Letter: Is the Socialist Attitude towards Religion Sound? (1925)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Criticism by Mr. Archie McArthur and our Reply. 

Being on the Thames Embankment last May Day, I bought a copy of a pamphlet on “Socialism and Religion,” issued by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. If my memory serves me right, I encountered this same pamphlet some fourteen years ago in Winnipeg. The manifesto, for such it is, bases upon materialism. I submit that it is a mistake for Socialists any longer to found their propaganda upon such a questionable doctrine. To do so is but to invite attack and inevitable discomfiture.

Fifty years ago—which was an age of triumphant Science—it was widely believed that in matter and motion there had at last been placed in man’s hands the key to the interpretation of the universe and all its contents, including man himself. Fifty years ago that was ; but time in the interval has wrought many changes. Science, now wiser and less confident, recognises its limitations and confines itself to a description of things as they appear to us, being silent about them as in their ultimate nature they are. Materialism is no longer regarded as a truth of science.

Neither is materialism an established truth of philosophy. It amounts to no more than a philosophic speculation; and it is endorsed to-day by few thinkers of repute. The main reason for this, briefly expressed, is that the theory cannot reach its starting-point. Thought itself bars the way. You can never get to a position beyond thought where you are face to face with matter per se—where you have matter pure and simple—and then show thought evolving from it. Matter in its primordial form—the atom with its electrons—is always matter with an element of thought already present in it. Anyone who grasps the significance of this statement will at once see how precarious a basis materialism is for Socialism.

Materialism is in truth a philosophic issue, which must be settled upon philosophic principles. No apparent value of it for propaganda can avail against a position established in opposition to it—finally, as I think, and irrevocably—far from “the tumult and the shouting,” in the quiet and remote chambers of the thinkers.

Socialism—in essence the view that as production is now social, so also ought to be distribution, and that this can be secured only through the collective ownership and control of industry with its materials and implements—Socialism is strictly an ethico-economic doctrine, which may be held on various grounds. It is that which constitutes its strength and makes it a possible world-polity. The Socialist world of the future—infinitely rich it will be in human types and their contributions to the common stock—is not to be for a handful of doctrinaires, but for all the world’s inhabitants, whatever their opinions on matters irrelevant. The facts upon which the “materialist conception of history” founds, when not coloured and falsified beforehand by the “conception” itself, are susceptible of another and, as many think, a sounder and more inspiring interpretation ; and there is no warrant for using it as a test of orthodoxy. To discard the theory would detract nothing from the achievement of Marx. His genius and industry it was that brought the facts to light and forced them upon the attention of the world.

I speak of the “materialist conception” not without some acquaintance with it. Eighteen years ago I came to grips with it when a student under Morris Hillquit, the well-known Marxian and Internationalist, at the Rand School, New York, in the first year of its existence. Hillquit, I remember, was careful to exclude the “materialist conception” from his definition of Socialism. Socialism would do well, like science, to learn its limitations and refrain from dogmatising about the ultimate nature of reality, whether it is material or spiritual. Not as an enemy of the cause do I write, but as an old and deeply interested friend. I was one of the original members of the Independent Labour Party thirty-two years ago and, before that, was on the executive of the old Scottish Labour Party. Looking back over the past generation, I deeply regret the way in which Socialists have, unwarrantably and without profit to themselves, undermined morality and religion.

As to morality, there is the phrase “the morality of Socialism.” But how much, on a materialistic basis, does this come to? It comes to no more than self-interest. That is why the healthy moral consciousness revolts against it. Self-interest is not necessarily selfishness. Selfishness can exist only in one whose deeper nature it is not to be selfish. It is a quite legitimate element in the moral life. That the working-class itself has been so long blind to its own true self-interest has indeed been its bane. All the same, mere self-interest is not morality, and to proceed upon it would be no ethical advance upon capitalism.

The fatal objection thus to materialistic Socialism is, strange to say, that it is individualistic. It conceives of men as isolated units, each seeking ends that are purely his own, or at any rate ends that are only accidentally united with those of his fellows. Upon such a basis society would be impossible.

However imperfect society at present is, it expresses a principle qualitatively different from self-interest and incommensurably higher. That principle is the idea of the common good. The idea of the common good it is round which ethical controversy has moved throughout the ages—its nature and how it can be justified. It can be justified, as the greatest thinkers have taught and as I myself am profoundly convinced, only on the ground that there is in man a universal and non-material element which lifts him above a merely individual existence and makes him potentially one with his fellows and with the universe. It is, not a life of prudential calculation, but the ever richer and wider realisation of the common good thus conceived—our happy and ennobling privilege, our sacred duty even to the point of self-sacrifice—it is this that constitutes morality. And morality Socialists, by their alliance with materialism and its resulting determinism, have done much to weaken.

