A Russian Challenge. (1915)

From the March 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

  We have received the following and publish it in order to show the trickery resorted to by the pseudo-Socialists responsible for the London Conference in endeavouring to exploit the Russian Socialists , whose challenge they dare not face.

A DECLARATION TO THE LONDON CONFERENCE

Comrades, – Your Conference calls itself a conference of the Socialist parties of the allied belligerent countries, Belgium, England, France and Russia.

Allow me first of all to draw your attention to the fact that the Social-Democracy of Russia, as an organised body, as represented by its Central Committee and affiliated to the International Socialist Bureau, has received no invitation from you. The Russian Social-Democracy, whose views have been expressed by the members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Group in the Duma, now arrested by the Tsar’s Government (Petrovsky, Muranoff, Badaoff, Samoiloff representing the workers of Petrograd, Yokaterinoslaff, Kharkoff, Kastroma and Vladimir districts) have nothing in common with your conference. We hope that you will state so publicly, as otherwise you may be accused of distorting the truth.

Now allow me to say a few words with regard to your conference, i.e., to tell you what the class-conscious Social-Democratic workers of Russia would expect from you.

We believe that before entering upon any deliberations with regard to the reconstruction of the International, before attempting to restore international bonds between Socialist workers, it is our Socialist duty to demand:

1. That Vandervelde, Guesde and Sembat immediately leave the Belgian and French bourgeois ministries.
2. That the Belgian and French Socialist parties break up the so-called “bloc national” which is a disgrace to the Socialist flag and under cover of which the bourgeoisie celebrates its orgies of chauvinism.
3. That all Socialist parties cease their policies of ignoring the crimes of Russian Tsarism and renew their support of that struggle against Tsarism which is being carried on by the Russian workers in spite of all the sacrifices they have to make.
4. That in fulfilment of the resolutions of the Basle conference we hold out our hands to those revolutionary Social-Democrats of Germany and Austria who are prepared to carry on propaganda for revolutionary action as a reply to war. The voting for war credits must be condemned without any reserves.

The German and Austrian Social-Democrats have committed a monstrous crime against Socialism and the International by voting war credits and entering into domestic truce with the Junkers, the priests and the bourgeoisie, but the action of the Belgian and French Socialists has by no means been better. We fully understand the conditions are possible when Socialists as a minority have to submit to a bourgeois majority, but under no circumstances should Socialists cease to be Socialists or join in the chorus of bourgeois chauvinism, forsake the workers’ cause and enter bourgeois ministries.

The German and Austrian Social-Democrats are committing a great crime against Socialism when, after the example of the bourgeoisie they hypocritically assert that the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs are carrying on the war of liberation “against Tsarism.”

But those are committing a crime no less stupendous who assert that Tsarism is becoming democratised and civilized, who are passing over in silence the fact that Tsarism is strangling and ruining unhappy Galicia just as the German Kaiser is strangling and ruining Belgium, who keep silent about the facts that the Tsar’s gang has thrown into gaol the parliamentary representatives of the Russian working class, and only the other day condemned to six years penal servitude a member of Moscow workers for the only offence of belonging to our party, that Tsarism is now oppressing Finland worse than ever, that our Labour press and organisations in Russia are suppressed, that all the milliards necessary for the war are being wrung by the Tsar’s clique out of the poor workers and starving peasants.

On behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party,

London, February 14th, 1915.                  M. Maximovich.

Blogger's Note:

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, also known as the Bolshevik Party, later changed its name to Communist Party.

“M. Maximovich” who signed the statement was Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, Commissar for Foreign Affairs 1930-1939.

Confusion In Conference. So-Called Socialists Meet at Copenhagen. (1910)

From the October 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Confusion was the keynote of the proceedings at the International Socialist (!) Congress held recently at Copenhagen. A Babel of tongues spoke every language but that of Socialism. The "impracticable theory" of rallying the workers to the fight for emancipation has been deliberately discarded in favour of the "saner and more practicable policy" of devising ways and means of begging, coaxing, threatening reforms and palliatives out of the capitalist class. The RED INTERNATIONAL, founded by Marx and Engels for revolution has been so completely prostituted to reform and compromise, that the bulk of the delegates at the Conference, and the "Labour" Press throughout the world, recognised unhesitatingly that the British Section were the "most advanced, the most revolutionary" of all the delegates. What unspeakable tragedy! The most uncompromising fighters for Socialism were these representatives of the Labour Party, the I.L.P., the S.D.P., the Fabian Society, and the Trade Unions—the chief wire-pullers of wire-pulling organisations and the arch-betrayers of working-class ignorance ; the very scum of the "Labour" political inferno, sitting cheek by jowl with the embodiments of bourgeois arrogance, conceit and condescension. The British delegation had twenty votes at the Congress, ten being controlled by the Labour Party and the remainder being distributed among the other organisations of the section. Thus the open defenders and supporters of the Liberal Budget, Taxations of Ground Values, Reform of the Poor Law, Free Trade and other allurements of their Liberal masters, were the "revolutionary" element of the Copenhagen Congress. What other proof is needed that the International Socialist Congress has been CAPTURED BY THE CAPITALISTS ?

