrel which was entirely a quarrel between rival groups of the ruling class. Consequently, what was uppermost in the minds of the Parisians, was to organise a resistance against the Prussians, who were now on their way to besiege the city. The bulk of the Parisians believed in the possibility of successfully defending Paris, and the Thiers’ Government accepted a mandate from them to act as the “government of defence.” For the purpose of defending Paris all Parisians capable of bearing arms were armed and enrolled in the National Guard, which was composed mainly of working men.

Towards the end of September the Prussians began their siege of Paris, and it soon became evident to many that the Government was not treating seriously the question of defence. The fact is, that the matter of the defence of Paris was treated as a huge joke by the Thiers’ Government, and is described by Marx as “a well understood mockery of defence.” The evidence of this fact was left in the hands of the Commune when the Government made its wild flight to Versailles after the 18th of March.

As indicated above, we do not approve the action of the Parisians in demanding the continuance of the war; but even so, that in no way excuses the “government of defence” in not seriously acting in line with the mandate it had accepted to effectively defend Paris, which is one illustration of the contempt that all Capitalist Governments have for the views of the great bulk of those who elect them to power.

Of course, the Thiers’ Government had reasons of its own for disregarding the mandate. What Thiers and his gang were really desirous of defending Paris against was, not the Prussians, but the armed working men of Paris.

“Paris armed, was the revolution armed,” says Marx; and Thiers did not fail to note this significant fact.

The year 1871 opened with Paris still a besieged city, and finally on the 28th of January, it being no longer possible to carry on the farce of “defence,” the French Government capitulated to Bismark.

Engels, in his introduction to Marx’s “Civil War in France,” points out that when the Prussians entered Paris they found themselves surrounded by armed workmen, “who carefully watched lest any ‘Prussian’ should overstep the narrow limits of the quarter reserved for the foreign conqueror.”

How to disarm these workmen was the immediate problem set before Thiers. To accomplish this Thiers, with the flagrant lie on his lips that the arms of the National Guard were State property, called upon the National Guard to give up their artillery. Of course, Thiers knew well that the arms of the Guards were their own property ; they were bought by themselves by means of public subscriptions; moreover, they were officially recognised as their property in the terms of the capitulation of Paris. This move on the part of Thiers to get the National Guard to surrender their arms having failed, he next tried more forcible means.

Accordingly, Thiers dispatched a few regiments of the line to Montmartre to steal the artillery. With the usual display of “directive ability,” those responsible for the organisation to take the guns had failed to provide adequate means of transport. When the troops secured the guns the lack of transport prevented them from proceeding far, before the move became known. It is said that the women were the first to act, calling upon the troops to leave the guns alone. Meanwhile, the news having spread, some of the National Guard: appeared on the scene accompanied by women and children. Several times did General Lecomte give the order for his men to fire upon the defenceless women and children, but each time his order was disregarded. The few stragglers of the National Guard, with the women and children seeing this, pushed forward, and fraternised with the troops. The attempt to steal the guns had failed.

In vain did Thiers appeal to the Parisians to stand by “law and order,” for out of 300,000 National Guards only a few hundred could be found to rally to his support. Small wonder that they did not do so, for in addition to enduring the hardships of the 131 days siege of Paris, the Thiers’ Government had stopped the pay of the National Guard. Thus, were they and their dependents faced with starvation.

From the time that Thiers had failed to disarm the National Guard on the 18th of March, the workers had assumed control of Paris. The Thiers’ Government in the meantime had fled to Versailles.

On the 26th of March, the Paris Commune was elected and proclaimed on the 28th.

The workers had thereby committed a “crime”—the worst of all possible crimes in the eyes of the ruling class—”the violation of the sacred rights of private property.”

It cannot be said that the revolt of the Parisian workers was a Socialist Revolution, as only a few of those who took part in the movement had any Socialist knowledge. But considering the suddenness with which they were called upon to act, it must be ungrudgingly granted that the workers of Paris acquitted themselves wonderfully. Mistakes they made, of course, as they were sure to do, considering the circumstances which surrounded the movement.

The Commune accomplished many fine acts of legislation. It abolished the conscription and standing army, the only force recognised being the National Guard. All rents of dwellings from October, 1870, to April, 1871, were remitted, such rent as had been paid to be deducted from future payments. Its labour department brought about the abolition of night work for bakers, and declared all fines and stoppages from wages illegal. The fact that “foreigners” were elected to the Commune, shows the international outlook of many of the Communards. The “superior officials” who had acted under the Thiers and Napoleonic Governments having made off to Versailles, the control of nearly all the public services was in the hands of workmen administrators, placed there by the Commune.

What was Paris like during the short period of the workers’ control of affairs? Belfort Bax, in his admirable “Short History of the Commune,” tells us that the city was quiet, peaceful, and wholly free from crime. Even many middle-class Englishmen, who had no sympathy with the Commune reluctantly testified to the orderly and peaceful manner in which the Communards carried out the duties of citizenship. While the Versailles publications were demanding the wholesale slaughter of the Parisians, one could look in vain through the revolutionary journals for any blood-thirsty suggestion.

The people’s Paris of 1871 was a model against which no city throughout capitalist civilisation could compare. The wants of the populace were attended to, as best they could in the circumstances. For the “crime” of having attacked the private property institution, Thiers and his blood-thirsty gang at Versailles were planning to deluge Paris in a sea of blood.

We have said that the Commune made many mistakes, and one important mistake was its treatment of the military side of its administration. Of all the departments controlled by the Commune, the department of war was the worst conducted. Having made the initial blunder of allowing the Thiers’ Government to escape from Paris, one would imagine that they would have prepared for an attack from Thiers later. Instead, the Commune spent its time in futile attempts to negotiate with Thiers, which the latter gladly protracted till he had made arrangements with Bismark for the delivery of the French troops, taken as prisoners during the war. Thiers would hear of no compromise with the Commune, nothing but the unconstitutional surrender of Paris would meet his requirements.

