Letters: New Marx letter (2023)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Marx letter

Dear Editors

A new Marx letter was recently found (tinyurl.com/yc3ejy5r):

It was written in French originally so I thought I’d translate it. It’s a letter to Jules Guesde. The latter’s response is already known. It doesn’t tell us anything new about Marx’s thought. Marx affirms a vision of an independent workers’ party, distinct both from the Blanquists affirming insurrection is always on the agenda and from the bourgeois tradition of republicanism. It also reaffirms his prediction of revolution in Russia and the inability of the English working class to revolt without revolution on the continent first, because of English imperialism. Here’s the translation:

‘10th of May 1879, 

41 Maitland Park Road, London NW

Dear Citizen Guesde,

No French refugee who has any relation to me would have any doubt about the deep sympathy I feel for you or of the great interest I have in your work. Militant socialism certainly has many partisans in France, but there are few who unite as you do knowledge with courage and devotion. The election of Blanqui due to your initiative, is a first compensation for the sufferings and affronts that the upstarts in power inflict on you.

As for the return of the Legislature to Paris, I have pronounced myself in front of Lissagaray and Longuet in the same vein as your articles. After all, I attached more importance to the debates on this thing than to the thing itself, being well convinced that Messieurs the Gambettistes would rather live in Paris than vegetate in Versailles.

The great task for socialists in France, is the organisation of an independent and militant workers’ party. This organisation which must not be confined to the towns, but must extend to the countryside, can only be done by means of propaganda and continuous struggle, an everyday struggle always corresponding to the given conditions of the moment, to current necessities. Only posthumous Jacobins know only one form of revolutionary action, the explosive form. This is quite natural on the part of bourgeois who have only ever raised their shields after having already occupied dominant social positions.

According to my conviction revolution in the explosive form will start this time not from the West, but from the East – from Russia. It will react first on the two other grave despotisms (illegible), Austria and Germany, where a violent upheaval has become a historical necessity. It is of the utmost importance that at the moment of this general crisis Europe should find the French proletariat already constituted as a workers’ party and ready to play its part. As for England, the material elements of its social transformation are overabundant, but what is lacking is the driving spirit. It will only be formed under the explosion of continental events. We must never forget that however miserable the lot of the bulk of the English working class may be, it nevertheless participates, to some extent, in England’s empire on the world market or, which is even worse, imagines itself participating in it.

A few words on Longuet. You would be doing him a disservice if you thought he was your personal adversary. It’s the contrary, although he was invited by a few coquettish emigrants, he did not allow himself to be drawn into quips. If his opinions sometimes differ from yours in regard to the tactics to be followed, I don’t think they differ fundamentally. Finally family relations and friendships could have no influence on my political line from which I have never deviated.

In the hope that you will soon regain your freedom and your health, I am

Your very sincere friend Karl Marx.’

Erwan Moysan, 

Cardiff

Letters: The Socialist Attitude to Reforms. (1932)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two correspondents (A. T. Delman, Los Angeles, and a reader in London, E.C.1) ask us to explain our attitude and Marx’s attitude towards reforms. The two letters and our reply arc given below.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Dear Comrades :

The following is Marx’s introduction to the French Labour Party Programme of 1880. This appeared in the Proletarian Opposition Bulletin of Chicago, Illinois, Number 3, January, 1932, and is a translation from the “Elementarbuecher des Kommunismus”—Wage. Labour and Capital—Berlin, 1930, page 67, and “Marx-Engels Program Critiques”—same series as before, pages (69 and 70. These works are published by the German Communist Party.

Whereas :—

The emancipation of the productive classes is that of all mankind, regardless of differences of sex ;

The producers can be free only to the degree in which they control the means of production ;

There are only two forms under which they can possess the means of production ;

1. The individual form which never existed as a general condition and is being more and more eliminated by the advance of industry ;

2. The collective form, whose material and intellectual elements are being perfected by capitalist society’s own evolution ;

Whereas :—-

Collective appropriation can be achieved only through the revolutionary action of the class of producers, or the proletariat organised as a separate political party ;

Such organisation must be effected with all the means at the disposal of the proletariat, inclusive of the right of universal suffrage, so that the ballot may be changed from the means of deception it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation.

The French socialist workers, proclaiming the aim of regaining all means of production to collective ownership have decided, as a means of organisation and of conflict, to enter the election campaign with the following demands :

(A) Political Demands.

1. Abolition of all laws against the press, associations and unions, and particularly of the law against the international association of the workers. Abolition of the work book, this degrading insignia of the working class, as well as the laws which place the worker in relation to the employer and woman in relation to man in a subordinate position.

2. Elimination of all budget appropriations to the church and return of the property (known as the “dead Hand”) to the state of all mobile and immobile property belonging to the religious societies (decree of the Commune of April 2nd, 1871), including all industrial and commercial properties of these societies.

3. Abolition of the state debt.

4. Abolition of the standing army and general military conscription.

5. The Communes shall be granted home rule, and their own police.

(B) Economic Demands.

1. A weekly day of rest, or a law that will prohibit employers to operate more than six days out of seven. Legal limitation of daily hours of labour to eight for adults. Abolition of the employment of children under fourteen years of age in private places of employment and a reduction of the hours of labour to six for those between the ages of fourteen to eighteen.

2. Protection of apprentices in the form of control through the labour unions.

3. A definite minimum wage which shall be determined annually through a statistical labour commission in accordance with the prices of necessities prevailing in the given communities.

4. A law which shall prohibit the employers to hire foreign workers at wages lower than those demanded by French workers.

5. Equal wages for both sexes performing the same work.

6. Education and vocational training of all children who shall be supported by the community through the state and the commune.