But the "revolt" of the British delegation against several "important" resolutions was not due to any sudden Socialist conviction. These "uprisings" had a much more mundane cause. The resolutions "rebelled" against embodied the ideas of measures either passed or promised by the British Liberal Government! And the truth of that allegation was openly insisted upon by the various British delegates who addressed the Conference and the International Bureau.

And needless to say, the calibre of the delegates was similar to that of the British section. The German Social-Democratic Party steeped to the hilt in a Parliamentary reform policy ; the Austrian Social-Democratic Party, an effective mixture of such elements as the British Labour Party, I.L.P., and S.D.P., whose greatest achievement is supposed to have been the obtaining of the suffrage for some hundreds of thousands of Radical Labourites (alias Social-Democrats) ; the ''Unified" French Socialist Party, in which the bourgeois Republicanism and political diplomacy of Jaurès has obliterated revolutionary action ; the Russian twin "Socialist" organisations whom bitter experience of the oppressors has not saved from the fatal mistake of seeking "BLESSINGS FROM ABOVE" ; the Italian Socialist Party, still boastful of their "unity" of all factions (including those who have grown tired of fighting for Socialism): all these and many more such sections formed the material of which this apology for a Socialist congress was made up. 

It is a sad reflection that, except the S.P.G.B., every body that contained the germ of Socialist existence has been swallowed up by that congress of compromise and confusion. In France the Guesdists, who at one time, in spite of their small number, wielded enormous power for Socialist enlightenment, are absorbed by the reformist followers of Jaurès and Vaillant; in Italy the United Party has forced its compromising policy on its members with the result that the Socialist element has been swamped ; in Russia the Parliamentary possibilities for the "political genius" have caused wholesale desertion of the Socialist flag. Even the once alleged Socialist organisation, the S.L.P. of America, has given up every vestige of independence, and sent its delegate—to whine to the S.P. of the same country for fusion—and to be SNEERINGLY SPURNED !

Now to survey the happenings at the Congress. The delegates sat in a hall decorated with banners indicative of the character of the Congress. "Religion is a Private Concern" ; "A Maximum Working day of Eight Hours" ; "Disarmament Means Peace " : such were the mottoes they bore.

The boast of Stauning, the Danish president, that his party showed by their 100,000 votes and 28 successful candidates at the last parliamentary election, and their 23 newspapers with 120,000 subscribers, their triumphal work for Socialism was exceedingly hollow in face of the speeches of the Danish delegates and the resolutions they supported. Vandervelde's opening speech on behalf of the International Bureau was a glorification of the un-class-conscious labour movement. Instead of deploring the fact that in every country represented at that Congress the ascent of the Parliamentary reform policy has in the last three years more than in any other similar period, PLAYED HAVOC with the honest proletarians seeking enlightenment, he crowed over the fact that 38 countries and 8 million followers were represented at the Congress, and that in many countries the "Socialist" parties have experienced a large influx of votes and "Socialist" representatives since the last Congress.

The agenda was one that would be considered mild by a Radical Free Trade gathering. The main items were the Unemployed Question; International Arbitration and Disarmament; International Results of the Legislation for the Protection of the Workers; Organisation of an International Pronouncement against the Death Sentence; Question of Co-operative Movement; International Trade Unionism and the General Strike.

Some of the arguments on the questions on the committees and in open Congress will be of interest to our readers.

In the committee on Disarmament and Peace, Vaillant (France) said: "The abolition of war will naturally only be made possible by Socialism, but for that we cannot wait. It is therefore necessary to make a stand against armaments and militarism in the different Parliaments." Keir Hardie said: "If now the German and English Governments came to an understanding about the limitation of armaments it would not be due to their LOVE OF PEACE, but because these two countries can no longer bear the burden of armaments. The workers are strong enough to prevent war. On the day of the declaration of war the workers must cease work. That is not a general strike. It is also necessary to make a stand against the vile action of the capitalist Press." Bruce Glasier said: "Christianity has been unable to abolish war. There are already Socialists who are prepared to sacrifice their principles of peace. The fighting instinct can unmistakeably be found in some Social-Democrats. That is the animal instinct which one must overcome. Let us unfold the most far-reaching agitation for peace, then the United States of Europe will soon become an accomplished fact." Radec (Poland) said : "The attitude of Vorwaerts and of the German Social-Democratic Party in Parliament concerning the Anglo German arrangement is nothing short of an alternative to the defence of naval armaments advocated by Hyndman and Co. which has generally been condemned." Hillquit (U.S.A.) said : "No word has yet been uttered concerning the main point. The debate has until now only been a continuation of the Stuttgart discussion on anti-militarism." Dessin (England): " We must ABOLISH CAPITALISM to ensure peace. But we can already now contribute towards a diminution of the dangers of war, and that is what the resolution of the British delegation is aiming at."