Accordingly, on the 1st of April, without any warning, the Versaillese opened fire on Paris. It was then that the lack of military preparation on the part of the Commune came into prominence. The requisites of war were at places other than where they should have been. Important points of defence were discovered to be undefended. It seems that some of the leaders of the Commune thought that the Versaillese would refuse to fire upon the Parisians as had happened on the 18th of March. On this point Belfort Bax well says, they forgot

  “that insubordination in the interior of a fortress is a very different thing from insubordination in the open street under the moral pressure of a sympathetic crowd ready to protect the insubordinate from the vengeance of their superior officers.”

The time for the Commune to organise an effective defence of Paris had now gone. Strenuous efforts were made, but all was in vain. We could go on to tell of the wonderful acts of heroism. Men, women, and even children, took their part in the fight to defend the Commune. But space does not permit.

Finally, on the 21st of May, the forces of Thiers entered Paris. He had demanded the blood of the Parisians, and the time had now arrived for he and his gang to execute their evil designs of butchery in which they were ably assisted by the much “hated” Prussian, Bismark.

  “Twenty-five thousand men, women and children killed during the battle and after ; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their captivity; thirteen thousand seven hundred condemned, most of them for life; seventy thousand women, children and old men deprived of their natural supporters, or thrown out of France; one hundred and eleven thousand victims at least—that is the balance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance for the solitary insurrection of the 18th of March.”

So writes M. Lissagaray, the author of the “History of the Commune,” who himself took part in the struggle.

Lest it be said that we are taking the evidence of a partial witness, we will give one quotation from the capitalist press of the time.

  “As many as one thousand Communists were shot after their capture (June 1st). Human life has become so cheap that a man is shot more readily than a dog. Summary executions are still (long after the fighting had ceased) going on wholesale.”—”Times,” May-June, 1871.

Such was the fury of the bourgeois butchers under the leadership of Thiers. No deed was too foul for them to perpetrate upon their defenceless victims.

As Socialists, we are pleased to commemorate the Commune of Paris; it demonstrated to the world, in spite of its many blunders that the workers can, when given a favourable opportunity, control the affairs of society, not only without the aid of the ruling class, but the better for its absence; a fact which unquestionably added to the fury of the French ruling class.

The great value the Commune has for the workers to-day is the lesson they can draw therefrom. The Commune served to bring out the reality of the class struggle, and the ruthlessness of the ruling class when their system, the private property institution, is attacked.

Far too much of that abstraction “Humanity” seemed to characterise the Communards, they treated their bourgeois enemies far too lightly, and too kindly; every act of kindness shown by the Communards, being treated by Thiers as an act of weakness, serving to encourage him in his foul treatment of the Parisians.

If heroism and devotion to the ideal of human solidarity could accomplish anything in themselves, a different tale of the Commune would have to be told, but without sound organisation these will achieve but little.

Not the least of the factors which aided the destruction of the Commune was the mixed elements which composed it.

The Commune, like many other attempts on the part of the workers, demonstrates the absolute necessity for a sound, well-disciplined organisation, understanding, and ready to meet the requirements of the situation. The Socialist Party of Great Britain fulfils the requirement. We steadily point out to the workers the cause of their troubles, and the futility of their many attempts to remove them. The workers must cease to trust in “leaders,” particularly those of the “intellectual minority” type, for this same type of “leader” was known to the Commune.

In conclusion, let us hope that the time is not far distant when the workers sound in their understanding and strong in their determination will arise to avenge their fellows of the Commune, by overthrowing capitalist society and inaugurating the Socialist Commonwealth.

Robert Reynolds

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

From the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

  [The reprint given below of the last of the published writings of Frederick Engels is of especial value to-day in its application to the conditions prevailing in Europe. If events have so strongly falsified his views as to the strength and soundness of the rank and file of the German Social-Democratic Party, it should be remembered that when that organisation was formed by the fusion of the two previously existing parties — the Lassalleans and the Marxists—both Marx and Engels opposed the fusion, and only accepted the situation some time after, when the steady growth of the party seemed to justify its formation. The war has shown completely that the original views of Marx and Engels were right, while those of Bebel, Leibnecht, and the others were wrong, though many Marxian students proclaimed the unsoundness of the German party long before the war. In other words, the principles which Marx and Engels did so much to establish have proved to be correct even in the case where Engels was persuaded that a modification was required. A firm grip of those principles is the only safe guide for the workers to-day.—ed. com.]

As the February revolution of 1848 broke out we were all, as regards our views of the conditions and course of revolutionary movements, under the influence of previous historical experience, especially that of France. It was just this latter which had controlled all European history since 1689, and from which once more the signal for a general upheaval had gone out. Hence it was natural and inevitable that our ideas of the nature and course of the "social" revolution proclaimed at Paris in February, 1848, the revolution of the proletariat, were strongly coloured by recollections of the prototypes of 1789 to 1830. And particularly as the Paris revolt found its echo in the victorious uprisings at Vienna, Milan, Berlin; as all Europe up to the Russian border was swept into the movement; as then in June at Paris the first great battle for supremacy was fought between proletariat and bourgeoisie ; as even the victory of their own class so convulsed the bourgeoisie of all countries that they flew back again into the arms of the monarchic-feudal reactionists whom they had just overthrown : under all these circumstances there could be no doubt in our minds that the great decisive conflict had begun, and that it would have to be fought out in a single long revolutionary period with varying success, but that it could only end in the final victory of the proletariat.

After the defeats of 1849 we did not by any means share in the illusions of the pseudo-democracy which was grouped around the outskirts of the provisional governments. This was counting on an early, once for all, decisive victory of the "people" over the "oppressors"; we were counting on a long struggle after the removal of the oppressors, a struggle between the antagonistic elements hidden in this very "people" itself. The pseudo-democracy was expecting from day to day a renewed outbreak; we declared as early as in autumn 1850 that at least the first chapter of the revolutionary period was closed, and that nothing more was to be expected until the outbreak of a new economic world crisis. And for this very reason, too, we were excommunicated as traitors to the revolution by the very same people who afterwards almost without exception made their peace with Bismarck—so far as Bismarck found them worth having.