7. Support of the aged and those unable to work by the community.

8. Prohibition of all interference by employers in the administration of labour mutual aid banks, insurance, etc., which shall be entrusted to the exclusive directions of the workers.

9. Responsibility of employers in case of accident through deposit of a bond which the employer has to pay to the labour banks and which shall be adjusted in accordance with the number of workers employed in an enterprise, and to the degree of danger connected with activity in such enterprise.

10. The right of objection by workers to the special labour rules in the various places of work, prohibition of the privilege assumed by employers to penalise their workers in the form of fines or wage reductions (decree of the Commune, April 27th, 1871).

11. Abolition of all contracts in which public property is entrusted to others (such as banks, railroads, mines, etc.) and transfer of all state places of employment to the workers employed therein.

12. Abolition of all indirect taxes and change of direct taxes into a progressive income tax on all incomes over 3,000 francs, prohibition of inheritance in the indirect line, and of all direct inheritances amounting to more than 20,000 francs.

Taken In its broad aspect the revolutionary method as held by the S.P.G.B. is unalterably opposed to reforms or palliatives as confusing and obscuring the class conflict.

The S.P.G.B. maintains that —

1. Reforms deal with effects.

2. Further entrench capitalism.

3. Lead to compromise and bargaining with capitalist parties and candidates.

4. Nothing short of Socialism can cure existing evils.

How does the S.P.G.B. reconcile its revolutionary method to Marx’s advocation of these Political and Economic demands “as a means of organisation and of conflict, to enter the election campaign”?

Yours fraternally,

A. T. Delman

* * *

The second letter reads as follows : —

Dear Comrade,

I see in the ”Communist Manifesto” that Engels, in his preface, writes :—

As I write these lines, the proletariat of Europe and America is holding a review of its forces ; it is mobilised for the first time as One army, marching forward and fighting for One immediate aim : — Eight-hour working day, established by legal enactment (as was demanded by the Geneva Congress of the International Working men’s Association, and again by the International Socialist Congress held at Paris in 1889).

(“Communist Manifesto,” Engels’ Preface. written in 1890. E. & C. Paul’s translation. Published, Modern Books, Ltd.. 1929.)

The S.P.G.B. is opposed to fighting for reforms on the political field, yet here we see Engel’s advocating an “eight-hour day.”

Do not the above quotations show that the S.P.G.B. is at variance with Marx & Engels.

Yours, etc.,

London, E.C.1.

Reply.

The translation of the programme adopted in 1880 by the French organisation “Le Parti ouvrier” does not fully agree with the original, doubtless due to its having been translated first into German and then into English. The original is reproduced on page 261 of Paul Louis’ “Histoire du Socialisme en France” {published in 1925 by Marcel Riviere, Paris). While the version quoted by our correspondent is substantially accurate, several phrases are omitted, some words are mistranslated, and in some passages the English wording is not clear. For reasons of space we cannot reproduce the whole programme here, but one or two mistakes are worth correcting.

In the opening sentence the original reads “productive class” not “productive classes,” and “differences of sex” should read “differences of sex or race.” The original gives a list of kinds of means of production (“land, factories, ships, banks, credit, etc.”). The sentence immediately preceding ”A. Political Demands” should read “with the following immediate demands,” not “with the following demands.”

Clause 4 under “Political Demands” should read “general arming of the people,” not “genera! military conscription.”

The precise part played by Marx and Engels in drafting it is not clear, although it is evident that they did have a hand in it. Paul Louis, in the work referred to above, says (page 261, “The programme was the result of ihe collaboration of Guesde and Lafargue with Marx and Engels.” In a letter dated 7th May, 1932, Louis writes, “It is impossible to fix exactly the part that Marx took in drawing up the manifesto of the Parti Ouvrier in 1880. One knows only that he collaborated with Engels, Guesde and Lafargue.”

B. G. De Montgomery, in his “British and Continental Labour Policy” (Kegan Paul, London, 1922, page 12) says that Guesde came to London to confer with Marx and Engels. Montgomery says that, this programme was “worked out after the so-called Gotha programme, which was adopted in 1875 by the German Social Democracy.”

Ryazanov, in his “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels” (Martin Lawrence, London, 1927), says (p. 211) that Marx “was taking an active part in the working out of the programme.” Ryazanov also says that this 1880 programme of the French Party served as the pattern for the subsequent programmes of the Russians and the Austrians, and as a pattern for the later German “Erfurt Programme,” and that a book in which it was elaborated (“What the Social Democrats Want”) exercised a great influence on the Russian Movement.

One thing that has to be remembered is that Marx and Engels were prepared on occasion to compromise in order to secure agreement which they thought would help on the Socialist movement. They accepted statements with which they disagreed in order to secure general agreement on a programme of whose main points they approved. Ryazanov, in his “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels” tells how this happened in connection with the constitution of the International Working Men’s Association (See Chapter VIII). Consequently the knowledge that Marx and Engels were consulted about the programme of the French Party m 1880 does not necessarily mean that they approved of all of it.

Having now cleared the ground we can come to the point which our correspondents raise. They find that the S.P.G.B., which claims to be a Marxist organisation, does not issue a programme of immediate demands and does not fight for reforms on the political field. Yet Marx and Engels associated themselves with programmes of immediate demands.

The first point to notice is that the S.P.G.B. holds precisely the same view as Marx and Engels on the need to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism. In the preamble to the French Party’s programme the statement that the French Socialist workers “have decided as a means of organisation and of struggle to enter the elections with the following immediate demands,” is preceded by the declaration that “the object of their efforts” was “the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and ihe restoration of all the means of production to collective ownership” {Louis, page 263). It is important to notice that this attitude is not that of the various reformist parties which wish to retain capitalism while improving it with reforms. These parties are not seeking power to expropriate the capitalist class and institute social ownership of the means of production. They make reforms the object of their activities, while the drafters of the French programme were entering the elections with the programme of immediate demands “as a means of organisation and of struggle.”