As to religion, I could say much, out of a full heart, of the damage done to it by Socialists, but space forbids. Theologically I belong myself to the extreme left, and when Socialists seek wisely to destroy the socially hurtful superstitions that still survive in outworn creeds, I am naturally with them. But religion itself—the apprehension with mind and heart of the Divine Perfection as He gradually unfolds Himself in the universe and in human life—that is another matter. It cannot be destroyed ; it is eternal.

For myself I glory in religion. It is, in this closing stage of my life, what it has been since first in far away years I got at my beloved mother’s knee my earliest glimpse of its secret and acquaintance with its power—it is life’s chief good.

Reply to Mr. McArthur.

The pamphlet under consideration traces religion from its origin, in savage fear and inexperience, to its modern forms; bringing forward a multitude of facts and reliable authorities in support of the view set forth. Our opponent makes no attempt to touch this historical statement, so that it evidently stands as a correct record, as far as he is concerned. His criticism consists in the main of a series of unsupported assertions ; these I will deal with as fully as space will allow. The pamphlet further points out the use to which religion has been put as an aid to the different ruling classes. This also our critic leaves severely alone.

He opens up with the assertion that materialism is an outworn philosophy which science has outgrown, and further on he says that materialism is endorsed by few thinkers of repute.

Let us hear what a “scientist” has to say in the matter :—

“This procedure has to be adopted not merely within the limits that are popularly assigned to the term science, but also in the realm of what is popularly termed philosophy. As a matter of fact there is no fundamental distinction between the two. Science is not the mere collection of facts. It has indeed to give a great part of its time to the ascertainment of facts, using all the resources of modern technique to secure accuracy in so doing; but the facts once ascertained are merely its raw material. Once they are obtained the real task of science begins—to find out exactly how the facts fit together in that wonderful edifice that we call the universe of nature. The working hypotheses of science are the provisional sketches of particular little bits of the edifice; in their final form and pieced together they would form the complete theory of nature.”— Professor J. Graham Kerr, “Manchester Guardian Weekly.” 29th February, 1924.

Here we have a scientist giving the opposite to our opponent’s contention. But, this apart, how can science achieve anything except by materialistic methods, whether scientists are conscious of the fact or not? Science can only deal with things, whether those things be tables or thoughts, and things exist. If they exist, then that fact itself demonstrates their material nature. Would our opponent suggest that a thought consists of nothing? If so, then let him get in touch with the woman who wears her brain out thinking how she can make ends meet. She will tell him that thinking is a tiring process in which much energy is used up and that food is required to replace this energy.

This brings me to his next assertion, that matter in its primordial form is always matter with an element of thought. (One is reminded of the mysterious attributes of capital !) He helps this assertion out by the previous contention that we can never get to a position beyond thought where we are face to face with matter pure and simple. And later he proves we cannot go beyond thought by doing so himself—and finding the “thing in itself” !

Does our opponent contend that “the atom with its electrons” thinks and consciously combines into stones and half bricks, and that during times of trouble these half bricks consciously fling themselves at our heads. If he does hold this view, then he rules out the cloud-pusher and divine scene-shifter. The brain is a combination of atoms and the brain thinks; feet are a like combination and they dance; snow is such a combination and it melts ; trees are such a combination and they sprout; which is the more wonderful? and which is non-material?

It is the material nature of thinking that is apparently denied. Perhaps an illustration will make the position clearer.

If an object be held up to a mirror a reflection appears. This reflection and reflecting process is just as material as the object reflected. The brain is like such a mirror, obtaining its images through the senses, but it is a living one that sorts out, combines and stores up images. The correctness of the sense perceptions and thought process is demonstrated by future action. For instance, you walk round a moving motor-bus, not under it. The living activity of the brain is just as material a process as walking, or cycling, or thundering, and no more wonderful.

The primordial form of matter contains in the embryo the volcano, dancing girls, the whirlwind, trees, growth, smoking, and so forth, each of which material manifestation is every bit as wonderful as the “element of thought.” Things only exist in their relation to each other. The brain learns of objects by their material manifestations, whether these manifestations take on a physical or a mental form. If our opponent is only going to call touchable things material, then the sound of thunder must be included in his mystical world. We can’t touch thunder, but we can hear it; we can’t touch thoughts, but we can feel them. All phenomena have the same general nature ; they exist and can be made the subject of scientific investigation. There is nothing mystical about thinking, briefly it is the faculty of deriving the general out of the particular, abstract conceptions out of concrete things—a material operation of the brain.

He next asserts that the facts of the materialist conception of history admit of another interpretation, but as he does not give any other interpretation, the statement is a waste of paper. Anyone who is not blinded by illusion must be able to see that all authoritative history is now written from the standpoint of the materialist concept. As epoch after epoch gets a more complete treatment so the economic roots of social development are made clearer and clearer. In the course of history, morality and religion are demonstrated to be changeable things. The moral and religious ideas prevailing at a given period are those favouring the maintenance of the method of production and distribution of that time. As production develops and new classes rise to supremacy the moral and religious ideas that hinder their development are discarded and new ones substituted. History, since the break-up of tribal communism, has been the record of the struggle of different classes for control of the productive forces and the wealth produced. These classes have arisen out of the economic soil and have pursued economic ends. As this point has been dealt with over and over again in these columns and as our opponent has deprived me of the opportunity of grappling with the alternative that he is keeping up his sleeve, there is no occasion to go further into the question at the moment.