But history has shown that we, too, were wrong, and has exposed our opinion at that time as an illusion ; it has done more: it has not only demolished our error, it has totally recast the conditions under which the proletariat has to fight. The 1848 method of warfare is to-day antiquated in every particular, and that is a point which at this opportunity deserves to be closely examined.

All previous revolutions resulted in the displacement of one class government by another. All previous ruling classes were, however, only small minorities compared with the subject mass of the common people. A ruling minority was overthrown, in its stead another minority seized the helm of state, and remodelled the political institutions according to its own interests. In every case this new minority group was one which the progress of economic development had trained for and called to rulership, and for that very reason and only for that reason it happened that at the time of the revolution the subject majority either took sides with it or at any rate acquiesced in it. But ignoring the concrete details of each particular case, the common form of all these revolutions was this, that they were minority revolutions. Even when the majority assisted it was, consciously or unconsciously, only working in the interest of a minority. This fact, or even the passive non-resistance of the majority, gave to the minority the appearance of being the representative of the whole people. 

After the first great victory the successful minority as a rule became divided ; half was satisfied with what was already won, the other half wished to go farther yet and made new demands, which at least in part were in the real or apparent interest of the great mass of the people. These more radical demands were in particular instances carried through, but for the most part only temporarily : the more moderate party again got the upper hand, the latest gains were wholly or partly lost again. The radicals then raised the cry of "treason," or attributed their defeat to accident. In fact, however, matters stood about so :—the results of the first victory were made secure only by another victory over the more radical party. This done, and thereby the immediate demands of the moderates being attained, the radicals and their following disappeared again from the stage.

All the revolutions of modern times, beginning with the great English revolution of the seventeenth century, showed these features, which seemed inseparable from every revolutionary struggle. They appeared to be also applicable to the struggles of the proletariat for its emancipation ; all the more applicable as in 1842 the few people could be counted who understood even in a general way the direction in which this emancipation was to be sought. The proletarian masses themselves even in Paris after the victory were still absolutely in the dark as to the course to pursue. And yet the movement was there, instinctive, spontaneous, irrepressible. Was not that exactly the condition in which a revolution was bound to succeed, though led, it is true, by a minority, but this time not in the interest of a minority, but in the truest interest of the majority? If in all the more prolonged revolutionary periods the great masses of the people had been so easily won over by the merely plausible inducements of ambitious minorities, how could they be less accessible to ideas which were the purest reflex of their economic situation, which were nothing else but the clear, intelligent expression of their own wants, wants as yet not understood by themselves and only indistinctly felt ? It is true this revolutionary temper of the masses had nearly always, and generally very soon, given way to lassitude or even to a reaction into the opposite attitude, as soon as the illusion had vanished and undeception had taken place.

Here, however, it was not a question of promoting the most vital interests of the great majority itself—interests which, it is true, at that time were by no means clearly seen by that great majority, but which in the course of practical enforcement were bound soon enough to become clear to it by the convincing force of experience. And now when in the spring of 1850 the development of the bourgeois republic which arose out of the "social" revolution of 1848 had concentrated all actual power in the hands of the great bourgeoisie, and this having monarchical inclinations, too; and when on the other hand this same development had grouped all other classes of society, both peasants and small-bourgeoisie, around the proletariat in such a way that in and after the joint victory the controlling factor would be, not those others, but the proletariat itself, grown sharp-witted through experience—was there not every prospect at hand for turning a minority revolution into a majority revolution ?

History has shown that we, and all who thought like us, were wrong. It has made plain that the condition of economic development on the Continent at that time was not yet ripe enough by far for the abolition of capitalist production ; it has proved this by the economic revolution which since 1848 has transformed the whole Continent and has for the first time effectively naturalised large-scale industry in France, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and, more recently, in Russia, while out of Germany it has actually made an industrial State of the first rank—all on a capitalist, basis, which system therefore in 1848 was still capable of great expansion. Moreover, it is just this industrial revolution which first brought about clearness everywhere in class relations ; which shoved aside a lot of middle men who had come down from the early manufacturing period and in Eastern Europe even from the guild system ; which created a genuine bourgeoisie and a genuine factory proletariat and pushed them to the front place in the social development. Thereby, however, the struggle of these two great classes, a struggle which in 1848 existed outside of England only in Paris, and at most in some few great industrial centres, has spread for the first time over all Europe and reached an intensity which in 1848 was inconceivable. Then there were many confused sectarian gospels with their different panaceas ; to-day the single, transparently clear and universally recognised theory of Marx, which sharply formulates the ultimate aims of the struggle ; then, massed, separated, and differentiated by locality and nationality, bound together only by a feeling of common suffering, undeveloped, tossed helplessly back and forth between enthusiasm and despair; to-day one great international army of Socialists, unceasingly advancing, daily growing in numbers, organisation, discipline, intelligence and certainty of victory. If even this mighty army of the proletariat has not yet attained its object, if far from wresting victory at one grand stroke, it has to press slowly forward from one position to another in a hard, tenacious struggle, this proves once for all how impossible it was in 1848 to effect the transformation of society by a mere sudden onslaught.

A bourgeoisie, split into two dynastic monarchical factions, but which demanded before everything else peace and security for its financial transactions ; confronting it a proletariat, conquered but still threatening, and around which the small tradesmen and peasants were grouping themselves more and more ; the constant threatening of a violent outbreak, which after all offered no prospect of a final solution— that was the situation, fitted as if made to order, for the forcible usurpation of the pseudo-democratic pretender, Louis Bonaparte, yclept the Third. On December 2, 1851, with the aid of the army, he put an end to the strained situation, and secured internal peace for Europe in order to beautify it with new wars. The period of revolutions from the bottom up was for the time being closed ; there followed a period of revolution from the top down.