That was the view in 1880 of those who drafted the programme in question. It is not the view of the S.P.G.B. Experience has taught the lesson that programmes of immediate demands do not serve as a means of organising socialist parties. They serve as a sure means of destroying socialist unity, of thrusting the socialist objective into the background, and of attracting into the organisation non-socialist elements which drag it into the mire of compromise and bargaining with capitalist parties. Every one of the capitalist countries provides its examples of parties whose original socialist aims have been submerged and their organisation disrupted in this way. The French 1880 programme is a case in point. The party which adopted it did not last for a year. Within 12 months one wing, which wanted to work through the existing political groups, broke away and formed the “Alliance Socialiste Republicaine.” Another wing, composed of Anarchists, renounced Socialism entirely. The third group, the majority, formed the “Parti Ouvrier Socialiste Revolutionnaire.”

And within another year this latter party broke up further into “possiblists” and “impossiblists.” (See Bliss, “A Handbook of Socialism.” Swan Sonnenschein, 1907, p. 76.)

So much for the immediate demands which were intended to be a means of “organisation.” Other countries provide similar examples. Reference was made above to Ryazanov’s statement about the 1880 French programme having served as a pattern for parties in Germany, Austria and Russia. Where now are these parties which were to fight for Socialism on this programme? With the exception of the Bolshevist wing of the Russian Party, and minorities in the German and Austrian parties, they all of them developed before 1914 into parties of reform and nothing else, parties of political bargaining, parties of war supporters. History has proved the danger of building a party on such a basis.

The S.P.G.B., in declining to put forward a programme of immediate demands, does not take up the untenable position that the position of the workers under Capitalism is such that they could not be worse off if they gave up the struggle to defend their wages and working conditions; nor do we maintain that reforms are valueless. What we do maintain is that reform programmes inevitably attract reformists, and produce reformist organisations incapable of working for Socialism; that only by working directly for Socialism will it be achieved ; that parties lacking solid socialist support and depending on reformists cannot achieve Socialism even if they obtain control of the political machinery ; that reforms cannot end the subject-position of the working class although they may be of small temporary or sectional benefit; that the small value of the reforms obtainable by reformist political action is In no way commensurate with the years of work and the volume of effort required to achieve them ; and that incidentally the capitalists will give concessions more readily in an endeavour to keep the workers away from a growing socialist movement than they will in response to the appeals of bodies based on programmes of reforms.

Does it follow from this that we believe Marx and Engels to have been wrong? The answer is that Marx and Engels, even after discovering the main laws of social development, still had to learn by experience how best to apply their knowledge to the practical tasks of working-class organisation. They never ceased to clarify their views and change them whenever experience showed the need for a change. As Engels states in his 1891 preface to “Wage-Labour and Capital,” all of Marx’s writings which were published before the first part of his Critique of Political Economy differ from those published afterwards, and “contain expressions and even entire sentences, which from the point of view of his later writing, appear rather ambiguous and even untrue.” (See “The Essentials of Marx,” published by the Vanguard Press, New York, 1926, p. 71.) This was because Marx had studied further and learned more. Among the early ideas which Marx and Engels abandoned in later life was the idea of armed revolt. Experience taught them the futility of “barricades.”

We have learned from the endeavours of Marx and Engels, and are only proceeding in accordance with their fundamental ideas when we point out that experience has also shown the danger and uselessness of programmes of immediate demands.

Editorial Committee

Blogger's Note:

The Proletarian Opposition Bulletin of Chicago mentioned in A. T. Delman's letter was a journal that was produced by a dissident faction of the Proletarian Party, which had broken from the Proletarian Party's longstanding opposition to reformism (hence the bulletin's emphasis on the immediate demands of the Le Parti Ouvrier and Karl Marx's input on the matter.) There's little or no mention of them on the net but I did find this article by the American Trotskyist leader, James P. Cannon, from a 1932 issue of Militant, where he comments at length on the split/expulsions, and indulges in a few funny digs at Keracher and the politics of the Proletarian Party. (To be honest, Cannon's sticking the boot into the PP's 'impossibilism' so, in his own way, he's also criticising the politics of the SPGB.)

Socialists and War. (1932)

From the August 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Boris Souvarine (a French ex-Communist), writing in La Critique Sociale (March, 1932, published at 31, rue Jacob, Paris, price 5 francs), maintains that there has been a fundamental, if unobserved change in the attitude of Socialists towards war during the past 25 years.

Taking the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) as an illustration, Souvarine says that most of the Socialists “declared themselves on the side of Japan, less by reason of sympathy for a superior civilisation than out of hatred for Czarism, and, above all, because they anticipated that the defeat of Russia would have beneficial results for the international Socialist movement.” He quotes Jules Guesde as having said : “We must be against Russia and for Japan. Long live Japan !”

Kautsky, who took the same view wrote : “Never in my opinion has a problem been set in such simple terms.”

Franz Mehring went into the question rather more deeply. He differentiated between what he called the “policy of neutrality of the workers,” and the “policy of neutrality of the capitalists.” In his view the workers “have little cause to wax enthusiastic for either Japan or for Russia, but it is not a matter of indifference to them whether Japan or Russia wins.” He argued that a Japanese victory would be in the interests of the Socialist movement.

Plekhanov approved of this point of view. The Russian Party (including Lenin’s group) hoped for the defeat of Russia, and the Russian Poles actually sent Pilsudsky to Japan to mark their support of that country against their own Government.