In the Committee on the question of the Co-operative Movement the following speeches are characteristic of the main position. Vendervelde (Belgium) said : "The criterion will be that the co-operative societies must be organisations in the class-struggle. The German workers will see to it that the co-operative societies remain Socialist. The German co-operative societies propagate Socialism secretly ; those in Belgium openly." Guesde, speaking for the French minority said : "The conquest of political power is necessary. Only when a co-operative society furthers this object is it of use, that is to say it must not be ignored but given its right place. In Germany the co-operative societies are limited liability companies with small shares, but wherein consists their Socialism ? We have been told that the profit is distributed according to consumption, but that is capitalistic. We must not only tell the workers to join those societies but to use them as a means in the class struggle." Whiteley (England) said : "English co-operative societies have already proved useful in politics, and have joined our Parliamentary committee. Socialists have until now done nothing for these societies, but will do something for them in the future—that is, carry Socialism into their ranks."

The first resolution proposed in open Congress was one on unemployment. It started out by stating that unemployment is INSEPARABLE FEOM CAPITALIST PRODUCTION and proceeded to say that it could therefore not be a question of abolition but of amelioration. For this purpose the Congress demanded from capitalist Governments, statistics ; wages as paid by co-operative societies ; support during industrial crises ; safeguarding of political rights ; support of all arrangements for finding employment ; diminution of unemployment by legislation ; compulsory support of unemployed. Dr. Adolf Braun (Austria) moved the resolution with the approval of all delegates except the British. On the motion of its adoption MacDonald said: "For the British Section the present Resolution is too weak. We would have liked to have seen the right to work at fair wages insisted upon. The British section is especially of opinion that the capitalist method of production is to blame for unemployment, and that it therefore must be made responsible for its consequences." Quelch said : "If we go home with this resolution we shall considerably damage our own movement for the amelioration of unemployment, the resolution being too weak."

On the "unity" question De Leon declared that "After the Amsterdam Congress we, the minority, the S.L.P., declared ourselves prepared to negotiate with the S.P., which they have declined to do. Therefore this Congress must decide that the other party is obliged to negotiate with us. In the name of the S.L.P. I may declare that we are READY FOR NEGOTIATION with the S.P. There are prospects of a powerful movement in America, but it cannot flourish, because we fight each other." Hillquit replied : "The Socialist Party has long become an object of unity and asked all Socialist bodies to unite. All accepted our invitation except the Party—let us say De Leon. (Laughter.) Since then we have made rapid progress, most members of the S.L.P. having joined us. Now, Comrade De Leon, if you are prepared to abandon your last creation, the I.W.W., and your non-Socialist tricks, no conference or convention is necessary for that fusion." To which Berger (Milwaukee) added : "Ten years ago we had two organisations, each with 5,000 members ; now the S.P. have 53,000 paying members, the S.L.P. less than 1,000. That is nearly unity. The remaining 1,000 are welcome if they will give up fighting the Trade Unions. We shall solve the fusion, question within the next three years because then only De Leon will stand outside our party. You see we are working strongly for unity." (Loud Applause.)

The resolution on Disarmament and Peace was, like all the other resolutions put before the Congress, FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS and inconsistencies. It started with explaining the necessity of war under capitalism, and finished with a demand for suppression of hostilities by the democracy, and giving directions to the International Bureau how to act in case of a declaration of war. Socialism would stand a poor chance indeed if it were as impossible as this resolution. Vaillant and Keir Hardie moved the following amendment: "The Congress regards the General Strike as a means for the prevention of war, more especially a refusal to assist in the production and transport of arms and amnrunition." This was rejected by a vast majority and the amendment carried.

During this debate Keir Hardie, replying to an attack by Ledebour on the British delegation, stated that the English Labour Party is against war and militarism. Ledebour had taken the attitude of the I.L.P. to be that of Hyndman and Quelch, but his Party had nothing to do with these. If his Party had supported the Liberal Budget that was NOT A QUESTION OE PRINCIPLE, BUT TACTICS.

On the question of unemployment Hardie said "In our country we are very near a radical solution of unemployment. We should find ourselves in a difficult position in face of the English Government with the resolution passed by the Congress, hence we ask the substitution of our resolution for the one adopted."