The setback of 1851 towards Imperialism gave new proof of the unripeness of the proletarian aspirations of that time. But it was itself destined to create the conditions under which they must ripen. Internal peace secured the full development of the new industrial life; the necessity of keeping the army busy and of turning the revolutionary activities away from home engendered wars in which Bonaparte, under the pretense of giving effect to the "nationality principle," sought to rake up annexations to France. His imitator, Bismarck, adopted the same policy for Prussia ; he played his political grab-game, his revolution from the top, in 1866 against the German confederation and Austria, and not less against the recalcitrant Chamber of Deputies in Prussia. But Europe was too small for two Bonapartes, and so the irony of history would have it that Bismarck should overthrow Bonaparte and that King William should restore not only the small German empire, but also the French Republic. The general result, however, was this, that in Europe the autonomy and inner unity of the large nations, with the exception of Poland, had become a reality ; true, it was only within relatively modest limits, but yet far enough so that the developing process of the working class was no longer materially hindered by national complications. The gravediggers of the revolution of 1848 had become executors of its will; and beside them arose the proletariat, the heir of 1848, already threatening, in the new International.

After the war of 1870-1871, Bonaparte disappears from the stage and Bismarck's mission is completed, so that he can now subside again to the level of an ordinary country squire. But the closing act of this period is formed by the Paris Commune. A treacherous attempt by Thiers to steal the cannons of the Paris National Guard called forth a successful revolt. It was again demonstrated that in Paris no other revolution is possible any more, except a proletarian one. After the victory the leadership fell uncontested into the lap of the working class, just as a matter of course. And again it was shown how impossible it was even then, twenty years after the former effort, for the leadership of the working class to be successful. On one hand France left Paris in the lurch and stood by looking on while it was bleeding under the bullets of McMahon; on the other hand the Commune wasted its strength in a barren quarrel of the two disagreeing factions, the Blanquists, who formed the majority, and the Proudhonists, who formed the minority, neither of which knew what to do. The victory of 1871, which came as a gift, proved just as barren as the forcible overthrow of 1848.

With the fall of the Paris Commune it was thought that the militant proletariat was ever lastingly buried past resurrection. But quite to the contrary, its most vigorous growth dates from the Commune and the Franco-Prussian war. The complete transformation of the whole military system by bringing the entire able-bodied population into the armies, now running into millions, and by the introduction of firearms, cannon and explosives of hitherto unheard-of power, put a sudden end to the Napoleonic war era, and assured a peaceful industrial development by making impossible any war other than a world-war of unprecedented gruesomeness and of absolutely incalculable consequences. On the other hand, the increase of the army budget in a geometrical progression forced the taxes up to an uncollectable point, and thereby drove the poorer classes into the hands of Socialism. The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, which was the immediate cause of the mad competition in preparations for war, might goad the French and German bourgeoisie into chauvinism towards each other, but for the workingmen of both countries it was only a new bond of unity. And the anniversary of the Paris Commune became the first general holiday of the entire proletariat.

The war of 1870-1871 and the overthrow of the Commune had, as Marx foretold, shifted the centre of gravity of the European labour movement from France to Germany. In France it took, of course, years to recover from the blood letting of May, 1871. In Germany, on the contrary, where industry was developing faster and faster, forced on in hothouse fashion by the providential milliards from France, the social democracy was growing faster and yet more enduring. Thanks to the intelligence with which the German workingmen made use of the universal suffrage, introduced in 1866, the astounding growth of the party is revealed to all in incontestable figures. In 1871, 102,000 social democratic votes; in 1874, 352,000 ; in 1877, 493,000, Then came the high official recognition of the gains in the shape of the anti-Socialist law. The party was for a moment demoralised ; the number of votes in 1881 fell to 312,000. But the relapse was soon overcome, and then under the pressure of the anti-Socialist law, and without a Press, without a recognised organisation, without the right of association or of assembly, the growth began to increase more rapidly than ever. In 1884, 550,000 ; in 1887, 763,000; in 1890, 1,427,000. Then the hand of the State was palsied. Then anti-Socialist law disappeared ; the number of Socialist votes rose to 1,787,000, over a quarter of the total votes cast. The Government and the ruling classes had exhausted all their expedients; they were useless, aimless, resultless. The tangible proofs of their impotence which the authorities, from the night watchman to the imperial chancellor, got shoved under their noses, and that, too, from the despised working-men, were numbered by millions. The State had got to the end of its Latin, the workingmen were only at the beginning of theirs.

Moreover, in addition to this, the German workingmen had done their cause a second great service, besides the first one, consisting merely in their existence as the strongest, best disciplined, and most rapidly growing Socialist party; they had shown their comrades of all countries a new weapon, and one of the keenest, in showing them how to use the ballot.

Universal suffrage had long existed in France, but had come into disrepute through the misuse which the Napoleonic government had made of it. After the Commune there was no labour party in existence to make use of it. In Spain, too, it had existed since the republic, but in Spain it was always the custom of all the real opposition parties to refrain from voting. And in Switzerland, too, the experiences with universal suffrage were anything but encouraging for a labour party. The revolutionary working-men of the Romance countries had become accustomed to look upon the ballot as a snare, as an instrument of oppression manipulated by the government.

In Germany it was different. The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat, and Lassalle had taken up the point again. And when Bismarck saw that he was forced to introduce this franchise as the only means of getting the masses interested in his plans, our workingmen at once took the matter seriously and sent August Bebel into the constitutional convention. And from that day on they have used the ballot in a manner that has repaid them a thousand fold and has served as an example to the workingmen of all countries. They have transformed the ballot, in the words of the French Marxians, "de moyen de duperie, qu'il a ete jusqu'ici, en instrument d'emancipation" ; from a means of jugglery, which it has been heretofore, into an instrument of emancipation. And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than to allow us to count ourselves every three years, and by a regularly certified and unexpectedly rapid increase of votes to raise in equal degree the confidence of the workers and the terror of their opponents, and thus to become our best means of propaganda ; and to inform us exactly as to our own strength and as to that of all opposing parties, and thereby give us a standard for apportioning our activity such as could not be equalled ; and to save us both from untimely hesitation and untimely rashness: if that were the only benefit derived from the franchise, even then it would be enough and more than enough. But it has done far more. It gave us in election campaigns an unequalled opportunity to come in contact with the masses where they still stood aloof from us, and to force all parties to defend their views and actions before all the people against our attacks ; and it also opened to our representatives in Parliament, a forum from which they could talk to their opponents in Parliament as well as to the masses outside, with an entirely different tone of authority and freedom from what they could use in the press and in meetings. What good did the anti-Socialist law do the government and the bourgeoisie so long as the election campaigns and the Socialist speeches in Parliament were continually nullifying it ?