Edouard Vaillant, while anxious that the Western countries should not be involved, looked to the victory of Japan to lead to an immediate revolution in Russia.

Vandervelde thought similarly, and said there was no room for hesitation―” Czarism is the enemy.”

Souvarine quotes Hyndman as holding the view that War in itself is a factor in progress : ―

“I do not share the opinion of Jean Jaurès and some others of our friends who wish to prevent war between Japan and Russia. This war seemed to me inevitable and all my Russian friends, Social-democrats and Social Revolutionaries, have said the same thing, namely, that whether Russia is victor or vanquished, a revolution in Russia will certainly follow.”

(This passage is not the original, but is re-translated into English from Souvarine’s French version).

He hailed Japan for having “helped to deliver the whole Western world from a shameful oppression.”

Souvarine remarks that, although there was a general tendency to support Japan against Russia, yet there was conflict of opinion as well as confusion of thought among the groups whose spokesmen are referred to above. In particular, Souvarine instances the different standpoints of Mehring and Hyndman.

Going back still further, Souvarine argues that even the confused views of 1904 were an advance on the attitude of many Socialists during earlier war crises.

In 1885, when war threatened between Russia and England, Jules Guesde openly welcomed it. In his opinion, a Russian defeat would lead to a proletarian victory in Germany, “a working class 1789,” and a British defeat would mean a universal upheaval, with the British workers at its head. In an article entitled “Long Live War,” he prophesied the immediate overthrow of capitalism whichever way the war might end. To him, war was a “fertiliser of progress,” and the God of Battles was an ally of the Socialist Movement. As Souvarine quite rightly points out, it was this sort of reasoning that led Guesde to welcome the war of 1914 on the ground that it would “give birth to revolution.”

Souvarine traces the Bolshevists’ attitude towards war back to Kautsky, from whom, he says, Lenin derived his views. Extensive quotations are given from a pre-war, but undated, article written by Kautsky. Briefly the argument is as follows :

Socialists are not bound to support defensive wars and oppose offensive wars, any more than they should renounce the class struggle. However much we may dislike war, we cannot prevent this appeal to violence on the part of rival capitalist groups. The working class cannot repudiate all use of force, and therefore they cannot repudiate war. We must judge the policy which leads to war, but not war itself.

Souvarine claims that Lenin’s writings in 1914, particularly an “Open Letter to Souvarine,” contained arguments identical with Kautsky’s. Souvarine says:―

“There is no doubt that Lenin borrowed from Kautsky the best of his reasoning. Both of them paraphrased the dictum of Clausewitz that “war is a continuation of policy by other means,” …. and agree in affirming that there is not always cause for condemning even offensive wars. In support of this contention that socialists may support an offensive war, Kautsky instances the view of Marx and Engels, in 1848, that it was necessary for Germany to wage an offensive war on Russia, and their efforts later on to stir up English public opinion for war against Russia.” (This was the Crimean War.)

Souvarine quotes Plekhanoff as saying: “The international working class, faithful to its revolutionary point of view, must approve of every war – whether of defence or of conquest – which promises to remove an important obstacle on the road to revolution.”

After his survey of the pronouncements made by these leaders of various schools of thought, Souvarine claims that the present attitude of Communists and the Labour Parties, of demanding “disarmament,” the “outlawry of war,” and “pacts of non-aggression,” represents a definite break with the views of those who have claimed to speak for the working class in the past. (He does not mention the demand made by the “Labour and Socialist International,” that the League of Nations, the Governments, and the Trade Unions should take action against Japan on account of the “aggression” in Manchuria and other Chinese territories.)

Finally, Souvarine urges the workers to clarify their minds on the problem, so that they may take up a realistic attitude in future.

OUR VIEWS ON THE PROBLEM                                             

Readers of the Socialist Standard who have acquainted themselves with the S.P.G.B.’s attitude towards war will see that not one of the views mentioned by Souvarine is identical with ours. Nor is it true that our view has changed with the years. Articles in the Socialist Standard at the time of the Russo-Japanese war show the S.P.G.B.’s attitude then to be essentially the same as in 1914 and now (see, for example, the issues for July and August, 1905). The writers at that time cherished certain illusions about the French and German so-called Socialists and their attitude towards war, and about the likely outcome of the Russo-Japanese conflict, but they fully understood the fundamental point that the workers have no interest in supporting wars between capitalist States. When it is remembered that the S.P.G.B. was at that time a newly formed party, clarifying its attitude on various questions of policy, it is remarkable that the question of war should have been understood as clearly as it was.

The S.P.G.B.’s view can best be explained by taking up points referred to by Souvarine.

We do not distinguish between “offensive” and “defensive” wars. In truth, no real distinction is possible. Let those who believe such distinctions to be practicable answer these questions :―Can a Government which pleads the necessity of war to defend its territory be denied the right to conduct operations outside its borders? Could the English Government in 1914, before the declaration of war, allow the German Fleet in the Channel? Could Germany refrain from defending itself by occupying Belgium? Could the Allies trouble about the neutrality of Greece when they needed Salonika as a base against Bulgaria and Turkey? If defence and offense appeared to be separable half a century ago, the changing technique of war has made it difficult to-day. An obvious defence against air attack is to strike against the air base of the other side. Any Government can put up a plausible case to show that its military offensive is needed to defend “vital national interests.”

And what – in a capitalist world – is a war of conquest”? Germany in 1914 pleaded the necessity of war to prevent encirclement and extinction. Germany demanded colonies. Was Germany guilty of “aggression” when she demanded colonies, and the other Powers, which had already seized the best colonial lands, not guilty of “aggression”? Capitalist Japan needs the natural resources of Manchuria, and Japan’s steps to seize Manchuria fall into the same category as Germany’s gamble in 1914. In other words, “aggression” is merely the name applied to the actions of the late-comers by those who were first to collar the loot.