In spite of the contradictory nature of the composition, agenda, speeches and resolutions, there is no mistaking the object and effect of the Congress. The German S.D.P. strained every nerve to make the Congress an advertising medium for their approaching General Election. They were in a position to obtain sufficient support to get the resolutions on the main questions shaped so as to appeal to the German Radicals and bourgeois Democrats who have grown tired cf the orthodox Radical party and want a real, live reform party. Luckily for the German delegation, no other section but the British was out for a similar purpose. In France, Austria and Italy the elections have recently taken place, but in England a General Election is not at all unlikely within, the next three years. Hence two rival "Socialist" parties fought each other tooth and nail, the Germans anxious to pass resolutions acceptable to Radicals; the English striving to prevent the passing of anything the Liberal Government could conveniently act upon to the detriment of the Labour Party, I.L.P. and S.D.P. The German delegates expressed their gratification at the results of the Conference, and congratulated themselves on having gained A HUNDRED THOUSAND VOTES through its agency.

So another congress has come and gone—-in the way the capitalists delight to see —in confusion. But, despite the forces of reform and reaction, cunningly striving to turn the working class upon itself, the future belongs to the Revolutionary. The ever-growing economic pressure must eventually demonstrate the utter futility of reform, and at the same time unmask those who advocate it. May the awakening come soon.

Hans J. Neumann

Gradualism and Revolution (1947)

From the September 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The constant description of the Labour Party’s programme of Nationalisation as an example of Socialism in action has brought into prominence again the old controversy between “Gradualism” and “Revolution” that raised a ferment in the Social Democratic movement towards the end of the last century and the beginning of this one. An examination of the contentions of those who argued for revolution at the time shows that even they were impregnated with a good deal of the gradualist outlook, which was based on the assumption that Socialism, as a practical proposition, was at the back of beyond and then some.

The divergence in ideas between gradualists and revolutionists was assumed to be a divergence in outlook as to the method of obtaining a commonly agreed upon object—Socialism. In fact, however, it was partly a difference in conception of the object itself, in spite of the general use of such expressions as “Common ownership,” "Collectivism,” etc. Gradualists defined their views as evolutionary, but this was obviously inaccurate as evolution involves sudden changes, catastrophic changes, to which they were opposed.

The extreme expression of gradualism at the beginning was the Fabian Society, formed in 1884. It was mainly composed of people who were drawn together to discuss the “higher life” ideas of Thomas Davidson, and the discussions were infused with a complacent atmosphere of “Intellectualism”; the smug and self-satisfied members were acutely conscious of their mental superiority to the rest of society, both bloated bourgeois and ignorant workers; they had a heartfelt and, it must be added, a sincere desire to improve the poverty stricken conditions of the latter class. The Fabians were opposed to sweeping changes, proposing to gradually permeate society, both “upper” and “ lower” layers, with a leaven of “advanced” ideas until it had imperceptibly changed its form. The ultimate aim they had in view was a form of state capitalism and was summed up in one of the phrases in their report to the Second International Congress in 1896: “the Fabian society, far from desiring to abolish wages, wishes to secure them for everybody.” Naturally the members of the Fabian Society were to be the intellectual leaders of the bovine, though sometimes awkward, herd. Most of the early members of the Fabian Society were government officials and their occupation led them to believe that they were in a position to influence legislation in the direction of their aspirations. One of their members, Ramsay MacDonald, became the first Labour Prime Minister and others rose high in government and diplomatic service.

The propaganda of the Fabians was partly instrumental in the formation of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, whose principal spokesman, Keir Hardie, was opposed to the historical and economic theories of Marx, holding the view that socialist revolutions had been occurring throughout the whole period that followed the disintegration of tribal communism. To him “Socialism, like every other problem of life, is at bottom a question of ethics and morals.” (Page 35, “From Serfdom to Socialism”). According to Keir Hardie the road to Socialism was as follows:

  “In like manner it is conceivable that the transference of industries from private hands to the State will be a gradual and peaceful process. Already, in fact, the process has advanced to a considerable stage. The property held and worked and controlled by municipalities already exceeds £500,000,000 sterling in value, and it is being added to yearly. This process has but to continue long enough to ensure that every industry will pass under public control, and thus State Socialism will become an accomplished fact, by a gradual process of easy transition.”

By State Socialism Hardie meant, as can be seen, Nationalisation; and that even that process has been gradual no one can deny as it is now forty years since Hardie wrote the above words and the process is far from being completed. But even that which he aimed at has been clearly revealed to any who will give it an hour or two’s realistic examination as a system in which the Capitalists own industry collectively, and live upon the interest they draw from their bondholding ; so that the system that was to come silently, like a thief in the night, is only a thieving system after all.