(To be Concluded.)

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.

The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850

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.

The Historical Background of Hitlerism (1939)

From the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

"National Socialism” marks a stage in the national reconsolidation of German capitalism. A variety of factors have contributed to its success, most important of which we have attempted to outline below.

The Bourgeois Revolution

In "Revolution and Counter Revolution,” Frederick Engels has described the state of Germany in 1848 in the following words: 

   The composition of the different classes of the people which form the groundwork of every political organisation, was in Germany more complicated than in any other country. While in England and France feudalism was entirely destroyed, or, at least, reduced, as in the former country, to a few insignificant forms by a powerful and wealthy middle class concentrated in large towns and particularly in the capital, the feudal nobility in Germany had retained a great portion of their privileges. The feudal system of tenure was prevalent almost everywhere. . . . Feudalism was more flourishing in some localities than in others, but nowhere, except on the left bank of the Rhine, was it entirely destroyed. The feudal nobility, then extremely numerous and partly very wealthy, was considered officially the first ‘Order' in the country. It furnished the higher government officials, it almost exclusively officered the army.

Engels then goes on to show how circumstances ripened in Germany for the overthrow of feudalism. The bourgeoisie, supported by the majority of the peasantry and the workers, took the initiative in an attempt to dislodge their feudal oppressors from power, but capitulated in cowardly fashion the moment these former elements sponsored their own independent demands. Says Engels, in weighing up the results of the revolution: 

  The industrial and commercial capitalist class were more severely defeated in Germany than in any other country; they were first worsted, broken, expelled from office in every individual State of Germany, and then put to rout, disgraced and hooted in the central German Parliament. Political Liberalism, the rule of the bourgeoisie, be it under a monarchial or republican form of government, is for ever impossible in Germany.

The First German Reich

The semi-feudal empire established in 1871 granted the capitalists a large number of economic concessions in return for the latter's acquiescence in the political domination of the Hohemzollerns. From this period onwards the bourgeoisie directed its main attention to the possibility of enriching itself at the expense of the ever-growing number of proletarians brought about by the rapid industrialisation of the country. The Bismarckian Empire was not a unitary state. It was composed of twenty-two federal states, each of which had its own ruler, its own government, and even its own legislative bodies. A number of these states also had their own postal and railway administrations, and even their own armies.

It was against this background that Social Democracy arose. The Eisenach Party, formed by August Bebel (a disciple of Marx) in 1869, adopted a programme which, in the light of the period, constituted a definite advance in working class ideas. When, in 1875, that movement abandoned its original programme in favour of a policy of compromise and reformism, Marx bitterly denounced it (see his “Critique of Gotha Programme"). However, three years later, Bismarck's anti-Socialist laws forced the party underground. In 1891 the resuscitated movement was reconstituted with a new programme—the Erfurt Programme—in which the influence of Marx and Engels once more made itself felt. But not for long. The inclusion of a policy of “immediate demands" very soon swamped the party with reformist elements. The original goal was lost sight of and by 1914 the party had degenerated into a pure and simple bourgeois reform movement. So much so, that, with few exceptions, it was to be found aiding and abetting the capitalists and Junkers in their prosecution of the World War.

The Second Reich

Defeat in the War, 1914-1918, had as its consequence the breakdown of the German military and semi-feudal state apparatus. When the Kaiser fled the task of rehabilitating capitalism fell into the hands of Social Democracy. They were by far the largest party and had the greatest backing throughout the country from the war-weary workers now ready to give parliamentary democracy a trial. In 1919 the Weimar Constitution was drawn up and, as a result of the elections, plus support from the “Centre," etc., the Social Democrats became the first republican government. The latter was, however, handicapped in consolidating its authority by several hostile forces. Principal among these were the Spartacists—followers of Karl Liebhnecht and Rosa Luxemburg—and another group, which desired to imitate the Russian example (later it became the Communist Party). Feeling its authority undermined, the government, in order to crush the rebels, enlisted the aid of reactionary generals and officers—the extreme right-wing, as they were called. Such action could not but spell disaster for the republic, for these reactionary hirelings, once reinstated, plotted against their benefactors and came out openly against them when their influence amongst the masses had waned. The rehabilitation of capitalism in a defeated country created a mass of problems to a party ushering in a new political regime. Social Democracy, being unable to master those problems, the inevitable discontent vented itself on that regime—the Weimar Republic.

On the other hand, the capitalists, sighing for the return of their markets and trade routes, were beginning to look elsewhere, turning a sympathetic ear to the new message of Adolf Hitler, national capitalism, mis-labelled “ national Socialism."

Adolf Hitler

From being a mere handful of disgruntled officers who had severely suffered in prestige as a result of their abortive Putsch in 1924, the Nazis soon gained in influence. Adolf Hitler had learned a lot from his failure—particularly had he learned the need to win over the masses. Hence the new party must have a programme wide enough to appeal to practically all sections of the population. Mob oratory, anti-Semitism, nationalism and pseudo-Socialism now became his stock-in-trade. The objective situation became ripe for the Nazis after 1930. The economic crisis which had then broken out became aggravated by the widespread withdrawal of foreign investments and the cessation of loans. Meanwhile the numbers of the unemployed had increased to seven millions, whilst those in employment were periodically having their wages reduced. The failure of government after government to master the situation brought the democratic republic into ever-greater disrepute. A state of parliamentary paralysis had begun to set in (the “Communists" as well as the Nazis are to blame for this). The Nazis were not slow to cash-in on this wave of anti-parliamentarian sentiment. But, in addition, the leading capitalists ceased their support for the Republic. The Social Democrats had served a purpose. They had preserved capitalism in the post-war years. They could no longer aid the bourgeoisie in its long-delayed quest for aggrandisement. For that a new type of militarism was necessary. Not the militarism of the early Bismarckian era, utilised mainly in the interests of a backward land-owning group, but one which looked beyond the borders of the Prussian State for its ideal. A movement, in short, which could bring to reality all the unfulfilled dreams of a century—national centralisation and consolidation, with a view to re-entering the imperialist arena, this time unfettered by any feudal restrictions. The Nazi movement embodied these ideals and Hitler had set them down in “Mein Kampf." And so it has come about. Under the influence of the masses, Germany has become a “totalitarian state." All autonomous regional governments have been abolished. We have witnessed the absorption of Austria, Memel and Czechoslovakia. Thus the Nazi movement has been instrumental in consummating the uncompleted bourgeois revolution of 1848, in addition to preparing the ground for an imperialist conflict. This is the real historical content of Hitlerism stripped of all confusing detail. It is only by the appreciation of this analysis that any effective struggle against Fascism can be waged.