The S.P.G.B. does not attempt to distinguish between the relative merits of the conduct of capitalist Governments at war with each other. We recognise as a fact that they are all of them defending by armed force the private ownership of the world’s means of production and distribution, i.e., forcibly excluding the mass of the population from entering into possession. Should the slaves take sides when the slave-owners fall out? Obviously, no.

There remains the Guesde-Lenin-Kautsky argument that wars, or some of them at least, are “progressive” in their effects and lead on to revolution. We repudiate this argument that certain wars should be supported by the workers because of their supposed revolutionary effects. First of all, there is the suffering for the workers which war brings in its train – both to combatants and civilians. Then there is the war fever and political repression which make Socialist propaganda more difficult. Then it will be observed that the Russo-Japanese War did not result in the overthrow of Czarism. The progressive effect of war and defeat has been misunderstood. War may speed up the development of industry and may produce disturbed conditions leading to the overthrow of Governments. In countries where democratic methods of electing and changing the Government have not yet developed, this possible result of defeat may appear to possess considerable importance. But the defeats in the Great War which hastened political changes in Germany, Russia, Austria, and elsewhere, did not lead to Socialism. What was overlooked by those who put forward the argument was that the overthrow of a throne or an autocratic Government cannot possibly lead to Socialism where the working class are not fit to take on that task. In other words, their view on this aspect of war was different from that of the S.P.G.B. because their view on the conditions for achieving Socialism was different. Experience has taught us something it had not at that time taught them. They (and this includes Marx and Engels in their earlier years) had underestimated the extent of the knowledge and experience required to build up a solid and reliable Socialist political organisation out of the unorganised workers. To them, the overthrow of an autocracy was but a step removed from the conquest of power by the working-class. The lessons of the past 100 years have shown how over-sanguine they were. Wars, revolutions, and ordinary economic and political evolution have destroyed numerous monarchies and autocracies, but because an organised Socialist working class nowhere exists, every attempt to gain power for Socialism has failed – including, of course, the Russian attempt.

The S.P.G.B. opposes working class participation in war between capitalist Governments for reasons based directly on working class interests and the interests of the Socialist Movement.

In all countries the workers are exploited by the owners of the means of production and distribution. There are no differences between the conditions under which exploitation is carried on in the different countries sufficient to make it worth the workers’ while supporting war in order to defend their subjection to one national group of capitalists rather than to another. As a case in point, the new Manchurian Government (said to be a tool of Japan) in taking over the Posts and Customs from China, guarantees to the staffs exactly the same wages and conditions as before. Why should they worry who governs Manchuria while capitalism lasts?

Many people who recognise these facts, nevertheless argue in favour of supporting wars for national defence and to secure national independence on the ground that only in this way can the national question be thrust on one side. They argue that Socialists ought to help the Irish, Chinese, Indians and others to secure national independence as a means of clearing nationalistic prejudices out of the way. This is an illusion. Every support of nationalism feeds it and encourages it. Nationalism breeds conditions in which Socialist propaganda and organisation are made more difficult. The Irish Free State is not less nationalistic than it was ten years ago because it is now partly independent of England. England is not free from nationalism in spite of its hundreds of years of independence. Japan – whose own territory is under no threat – is at present going through a violent fever of nationalism. For Socialist propaganda to make headway, nationalistic prejudices have got to be struck it the roots, and that from the very beginning.

As a practical policy this means that Socialists must carry on their struggle against the capitalist parties in their own country and must on no account allow it to appear, through political alliances or collaboration in capitalist Governments, that they associate themselves with their own capitalists against the rest of the world. It is only natural that the Labour Parties, believing as they do in associating with capitalist parties, should find themselves during war forming nationalist united fronts against the “enemy” country. There can be no sound Socialist attitude towards war except where there is a sound Socialist attitude towards capitalism at home.

The Great War showed how easy it was for the Governments to capture the so-called Labour and Socialist Parties. Germany provided a particularly interesting spectacle. The German Social Democratic Party had cherished the illusion that it was opposed to wars of aggression, and had also professed to abhor the methods of the Czarist Government in Russia. In August, 1914, the German Government was afraid that a war with France and England would not be popular with the Social Democrats and might be opposed by them. Here was a problem which the German Chancellor (Bethmann-Hollweg) and his advisers solved with the greatest ease by declaring war on Russia, thus giving the Social Democrats the kind of war their unsound theories would inevitably lead them to support. Prince von Buelow, in his Memoirs (Putnam, 1932, p. 163) describes the situation, and states that it was this motive which induced the Chancellor to hasten the declaration of war on Russia, for which otherwise there was no immediate cause. In “Class 1902” (Martin Seeker, 1929), Ernst Glaeser describes from the point of view of a member of the Social Democratic Party how easily the trick worked.

In Japan, at the present time, the wave or nationalism that has swept over the Trade Unions and so-called Socialist Parties has been helped on by the Labour Parties in England and elsewhere through their endeavour to judge the “merits” of the disputants. By denouncing Japan as the aggressor, these parties have at once thrown themselves open to the suspicion of being pro-China and anti-Japan. The nationalist elements in the Japanese organisations have used this effectively to discredit the whole idea of internationalism and of Socialism. By being able to represent the foreign so-called Socialists as helping capitalist interests hostile to Japanese capitalism, they have succeeded in overwhelming the working-class elements in Japan which have a clearer understanding of the position. Confidence between Socialists in the different countries requires as its first condition that each group shall show that its hands are clean in its activities at home. The Labour Parties can make no such claim and are rightly suspect in the eyes of the Japanese workers.