The position of the gradualists was given a semblance of a scientific basis by Edward Bernstein in his book “Evolutionary Socialism.” Bernstein attacked the chief tenets of Marxism, but we have not sufficient space to discuss his criticism. The object of his criticism was to induce the Social Democratic Parties to concentrate upon such immediate questions as that of “democratising” the state and removing the worst evils that afflict the workers, on the ground that Socialism was an ideal beyond the most distant horizon. Before he died Bernstein recanted his most vigorous criticism, and he at least has the merit of having opposed the first world war.

Now let us glance at the attitude of some of those who were the professed opponents of gradualism and who have been esteemed as outstanding theorists of the socialist movement and Marxists. Emile Vandervelde was one of these but his definition of Socialism does not work out much differently from that of the Fabians and Keir Hardie; he also had in mind gradualism, nationalisation, and unequal rewards for those living under the new system. Here are examples of his views taken from “Collectivism and the Industrial Revolution":

  “By the very fact of its magnitude, this revolution can only be the result of a long and complex series of partial variations; 'radical changes cannot be sudden: sudden changes cannot be radical’. (Page XV).
   "In fact there is nothing to prevent us imagining a socialist state, in which individual ownership and labour would co-exist with collective ownership and labour.” (Page 47).
   "In the proportion in which it would be socially useful from the point of view of production to allow special advantages to certain workers, or to certain categories of workers, in order to stimulate their energies and their power of labour, nothing would prevent a collectivist society from maintaining — mutatis mutandis —the graduated scale of salaries which exists today in the public services. Collectivism does not then necessarily imply equality of remuneration.” (Page 177-178).

The last statement merits comment from another point of view. Vandervelde wrote his book in 1907, when he was a leading official in the Second International, and a comrade of Lenin's until 1917. Lenin however supported equality of remuneration and regretted that the Bolsheviks had to take a step backwards and introduce inequality; it was left for his successor, Stalin, who could hardly find words strong enough to vilify Vandervelde, to glorify unequal remuneration as one of the distinctive achievements of the soviet state and a hall mark of its socialist basis.

Even Kautsky, who was the outstanding opponent of revisionism, accepted the revisionist (and gradualist) concentration upon immediate demands, nationalisation, and even inequality of incomes under Socialism:

     "All forms of modern wage-payment-fixed salaries, piece wages, time wages, bonuses—all of them are reconcilable with the spirit of a socialist society; and there is not one of them that may not play a role in socialist society, as the wants and customs of its members, together with the requirements of production, may demand.” ("Class Struggle,” page 149).

Although the opponents of gradualism paid lip service to revolution in fact they were identified with the former by their platforms of immediate demands and their support for nationalisation. As Robert Hunter put it in "Socialism and Violence” (1916)

   "There is not a socialist party in any country that has not used its power to force the State to undertake collective enterprise. Indeed all the immediate programmes of the various socialist parties advocate the strengthening of the economic power of the State. They are adding more and more to its functions; they are broadening its scope; and they are, without question, vastly increasing its power. But, at the same time, they are democratising the State. By direct legislation, by a variety of political reforms, and by the power of the great socialist parties themselves, they are really wresting the control of the state from the hands of special privilege . . . State Socialism is in itself undermining and slowly destroying the class character of the State.” (Page 257).

Of course the reference to all socialist parties excluded the Socialist Party of Great Britain (we were the awkward squad that must not be noticed) and the alleged practical achievements mentioned above are all moonshine, as the workers under Labour Government are beginning to glimpse. Under nationalised Capitalism the workers are no less in the grip of Capitalist conditions than they were before.

The reform measures included in the programmes of the various social democratic parties (the number and variety of the reforms were bewildering) caused some of their members headaches as they seemed out of harmony with a socialist objective. Ernest Untermann (who translated the second and third volumes of "Capital”) made an attempt to solve this contradiction. In an article in the December, 1903, tissue of the "International Socialist Review” he claimed that the confusion would be cleared up if the socialist parties of the world adopted a common platform separate from the immediate demands and that, as the latter were only instructions issued to members of parliament to act upon while they were in the minority, they should not be published. He suggested that the socialist party in each country should issue a booklet to its members of parliament with instructions about the immediate demands they were to formulate and support. In this way, he argued, the election programmes would be without these immediate demands and thus the candidates would be sure of a vote upon Socialism alone. But he took the backbone out of his proposal by declining to lay down what constituted a socialist programme, claiming that the delegates to the international conferences were quite competent to do this. As these delegates were people who held a variety of views upon Socialism, mostly anything but accurate and overwhelmingly reformist, the result would have been a programme little different from those in existence at the time, and it is worthy of note that, in the course of time both supporters of gradualism and professed supporters of revolution alike became members of both capitalist and labour governments.