The Outlook

And now what of the future? Is all lost as far as Germany is concerned? Unquestionably the possibility of working for Socialism there has received a set-back, but opposition to Hitler still goes on. That this is so is proved by the existence of secret police, concentration camps, and by the brutal methods of suppression. For the latter would surely be unnecessary if ninety-nine per cent. of the population were actively behind the Führer. If war does not intervene, capitalism is bound, sooner or later, to produce a major economic crisis, which will shake the confidence of the masses in the papal infallibility of their hero. That would be a first step. But by whatever means Hitler is eventually overthrown. Fascism can be no more a permanent phase than was the tyrannical Napoleonic regime of the Second Empire. Meanwhile we must strengthen our forces in this country and await the day when we can openly join hands with our German comrades for the overthrow of international capitalism.

S. G. & S. K.

The Historical Method of Karl Marx by Paul Lafargue. (1920)

From the May 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reprinted from the “International Socialist Review,” Oct., 1907.

  “The mode of production of the physical means of life dominates as a rule the development of the social, political and intellectual life” (Karl Marx).


I. The Socialist Critiques.

Marx, half a century ago, proposed a new method for the interpretation of history, which he and Engels applied in their studies. It is not surprising that the historians, sociologists and philosophers, fearing lest the communist thinker corrupt their innocence and cause them to lose the favour of the bourgeoisie, should ignore this method: but it is strange that Socialists should hesitate to employ it, possibly for fear of arriving at conclusions which might rumple their bourgeois notions, to which they unconsciously remain prisoners. Instead of experimenting with it so as to judge it from its use, they prefer to discuss the question of its value and they discover innumerable defects in it; it misconceives, they say, the ideal and its operation; it brutalises eternal truths and principles; it takes no account of the individual and of his role; it leads to an economic fatalism which excuses man from all effort, etc. What would these comrades think of a carpenter who, instead of working with the hammers, saws and planes put at his disposal, should quarrel with them? Since no perfect tools exist, he would have plenty of chance to rail at them. Criticism does not begin to be fruitful instead of futile, until it comes after experience, which, better than the most subtle reasoning, makes us sensible of imperfections and teaches us to correct them. Man first used the clumsy stone hammer, and its use taught him to transform it into more than a hundred types, differing in their raw material, their weight, and their form.

Leucippus and his disciple Democritus, five centuries before the Christian Era, introduced their concept of the atom to explain the makeup of mind and matter, and during more than two thousand years, philosophers, the idea not occurring to them of resorting to experience that they might test the atomic hypothesis, indulged in discussions on the atom in itself, on the fullness of matter indefinitely continued, on emptiness, discontinuity, etc. and it is not until the end of the 18th century that Dalton utilised the conception of Democritus to explain chemical combinations. The atom, with which the philosophers had been able to do nothing, became in the hands of the chemists “one of the most powerful tools of research that human reason has succeeded in creating”. But now, after its use, the marvellous tool has been found imperfect and the radio-activity of matter obliges the physicists to pulverise the atom, that ultimate particle of matter, indivisible and impenetrable, into ultra-ultimate particles, of the same nature in all atoms, and carriers of electricity. The atomicules, a thousand times smaller than the atom of hydrogen, the smallest of atoms, are said to whirl with an extraordinary velocity around a central nucleus, as the planets and earth revolve about the sun. The atom might be a miniature solar system and the elements of the bodies which we know might differ in themselves only in number and the gyratory movements of their atomicules. The recent discoveries of radio-activity, which shake fundamental laws of mathematical physics, ruin the atomic base of the chemical structure. It is impossible to mention a more noteworthy example of the sterility of verbal discussions and the fertility of experience. Action alone in the material and intellectual world is fruitful: “In the beginning was action”.

Economic determinism [We prefer Marx's own term, "The Materialist Conception of History." — Editors "Socialist Standard".]  is a new tool put by Marx at the disposal of Socialists to establish a little order in the disorder of historic facts, which the historians and philosophers have been incapable of classifying and explaining. Their class prejudices and their narrowness of mind give to the Socialists the monopoly of this tool; but the latter before using it wish to convince themselves that it is absolutely perfect and that it may become the key to all the problems of history; on this account it is quite possible for them to continue during the whole of their lives to discourse and to write articles and volumes on historical materialism, without adding a single idea to the subject. Men of science are less timorous. They think that “from the practical point of view it is of secondary importance that theories and hypotheses be correct provided they guide us to results in agreement with the facts”. Truth, after all, is merely the best working hypothesis; often error is the shortest road to discovery. Christopher Columbus, starting from the error in figuring made by Ptolemy, on the circumference of the earth, discovered America, when he thought he was arriving at the East Indies. Darwin recognises that the first idea of his theory of natural selection was suggested to him by the false law of Malthus on population, which he accepted with closed eyes. Physicists can today perceive that the hypothesis of Democritus is insufficient to include the phenomena recently studied, yet that does not alter the fact that it served to build up modern chemistry.