When Souvarine suggests that there is need for a revision of theories about war held by the Labour and Communist Parties, he is right. But what is really needed is that they should undertake the fundamental revision required to bring their theories as a whole into line with the facts of capitalism and the lessons of experience.

Edgar Hardcastle

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.

The Social Problem and Its Solution by Jules Guesde (1905)

From the February 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link To Part 1

II – Solution

The solution of the social problem is to be found in the problem itself, such as I have just given in a short exposition. The greatest socio-economic evil of today consists in the ever more complete divorce of the two factors in production, labour and property or capital, and consequently the remedy can be found only in their unification.

Under what form ought this unification to be effected?

It cannot be carried out by making the individual worker proprietor of his tool since this would exclude production on a large scale, and the system of labour having become collective consequent upon the introduction of steam and electricity, there can be but collective ownership to go hand in hand with collective labour.

Outside a Count de Mun, hypnotised by the arts and crafts of the middle ages and counting on a miracle for their re-establishment, there are only the anarchists, dreaming of natural rights and an ideal State of nature, who would retrogressively push their Utopia to such an extent as to establish a system of sharing out, of dismemberment and individualisation of modern machinery:

The engine to the driver,
And the dome to the builder,

as they sing in what is for them their “Marseillaise”.

The only possible form, I repeat, is that which is imposed by the modern conditions of production and exchange, not even communal or guild, but social. The mines whose dark caverns are hollowed out beneath the crust of many counties, the railways that stretch their iron tentacles over entire continents, commercial establishments like the Louvre and Bon Marché disposing of the lives of thousands of workers, do not, not one of them, lend themselves to communalisation, no more than the other machinery of production, distribution, or transport. Consequent upon the transmission of force by means of electricity, the waterfalls to-day and the tides tomorrow can be converted into motive powers. With this fact in mind, how is it possible to consider seriously, for one moment, the notion of the monopolisation – I had nearly said confiscation – of these natural powers, now become the condition of all industry, by some localities to the detriment of others?

The guild form is likewise brought into collision with other impossibilities of a similar nature. In fact, both forms, by the competition which would be kept up between the various productive groups, here guild, there communal, would bring in their train the same murderous anarchy as exists to-day under capitalist society.

It is only collectively that the workers, comprising the entire nation, can and ought to possess the means of wealth (mines, railways, canals, factories, etc.) socially operated. Capitalist evolution itself supplies the necessary elements, material and intellectual, of this APPROPRIATION and of this PRODUCTION BY AND FOR SOCIEY now become a vast co-operative commonwealth.

MATERIAL ELEMENTS: The concentration of capital that is effected every day in the spheres of industry, commerce and agriculture—the great manufactories just as the no less great commerce and agriculture of to-day being impelled to swallow up the middle capitalists in the same way as the smaller ones have been already swallowed. From 1870 to 1880, when in the United States the number of spindles increased from 7,131,818 to 10,678,526 and the number of spinners from 157,310 to 227,156 with an increased value of from 562,825,164 francs to 831,127,472 francs, the cotton manufactories fell from 959 to 751. It is the function of finance, by continually absorbing the surplus incomes, to hurry on this accumulation under the pretext of democratising capital.

INTELLECTUAL ELEMENTS: The concentration of all physical and mental activities in the non-possessing class or proletariat from the fireman and greaser of the wheels to the scientist such as Claude Bernard, including chemists, engineers, managers, etc. The organisation of labour: the entire army of labour, officers and men, comprising all outside the capitalist class, is already encamped in complete order on the patrimony of mankind which alone is to be exploited — in the technical sense of the word — and it is now only a question of the complete restitution to society by the very same process which has served for its dispossession, namely: by expropriation.

It is well to understand that we Socialists have by no means invented the classes and their destructive class-war than we have invented the process of expropriation, which is the law of all human progress.

It was by the expropriation of the artisan from his tools at first, from this technical skill after, then from his domestic hearth, despoiled of wife and child, that private or capitalist property was established, to say nothing about the expropriation of the product of his toil which is accomplished daily by the operation of the law of wages. The expropriators will themselves in their turn be expropriated—it is as Gambetta would say, “imminent justice” — and they will all the more easily be expropriated under the company and share-holding system of to-day, they having become so completely estranged from all direct interference in production that their total severance might take place tomorrow without a perceptible check to industry.

This economic expropriation — which would allow to the expropriated full participation in the benefits accruing from social appropriation — must be preceded by a political expropriation, the establishment of the Socialist Republic being only realisable by a proletariat master of the State and acting in conformity with the law, since it itself will be and make the law.

It now only remains for me to point out the principal consequences which will result from this transformation of capitalist property into social property.

(1) There will be an end to all class distinction and consequently an end to the class-war. The workers are for the future their own capitalists, or to put it better, all the members of society are at once and with equal title co-proprietors and co-producers. The State, in the oppressive sense of the word, will cease to exist, it being nothing more than a means of maintaining artificially, by force, order that a system of society, founded on the antagonism of interests would naturally give birth to. The government of men gives place to the administration of things. It is the reign of social peace, daughter of universal harmony.

(2) Commercial production of exchange-values with an end to realising profit will disappear, and be replaced by the co-operative production of use-values for consumption with a view to satisfying social wants. In place of robbing and exploiting one another, we will all help one another. Homo domini Deus, “Man is a god to man”.