What bogged a brilliant theoretical exponent of Socialism, like Kautsky, and vitiated his conception of the road to Socialism was, on the one hand, the desire to improve the capacity of the workers to engage in the struggle by accomplishing practical ameliorations of their conditions and, on the other hand, the fear of antagonising certain sections of the population such as small farmers, independent craftsmen, and small proprietors of various descriptions. He did not realise that the immersion in practical programmes would inevitably result in these demands becoming ultimate ends in themselves and, by occupying all the energies of the social democratic parties, would submerge the socialist objective and tie these parties to the tail of capitalist parties. The history of the past fifty years has demonstrated the accuracy of this view, for Socialism has become identified with reforms and with State Capitalism; even Marx, the founder of Scientific Socialism, has been degraded with a place in the pantheon of capitalist fame.

Those who argue that Socialism is a long way off make it farther off by muddling the workers’ heads with complicated reform programmes; those, on the contrary, who argue that Socialism can be here tomorrow keep their theoretical ideas and practical policy clear and fresh by concentrating solely upon Socialism, leaving no doubt in the minds of the workers about what Socialism is and the practicability of its immediate application, providing the workers understand it and want it. Socialism is revolutionary and therefore its advocates are fundamentally opposed to Capitalism and its policies. Hence the revolutionists were opposed to the first world war, on the ground that it was a capitalist war, while the gradualists and the professed revolutionists of the social democratic parties united in the main in flocking to the support of their respective governments on both sides of the conflict. From that time onwards the professed revolutionism of the social democratic parties practically disappeared, except in odd theoretical disquisitions, swallowed up by the controversy over dictatorship and democracy, and the revolutionary phrases of these parties have been polluted by being used to bolster up the gradualism of the Russian Bolsheviks, and, in a round-about way, the gradualism of Labour governments.

The basis of all gradualist pretensions is that we can have a little bit of Socialism existing alongside of Capitalism, and that this little bit can grow and grow until Capitalism is absorbed in the new system. The confusion is partly due to mixing up the concentration of industry with Socialism and partly to the idea that a government, whose personnel consists of direct representatives of the workers, can radically alter a system and its effects whilst leaving untouched that which is really the basis of the system—capitalist production with its division into two classes of people, one of which depends upon wages for a living and the other upon bond and share holding. Such people get what they ask for—economic blizzards. Socialism, on the other hand, means an immediate and fundamental revolution in the basis of society; the abolition of capitalist ownership of the means of production and its replacement by common ownership. This change will be catastrophic in the sense of a complete break; it cannot be accomplished gradually, no matter how excellent may be the intentions of the gradualists. It involves the capture of political power by the workers and, in the meantime, permanent and unswerving antagonism to Capitalism, its spokesmen, and those who try to dress up Capitalism in more alluring garments. The final fate of all gradualists is to lose themselves in the camp of the enemy. Revolution alone, and not reform, is the only policy to which a socialist party can adhere.

Gilmac.

The Fruits of False Theories (1953)

From the April 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Origins of Stalinism

In the eulogies of Stalin, as with those following the death of Lenin, the movement to which both their names are given—Stalinism and Leninism—is represented as an innovation; as an essential departure from the ideas and policies of the social democratic movement, though at the same time it was claimed to be in line with the views put forward by Marx. In fact, however, though both of them broke away from the 2nd International (which had already fallen to pieces), they carried out policies that were implicit in the aims and the practice of the 2nd International. The face of Russia today is the logical working out of these aims and policies. The disputes between the Social Democrats and the Bolsheviks, in spite of the vituperation and clouds of words, was not over aims and policies but over the methods of pushing forward the policies and accomplishing the aims. It was the utter ruthlessness of the Bolsheviks that frightened them.

Both Lenin and Stalin poured loads of scorn and denunciations upon the old Social Democratic Parties and their leaders, as well as upon the syndicalist section of the International, but Bolshevik policy embraced the outlook of them all. Lenin and his associates claimed that the Social Democratic leaders were renegades when, in fact, all that the Bolsheviks could have argued against these leaders was that they were more cautious in pressing forward similar aims. Lenin was a fraternal delegate to 2nd International Congresses and only fell out with these leaders in 1914 on a particular interpretation of the war as the propitious moment to aim at the conquest of power. Although the Social Democrats made much of the minority aspect of the Bolshevik capture of power it was also accepted in their own practical actions in spite of theoretical statements to the contrary.

What has led many people to see a fundamental difference between, for instance, the Social Democrat, the Bolshevik and the Syndicalist in the ranks of the 2nd International is simply that the International contained what is called a left, a centre and a right wing— a group that carried 2nd International ideas to their logical conclusion in practice, a group that vacillated and a group that shut their eyes to the logical outcome of the ideas they advocated.

The Future as seen by Social Democrats

To what, briefly, were the leaders of the 2nd International looking forward? A transition period in which Capitalism would merge into Socialism. And how did they define this transition period? Let us see what they had to say about it. Owing to the limitations of space we can only quote from three sources, but they were leading representatives of the 2nd International on the theoretical side—German, Belgian and American.