It is in fact little observed that Marx has not presented his method of historical interpretation as a body of doctrine with axioms, theorems, corollaries and lemmas; it is for him merely an instrument of research ; he formulates it in a workmanlike style and puts it to the test. It can thus be criticised only by contesting the results which it gives in his hands, for instance, by refuting his theory of the class struggle. This our historians and philosophers carefully refrain from doing. They regard it as the impure work of the demon, precisely because it has led Marx to the discovery of this powerful motive force in history.


II. Deistic and Idealistic Philosophies of History.

History is such a chaos of facts beyond man’s control, progressing and receding, clashing and interclashing, appearing and disappearing without apparent reason, that we are tempted to think it impossible to bind them and classify them into series from which can be discovered the causes of evolution and revolution.

The collapse of systems in history has given rise in the minds of thinking men like Helmholtz to the doubt whether it is possible to formulate a historical law that reality would confirm. This doubt has become so general that the intellectuals no longer venture to construct like the philosophers of the first half of the 19th century plans of universal history; it is indeed an echo of the incredulity of the economists as to the possibility of controlling economic forces. But need we conclude from the difficulties of the historic problem and the ill-success of attempts to solve it that its solution is beyond the reach of the human mind? In that case social phenomena would stand apart as the only ones which could not be logically linked to determining causes.

Commonsense has never admitted such an impossibility; on the contrary, men have always believed what came to them, fortunate or unfortunate, was part of a plan preconceived by a superior being. Man proposes and God disposes is a historical axiom of popular wisdom which carries as much truth as the axioms of geometry, on condition, however, that we interpret the meaning of the word God.

All people have thought that a god directed their history. The cities of antiquity each possessed a State divinity or poliad as the Greeks called it, watching over their destinies and dwelling in the temple consecrated to him. The Jehovah of the Old Testament was a divinity of this kind; he was lodged in a wooden box, called “Ark of the Covenant”, which was transported when the tribes of Israel changed their location, and which was placed at the front of the armies in order that he might fight for his people. He took his quarrels so much to heart, according to the Bible, that he exterminated his enemies – men, women, children and beasts. The Romans, during the Second Punic War, thought it useful as a means of resistance to Hannibal to couple up their State divinity with that of Pessinus, namely Cybele, the mother of gods; they brought over from Asia Minor her statue, a big shapeless stone, and introduced into Rome her orgiastic worship: as they were at once superstitious and astute politicians, they annexed the State divinity of each conquered city, sending its statue to the capitol; they reasoned that, no longer dwelling among the conquered people, it would cease to protect them.

The Christians had no other idea of divinity when, to drive out the Pagan gods, they broke their statues and burned their temples, and when they called on Jesus and his eternal Father to battle with the demons who stirred up the heresies of Allah which opposed the crescent to the cross. The cities of the Middle Ages put themselves under the protection of municipal divinities; St. Genevieve was that of Paris. The republic of Venice, that it might have an abundance of these protecting divinities, brought over from Alexandria the skeleton of St. Mark and stole at Montpellier that of St. Roques. Civilised nations have never denied the Pagan belief: each monopolises for its use the only and universal God of the Christians, and makes therefrom its State divinity. Thus there are as many only and universal Gods as there are Christian nations, and the former fight among themselves as soon as the latter declare war; each nation prays its only and universal God to exterminate its rival and sings Te Deums in His honour if it is victorious, convinced that it owes its triumph only to His all-powerful intervention. The belief in the intrusion of God into human quarrels is not simulated by statesmen to please the coarse superstition of ignorant crowds; they share it. The private letters recently published, which Bismarck wrote to his wife during the war of 1870-71, show him believing that God passed His time in occupying Himself with him, his son and the Prussian armies.

The philosophers who have taken God for the directing guide of history share this infatuation; they imagine that this God, creator of the universe and humanity, can be interested in nothing else than their country, religion and politics. Bossuet’s Discourse on Universal History is one of the most successful specimens of this kind: the Pagan nations exterminate each other to prepare for the coming of Christianity, his religion, and the Christian nations slaughter each other to assure the greatness of France, his country, and the glory of Louis XIV, his master. The historic movement, guided by God, culminated in the Sun King; when he was extinguished, shadows invaded the world, and the Revolution, which Joseph de Maistre calls “the work of Satan” burst forth.

Satan triumphed over God, the State divinity of the aristocracy and the Bourbons. The bourgeoisie, the class which God held in small regard, possessed itself of power and guillotined the king He had anointed: natural sciences, which He had cursed, triumphed and engendered for the bourgeoisie more riches than He had been able to give to His favourites, the nobles and the legitimate kings; Reason, which he had bound, broke her chains and dragged Him before her tribunal. The reign of Satan had begun. The romantic poets of the first half of the nineteenth century composed hymns in his honour; he was the unconquerable vanquished, the great martyr, the consoler and hope of the oppressed; he symbolised the bourgeoisie in perpetual revolt against nobles, priests and tyrants. But the victorious bourgeoisie had not the courage to take him for its State divinity; it patched up God, whom Reason had slightly disfigured, and restored him to honour; nevertheless, not having entire faith in His omnipotence, it added to Him a troop of demigods: Progress, Justice, Liberty, Civilisation, Humanity, Fatherland, etc. who were chosen to preside over the destinies of the nations who had shaken off the yoke of the aristocracy.

These new gods are “Ideas”, “Spiritual Forces”, “imponderable Forces”. Hegel undertook to bring back this polytheism of Ideas into the monotheism of the Idea, which, born of itself, creates the world and history by its own unfolding. The God of historic philosophy is a mechanic who, for His amusement constructs the universe, whose movements he regulates, and manufactures man, whose destinies He directs after a plan known to Himself alone, but the philosophic historians have not perceived that this eternal God is not the creator but the creature of man, who, in proportion to his own development, remodels Him, and that, far from being the director, He is the plaything of historic events.

The philosophy of the idealists, in appearance less childish than that of the deists, is an unfortunate application to history of the deductive method of the abstract sciences, whose propositions, logically linked, flow from certain undemonstrable axioms which impose themselves by the principle of evidence. The mathematicians are wrong in not troubling themselves regarding the fashion in which the ideas slipped into the human mind. The idealists disdain to inquire into the origin of their Ideas, coming no one knows whence; they confine themselves to affirming that they exist of themselves, that they are perfectible, and that in proportion as they become perfect they modify men and social phenomena, placed under their control; thus it is only necessary to know the evolution of Ideas to acquire the laws of history. In this way Pythagoras thought that the knowledge of the properties of numbers would give knowledge of the properties of bodies.