(3) Liberty, which until now has been but a word for the great majority of mankind, is henceforth a great and living reality, this liberty of which Socialism, according to our enemies, was to have been the tomb, will, on the contrary, blossom forth into the fullest perfection when reared in the uncontaminated atmosphere of the Socialist State. Liberty provides the means of accomplishing our will and therefore of satisfying our wants. These means will from now forward exist for all, multiplied by social labour, which, in point of productivity, stands in the same relation to modern capitalist industry as this does to small primitive industry. At the same time the effort to be made by each member will be reduced to a minimum.

The socially necessary labour-time to be furnished by each capable member of the Socialist State will likewise be reduced:

(a) By the suppression of slack seasons, which are the rule to-day in some many trades during periods from three to six months per year, as well as stoppages which doom to enforced idleness hundreds of thousands of workers, men and women, giving them over to the bitter pangs of starvation. These slack seasons and stoppages are the result, as Prof. Durkheim of Bordeaux very well puts it, of “this too great diffusion of the economic functions which under Socialism will be transferred to the organised community”.

(b) By the disappearance of the parasitical class, and not only of that alone but also of the sub-parasites who live on this class. In France there are more than two million persons of both sexes employed in domestic pursuits, without counting the numbers of prostitutes and parsons, police, magistrates, and soldiers;

(c) By the employment in work of a socially necessary character of all the human and technical forces now used in works of a destructive nature (cannon, guns, torpedoes, etc.) or socially useless (in superfluous display, or even of simple journeying of capital from the pocket of Peter into that of Paul);

(d) By the utilisation of all the energy at present wasted, lost, or reduced to nothing in the midst of unbridled competition;

(e) By perfecting “automatising”, the machine which each one will be interested in developing as far as he can, since it will be so much the more leisure or well-being realised both for himself and the community in general.

Even to-day when no one of these conditions is either fulfilled or capable of being so, an English statistician, quoted by Domela Nieuwenhuis in his pamphlet on the First of May, has calculated that with the machine at its actual stage of development and taking into consideration the point we have reached in technical skill, one hour and twenty minutes of daily labour would suffice to provide for the material wants of all.

One more fruit of Socialist society and I have done: that is the end of religious or supernatural idea current amongst men. The religious idea, far from vanishing before the forward development of modern science, has taken a new flight. Thus it is that in the age which has seen the prolific genius of Lavoisier, Laplace, Darwin, and Edison, we have witnessed the birth of new religions. Why? Because other and still more complex phenomena have arisen in the place of natural phenomena already explained and controlled once and for all by man. The phenomena of which I speak belong to the economic order which in the individualist atmosphere of to-day escape from man’s control and dominate him. God, chased out by one door, the door of nature, has re-entered by another, the social door. Therefore, as long as the productive forces which crush us individually will not have been mastered in the only way that they can be: by bringing them within the administration of society, man, a prey to misery, the plaything of chance, will bow low before the “unknown” – and will deify it.

It is only when the economic elements have been tamed as have been the natural elements, when society has become a providence for each one of its members, then and then alone will men cease to search for a providence beyond the skies, because then – contrary to the christian legend of God becoming man – man will have become God.

Translated from the French of Jules Guesde by P. J. Tobin

The Social Problem and Its Solution by Jules Guesde (1905)

Jules Guesde

From the January 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

I—Problem

The problem that Socialism sets itself to solve is to be found in a fact, of which it can be said as of the sun: he is blind who does not see it. It is the divorce between the means of production and the producers.

Neither are the mines in the hands of the workers underground who give them value at the daily peril of their lives; nor do the railroads belong to those who have been called the slaves of the iron-way; nor do the weavers who work the looms, the spinners who toil at the spinning machine, the smiths of the blast furnaces, etc, possess the smallest title to call their own that which they create and which occupies the greater and best portion of their lives—lives spent in barriers and useless sacrifice; and, the economic development of Society tends to generalise this state of things by destroying naturally and necessarily the small industries, founded on the ownership of the means of production by the producer.

Next to industry, properly so-called, we find commerce and agriculture, on the expropriation of the little tradesman and peasant proprietor, organised on a large scale and monopolised by the non-producers.

Labour is, on the one hand, more and more furnished by a class; Property or Capital, on the other, held and controlled by another class. Here you have workers without property—the proletariat. There you have property without work—or capital.

It is this separation between the two factors of production which produces all the evils, all the disorders which afflict not only wage-workers but Society as a whole.

The workers without property are excluded from their products, from the riches they create—which accumulate in the hands of the property holders, capitalists and large land-owners.

Labour, which is inseparable from the workman, is in effect nothing more than a commodity—like old bags, bicycles, bones or biscuits—submitted to the laws which rule the prices of commodities and drag it down through the ups and downs of supply and demand to the mere expenses of living and reproduction of the species—food and maintenance; and, these expenses tend constantly to further reduction, because, to derive an advantage from the markets, capitalists, whatever their personal sentiment—had they the heart of a Saint Vincent de Paul or a Louise Michel—are obliged to reduce to a minimum their net cost which includes all labour, material and mental.

There is then a universal and forced tendency to reduce to the lowest the workers’ wages, and this law is sufficient to crush all the best intentions of employers, prisoners of the social order, by which, however, they benefit.

Another cause by virtue of which wages cannot rise—whatever may be the productivity of human labour—above the immediate wants of the working class is that the supply of labourers tends ever more and more to outrun the demand.

The increase of supply results from the forcing into the ranks of the proletariat of the expropriated small industries, little tradesmen, shopkeepers, all reduced, in their turn, to selling their power of doing work—their labour-power—in order to eat.

The decrease in the demand for labour results from the introduction of machinery and its extension. The non-human labour power (steam, electricity, etc) replaces and renders more and more useless human labour power. Here is what we call progress in the economic system: the never ceasing reduction of the sum of labour necessary to a given production.