First let us see what Karl Kautsky said about the society that would follow capitalism. The quotations are from “The Class Struggle,” a book published in English by Kerr & Co. of Chicago in the early years of the present century.

   “The distribution of goods in a socialist society might possibly continue for some time under forms that are essentially developments of the existing system of wage payments.” (page 141)
  “All forms of modern wage-payment—fixed salaries, piece wages, time wages, bonuses—all of them are reconcilable with the spirit of a socialist society; and there is not one of them that may not play a role in socialist society, as the wants and customs of its members, together with the requirements of production, may demand.” (page 143)

Russia has carried these ideas out.

In 1907 Emile Vandervelde, another leading member of the 2nd International, wrote a book entitled “Collectivism and Industrial Revolution.” In this book he went into considerable detail about the future, and we are quoting from it at some length because the extracts give a fair idea of what the prominent theoreticians of the 2nd International were anticipating as the face of the future.

 “Consequently, under a regime of pure collectivism—to suppose what we do not assume beforehand, that this regime is to be realised some day—the land, mines, manufacturing establishments, the instruments of credit, the means of communication and transport will belong to the community: only articles of consumption would remain personal property.
 “The management of affairs, instead of being as today monarchical or oligarchical, would take the republican form; instead of being given over by right of birth or by right of conquest, to capitalists competing or combined it would belong not to the State, as it is said and repeated in order to mislead, but to autonomous public corporations under the control of the State." (Introduction pages xiii-xiv)
  "By the very fact of its magnitude, this revolution can only be the result of a long and complex series of partial variations. 'Radical changes cannot be sudden: sudden changes cannot be radical.'" (page xv)
   “In fact there is nothing to prevent us imagining a socialist state, in which individual ownership and labour would co-exist with collective ownership and labour." (page 47)

After distinguishing between the authorative and economic functions of the State—the former gradually decreasing and the latter gradually increasing—he projects across the future the “Governmental State" and the “Administrative State" based upon voluntary cooperation and then says of the “Administrative State": 

  "States when thus transformed, regulating in different hierarchical ranks the movements of commerce and finance, presiding over the external industrial relations of the different centres of population, are nothing else than Agencies appointed by more or less numerous associations, and invested with the confidence of those who have chosen them." (pages 160-161)
   "Likewise, in a Socialist state, it is after having satisfied all needs which are of general concern, after having secured for all members of the community the right to existence, that the excess of products, or rather of values produced, should form the object of differential distribution.
   “In the proportion in which it would be socially useful from the point of view of production to allow special advantages to certain workers or to certain categories of workers, in order to stimulate their energies and their power of labour, nothing would prevent a collectivist society from maintaining—mutatis mutandis—the graduated scale of salaries which exists today in the public services.
    “Collectivism does not, then, necessarily imply equality of remuneration.” (pages 177-178)

It will be noticed that at one time Vandervelde uses the State to mean governmental machinery and at another a particular society but, even so, for him the State is still something apart from the mass of people, the controlling and deciding body.

The Practical Result of the Vision

What is the essence of all these quotations but, near enough, what at present obtains in Russia? True, freedom to think does not exist there; the dictatorship is ruthless and bureaucratic—but this was the logical outcome of Social Democratic theory. They held up their hands in horror at the speeding up process which involved the sacrifice of millions of lives, but they accepted, as part of their own idea of protracted development in which millions of lives were also sacrificed in “Offensive" and “Defensive" wars, in which was also implicit the “socialism in one country” idea—the “armed militia,” the “armed people" and the “citizen army.” 

So close was the fundamental identity between the policy of the 2nd International and the policy of the Bolsheviks that leaders of the 2nd International were at pains to try and find some distinguishing characteristic that would enable them to dissociate themselves from the ruthlessness and rebut the criticisms of Lenin. They all had to agree that the Bolsheviks were socialists but —they were doing some things they “didn’t orter do"— they were forcing the pace too much. Not that this would fail to achieve the object, but that it would shake their hold on power.

After the Bolshevik Capture of Power

The third member of the 2nd International whom we will quote, is Morris Hillquit, once a prominent theoretician of the Socialist Party of America. He summed-up the position in 1921 in his book “From Marx to Lenin." Here are some extracts from it:

   "And it is idle cavilling to dispute the Socialist character of the Russian Revolution. A socialist revolution does not mean the immediate establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth. It is only the political act of seizing the power of government on behalf of the workers and with the object of using it for the abolition of private ownership in the means of production and for the development of collective work and enjoyment.
   “The Russian revolution has taken possession of the government in the name of the workers. It has effectively expropriated private capitalist owners and has nationalised the greater part of the industries. It has also written into its program the socialisation of the land. Measured by all practical tests it is therefore a Socialist revolution in character as well as intent.” (Page 33) .
   “What is the historic form of a Socialist government?
  “Every attempted answer to the question must take into account the fact that political institutions are not viewed by Marxist students as static forms, nor as definitely demarcated historical periods. The Socialist political revolution marks the conscious beginning of the process of transformation into Socialism, but only its beginning.
  “The revolution, which is the working-class conquest of the political power, leaves the capitalists for the time being in possession of the economic power. On the day of the revolution the capitalist class still owns the essential means and instruments of wealth production and distribution. It manages the financial, industrial and commercial institutions of the country and controls the whole intricate and delicately interwoven economic life of the people. The transfer of all industries from private capitalist ownership into communal property and public management; in short, the break-up of capitalism and the building up of a pure Socialist order, calls for a series of planful and fundamental industrial and political changes. Such changes will, of course, not be undertaken by the capitalist class. They can only be brought about by the workers. In order to accomplish them the workers must be in control of the governmental machinery and their control must continue until the task of Socialisation of the industries has been fully performed, all economic class divisions have been abolished, the working class itself has ceased to exist as a class, and the working class government has given way to the classless administration of the Socialist regime. The consecutive stages of development roughly succeeding each other may be regarded from different points of view and characterised according to the angle from which they are viewed.” (pages 49-50)

Here again we see clearly expressed the harmony between the outlook of the 2nd International and the practice of the Bolsheviks in spite of the hot air that developed between them over the years. Hillquit identifies the conquest of power by the Bolsheviks as the conquest of power by the workers. Thus, by implication, he illustrates the accepted idea of leadership which was ingrained in the 2nd International, in spite of protestations about capture of power by the workers. Lenin, at a time when he was writing eulogies on Kautsky and the German Social Democratic Party, was also contending that the workers were incapable of developing social democratic ideas from within their own ranks; these, he said, they could only get from outside, from the “ bourgeois intellectuals.” Stalin has only carried on this contempt for the mass of people along with the expansion of the bureaucratic machinery so dear to the social democrats.

Syndicalists and Bolsheviks

Now let us compare the ideas of the advocates of Syndicalism in the International with those of the Bolsheviks. Syndicalists argued that Syndicalism was based on the principles of Marx; they were opposed to democracy as a capitalist form; they contended that the mass of workers were ignorant and inert, requiring an intelligent and militant minority to lead and force them into the promised land; they claimed that Syndicalism was the form at last discovered under which the workers could work out their emancipation; they propagated the idea of violence against both workers and capitalists; they claimed that the days of theory had passed and the days for action had come; they also put forward a number of other ideas which, as well as those mentioned, became a part of Bolshevik propaganda and demonstrate a certain similarity of outlook between Syndicalism and Bolshevism, indicating the common source of both movements. Even the much vaunted Soviet organisation was a reflection of Syndicalist ideas eventually set out in detail as a social organisation by the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, a group that included a confused mixture of political and industrial action as a means to accomplish the end they had in view.

Syndicalism set out to secure the victory of a militant minority by the use of violence just as the Bolsheviks did. The claim that they were acting in the interest of all reminds one of the anarchist in Richard Whiteing’s novel “No. 5 John Street” who defined anarchism as a system of society in which everyone shall do as he likes, and those that don’t shall be made!

Beginning and End of the Dream

Lenin constantly referred back to the French Revolution and the attitude of the Jacobins for inspiration. The practical policy that grew out of the French Revolution and continued like a red thread through the working class movement afterwards, openly adopted successively by Blanqui, Bakunin, De Leon and Lenin was based upon the idea that an active minority can carry with it an inert and ignorant mass; it is a policy that depends upon leadership and ultimately places power in the hands of one or two outstanding people, finally degenerating into personal quarrels between these leaders as Bolshevism has amply demonstrated. The 2nd International was soaked in this despite the protestations and lip service to the control by the masses by some of its outstanding spokesmen. What Lenin and Stalin did was to stress whatever part of the 2nd International hotch potch best suited their purpose to get and keep control in Russia; thus they vacillated from one aspect to another and then back again, but always moving towards, and eventually achieving, that alleged transition form envisaged by the spokesmen of the 2nd International. Time has had its joke. The “transition form” has emerged as simply a particular form of unbridled Capitalism.

It should be clear from the quotations we have given that the Russian dictatorship, far from representing a fresh and fundamental departure from the ideas accepted by the 2nd International, has only been the logical working in out in practice of those ideas, though at a more rapid pace than was originally anticipated. The end of the process has been—just a particular form of Capitalism. No wonder Wilhelm Liebneckt was apprehensive and took time off from a holiday to write “No Compromise” in 1899, which contained the following pregnant words:

  “We cannot traffic in our principles, we can make no compromise, no agreement with the ruling system. We must break with the ruling system and fight it to a finish." (page 55)

Gilmac.