But because the axioms of mathematics cannot be demonstrated by reasoning, that does not prove that they are not properties of bodies, just like colour, form, weight and warmth, which experience alone reveals, and the idea of which exists in the brain only because man has come into contact with the bodies of nature. It is, in fact, as impossible to prove by reasoning that a body is square, coloured, heavy or warm as to demonstrate that the part is smaller than the whole, that two and two make four, etc.: all we can do is to state the experimental fact and draw its logical conclusions.

The Ideas of Progress, Justice, Liberty, Fatherland, etc., like the axioms of mathematics, do not exist outside of themselves and outside the spiritual domain; they do not precede experience but follow it; they do not engender the events of history, but they are the consequence of the social phenomena which in evolving create them, transform them, and suppress them; they do not become active forces save as they emanate directly from the social streams. One of the tasks of history unnoticed by the philosophers is the discovery of the social causes, of which they themselves are a product, and which give them the power acting upon the brains of the men of a given epoch.

Bossuet and the deist philosophers, who promoted God to the dignity of a conscious director of the historic movement, have after all merely conformed to the popular opinion of the historic role played by the divinity: the idealists who substitute for Him the Idea-Forces merely utilise in historic fashion the vulgar bourgeois opinion. Every bourgeois proclaims that his private and public acts are inspired by Progress, Justice, Patriotism, Humanity, etc. To be convinced of this we need only go through the advertisements of the manufacturers and merchants, the prospectuses of the financiers, and the electoral programmes of the politicians.

The ideas of Progress and of evolution are modern in their origin; they are a transportation into history of that human perfectibility which became fashionable with the eighteenth century. It was inevitable that the bourgeoisie should regard its entrance into power as an immense step of social progress, while the aristocracy looked upon it as a disastrous setback. The French revolution, because it occurred a century after the English revolution, and consequently in conditions more fully ripe, substituted so suddenly and completely the bourgeoisie for the nobility that from that time the idea of Progress took firm root in the public opinion of Europe. The European capitalists believed themselves founded on the power of Progress. They affirmed in good faith that their habits, manners, virtues, private and public morality, social and family organisation, industry and commerce were an advance over everything which had existed. The past was only ignorance, barbarity, injustice and unreason: “Finally, for the first time”, cried Hegel, “Reason was to govern the world.” The bourgeois of 1793 deified her; already in the beginning of the bourgeois period in the ancient world Plato (in the Timaeus) declared her superior to Necessity, and Socrates reproached Anaxagoras with having, in his cosmogony, explained everything by material causes without having made any use of Reason, from whom everything could be hoped (Phaedo). The social dominance of the bourgeoisie is the reign of Reason.

But a historical event, even so considerable a one as the grasping of power by the bourgeoisie, does not alone suffice to prove Progress. The deists had made God the sole author of history; the idealists, not wishing it to be said that Progress in the past had deported itself as a do-nothing Idea, discovered that during the Middle Ages it had prepared for the triumph of the bourgeois class by organising it, by giving it intellectual culture, and by enriching it, while it wore out the offensive and defensive fortress of the Church. The idea of evolution was thus to introduce itself naturally in the train of the idea of Progress.

But for the bourgeoisie there is no progressive evolution save that which prepares for its own triumph, and as it is only for some ten centuries that its historians can find definite traces of its organic development, they lose their Ariadne’s thread as soon as they venture into the labyrinth of earlier history, whose facts they are satisfied to narrate without attempting to marshal them into progressive series. Since the goal of progressive evolution is the establishment of the social dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, that end once attained Progress must cease to progress. In fact, the bourgeois who proclaim that their capture of power is a social progress unique in history, declare that it would be a return to barbarism, “to slavery”, as Herbert Spencer says, if they were dislodged from power by the proletariat. The vanquished aristocracy looked upon its defeat in no other light. Belief in the decree of Progress, instinctive and unconscious in the bourgeois masses, shows itself conscious and reasoned in certain bourgeois thinkers. Hegel and Comte, to cite merely two of the most famous, affirm squarely that their philosophic system closes the series, that it is the crowning and the end of the progressive evolution of thought. So, then, philosophy and social and political institutions progress only to arrive at their bourgeois form, then Progress progresses no more.

The bourgeoisie and its more intelligent intellectuals, who fix insurmountable limits to their progressive Progress, do better still; they withdraw from its influence certain social organisations of prime importance. The economists, historians, and moralists, to demonstrate in an irrefutable fashion that the paternal form of the family and the individual form of property will not be transformed, assure us that they have existed from all time. They put forth these impudent assertions at the moment when researches which have been carried on for half a century are bringing into clear light the primitive forms of the family and of property. These bourgeois scientists are ignorant of them, or reason as if they were ignorant of them.

The ideas of Progress and of evolution were especially fashionable during the first years of the nineteenth century, when the bourgeoisie was still intoxicated with its political victory, and with the prodigious development of its economic riches; the philosophers, historians, moralists, politicians, romancers, and poets fitted their writings and their teachings to the sauce of progressive Progress, which Fourier was alone or almost alone in reviling. But toward the middle of the century they were obliged to calm their immoderate enthusiasm: the apparition of the proletariat on the political stage in England and in France awoke in the mind of the bourgeoisie certain disquieting reflections on the eternal duration of its social dominance. Progressive Progress lost its charms. The ideas of Progress and of evolution would finally have ceased to be current in bourgeois phraseology had not the men of science, who from the end of the eighteenth century had grasped the idea of evolution circulating in the social environment, utilised it to explain the formation of worlds and the organisation of vegetables and animals. They gave it such a scientific value and such a popularity that it was impossible to sidetrack it.

Paul Lafargue 

(Translated by Chas. H. Kerr.)

(To Be Continued)