The economists pretend, it is true, that this reduction in the field of human labour-power (the only means of existence of a class) is but temporary. Following a better market, the produce, more in demand, would bring in its train an increasing flow of production and a new demand for labour-power. But the economists might just as well say that the mechanical manufacture of coffins would multiply the need for coffins. Is not the mechanical production of bottles and casks dependent on the production of wine, beer, etc., and is not the output of rails or boilers limited by the number of factories and the development of the means of communication? On the other hand, neither the agricultural machinery (steam ploughs, sowers, mowers, binders and thrashers) nor the cranes on the quays multiply the products; they simply displace manual labour. But even in the industries where the machine has resulted in an extraordinary increase of manufactured articles, the demand for labour has diminished. Example: The cotton industry in England, in which the productivity has increased 1231 per cent from 1819-22 to 1880-82, while for the same period the number of those employed fell from 1/37th of the population (445,000 out of a population of 16,500,000) to 1/50th (686,000 out of a population of 34,000,000). Another example: The boot and shoe trade of the United States carried from 70 million pairs in 1845 to 448 millions in 1875, while the workers employed have fallen from 1/414 (45,900 out of 19 millions population) to 1/1145th (48,000 out of 55 millions).

Under the system of non-possession of the working class of the instruments with which they work, all progress, no matter what its nature, is turned against them, making greater their misery, their slavery; accentuating the insecurity of their existence; in a word: making unavoidable their exploitation – their robbery.

I spoke just now of the machine. Can it be possible that it could not have released suffering humanity from over-toil, troubles; could not have given us liberty? On the contrary, it has aggravated man’s hard labour by setting up in competition with him women, transformed into toilers, and children. From the very moment that it permitted the employment of feminine and infantile arms, it was necessary that the woman should enter the factory, leaving behind her health, her dignity; compromising even the very race itself, attacked by the foul virus of capitalism while yet a foetus in its mother’s womb. The effect of this competition let loose between the different members of the worker’s family has been still a further lowering of labour. Thus the legend of the well-being of the family enforced by more bread-winners does not hold good even before a Jules Simon. When the woman and the child were not industrialised, the wages of the husband had to suffice for the maintenance of all. To-day, for the same price which the single labour-power of the man was bought, the employer buys the threefold labour-power of the man, the woman, and the child.

The discovery of gas, this creation of human industry, of a midnight sun to prolong and complete that of day, has not been less fatal than the machine for the working-class. It has given place to night work; the slaughter-house of the night.

And the instruction that is being extended – and which we are the first to applaud as a new element for the destruction of existing Society – what consequences do you think it is going to introduce for the proletariat as long as this Society exists? In perfecting the human tool, which produces more and better, it will create new stoppages, longer slack seasons. One instructed workman will be sufficient where formerly two ignorant workmen were necessary — and occupied.

We hear “profit sharing” much spoken of as a remedy to heal all social sores, to reconcile labour and capital. If the cure were applicable, profit sharing would only remove the field of battle to a conflict over the profits to be shared. But without insisting on this point, in urging the worker to produce the most possible, it would only oblige him to do in two days the work of three, concluding consequently in the multiplication of the already too numerous days of no pay or stoppages. From the hell in which the dispossessed productive class struggles and writhes there is no redemption – “abandon all hope ye who enter here!”

The social consequences of the rupture, ever more complete, between labour and capital are no less terrible. First, we have the struggle of all against all.

It is the fashion amongst the adversaries of Socialism—through ignorance or enmity—to charge us with fomenting the class war. Just as though we had invented it! We do nothing but state it and make it serve, which is better, to its own ends. We know that the first condition which imposes itself on a doctor who is called to combat a disease is to examine it in order to understand it. It is not by shutting our eyes to the war which divides and exhausts humanity that we shall arrive at the desired peace. The war of every moment is threefold:

War between the proletariat and the capitalist for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum. Man becomes a wolf for his fellow-man. It is a question of eating one’s brother or being eaten by him.

War between workers and workers for the sharing of wages.

War between capitalists and capitalists for the sharing of profits.

On the other hand, all the marvels of human genius, all the conquests over nature, of which I have pointed out already the homicidal results to the working-class, do not strike less mortally at the other classes of Society. The colours of aniline, coal extracts, so extensively used in the dyeing industry, have ruined whole districts which lived on the cultivation of the madder root formerly employed in this industry before the discovery of chemical dyes. Tomorrow, as has been recently foreshadowed, means may be discovered for the direct manufacture by electricity of metal-castings, and then the blast-furnaces, their fires extinguished, will leave to the millionaire of yesterday nothing but eyes to weep. All discoveries are condemned to operate only through revolutions, leaving behind them victims by the million, at the top as well as at the bottom of the social ladder.

It is, according to the admirable expression found in the programme of the German Social-Democracy: General insecurity becomes the normal condition of society.

What shall we say, in conclusion, of the overproduction which goes on increasing and multiplying and which nothing can stop? When industry was yet confined to one or two countries, in order to reduce the frequency of these crises born of the ever growing division between the unbounded productivity of human labour and the limit put to the reward of the workers, outlets were furnished by exportation to those parts of Europe remaining agricultural (Italy, Germany, etc.). To-day, having become in their turn industrial, these same nations are confronted with over-production, and Africa and Asia are “opened up”– civilized – to supply markets for this too great store of commodities. Here you have an explanation also of the crimes of Colonial policy, Colonial wars, etc. which are the order of the day with Capitalist Governments. But after? They will only have stepped back in order to jump the better.

Thus more and more has Capitalist Society proved its horrible failure to produce anything from a superabundance of riches; of means of consumption and happiness, but misery, suffering, ruin and death!

Translated from the French of  Jules Guesde by P. J. Tobin

Link To Part 2

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