The aim of the Socialist is to get all to work harmoniously together on a basis of equality, as only by doing so can each develop himself to the fullest degree and enjoy the best of life—”Man is a social animal.” This idea is no non-material element, it is the heritage of the herd. Hence the assertion that “materialist Socialism” is “individualistic” is foolish and futile.

Our opponent is blind to the practical facts of life and has lost his way in the maze of metaphysics and thus, instead of seeing the principle of the individualistic pursuit of profit and the robbery of the wage worker that faces him at every turn, has discovered somewhere in the byways a vague abstraction, the “principle of the common good.” In its essence he has again got hold of the wrong end of the stick—society should exist for the benefit of man and not man for the benefit of society.

Finally, in the oppression of one class by another, the control of the means of production by the few idlers and the enslavement and impoverishment of the many toilers, he sees “the Divine Perfection” gradually unfolding himself (he knows it is a “he”!). This is a slavist view as it involves resignation and, in the light of previous remarks, a denial of the class struggle. Hence, if the workers would be free they must throw off these religious shackles, and struggle until their class conquers economic freedom in order that the groans of the hungry, the cries of the outcasts, and the whines of the religious, shall alike take their places in the annals of the past. I have retrained, as far as possible, from touching upon points and arguments that are already fully dealt with in the pamphlet that is the subject of attack.

Gilmac.

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

The SPA: Dashed on the Rocks of Compromise (2016)

Book Review from the July 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Other than in our Socialist Party, way too much thought on revolutionary socialist organisation gets written advocating Lenin’s way as the one and only way and applying historic conditions under Russian feudalism to Western democracies today, and whose justification amounts to thinly veiled apologetics for ‘history is written by the victors’. The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History by Jack Ross, published last year, joins the comparatively smaller range of literature not from this vanguard perspective, and even opposed to it. Ross declares that the Socialist Party of America was unique in the history of American politics as a minor party that enjoyed a consistent level of public support, a wide ranging impact and respected place in the national conversation for half a century. The term ‘social democracy’ he argues, captured more accurately and precisely their goals marked also by a commitment to the ballot box as a means of advancing a political economy in the interests of the working class represented by the trade union movement.

Eugene Debs
The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was formed in 1901 by the merger of the Populist movement remnant led by Eugene V. Debs and the dissenting faction led by Morris Hillquit of the ‘increasingly sectarian’ Socialist Labor Party (SLP) of Daniel De Leon. Before Lenin, revolutionary insurrection was not the goal and Marxists looked to the electoral success of the German SDP. The founding principles, the Rochester platform from 1899, adopted by 125 delegates, were compromised from the start, adopting the short and succinct list (albeit as an addendum) of ‘immediate demands’ of the Social Democrats such as Debs, Job Harriman and Victor Berger.

The SPA believed in independent action on class conscious lines and refused to seek to wrest control of the main trade union body, the American Federation of Labor (AFL). They believed themselves worthy of trade union support. A Chicago convention they packed in 1901 saw them voting down forming a Labour party. They respected the autonomy of unions engaged in struggle and rejected movement towards a general strike. Ira Kipnis wrote in The American Socialist Movement 1897-1912 that ‘by the 1904 convention, the party had already divided into three loose factions, left, right and center.’ Ross argues this history is discredited and no-one in the SPA pre-1905 rejected the ballot box outright but the adoption of ‘immediate demands’ (other than socialism) was to prove its undoing.

In 1904 these ‘immediate demands’ were an eight hour day, social insurance, an income tax, inheritance tax, abolition of child labour, women’s suffrage, the initiative referendum and recall at all levels of government. A resolution also passed against the syndicalist idea of dual or ‘revolutionary’ unionism. Ross says it was probably in the platform debates of 1904 that the label ‘impossibilist’ emerged describing the ‘utopian’ belief that socialism was impossible through legislative reform and could only be created through revolution. Nevertheless SPA Presidential candidate Eugene Debs declared ‘Government ownership of public utilities means nothing for labor under capitalist ownership of government’ and won just under three percent of the vote.

In 1908 the immediate demands from 1904 were made ‘more comprehensive’, ‘but still concise, establish[ing] the general program that would remain largely unchanged through the end of the 1930s’ and a train ‘the Red Special’ was even leased for the 1908 presidential campaign. The American trade union body the American Federation of Labor (AFL) endorsed the Democratic Party, a rare constant for the twentieth century. Sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset argues the obstacles could all have been overcome had the AFL endorsed the SPA. This conclusion is the wrong way round and the AFL probably quite correctly judged the Democrats as better able to deliver immediate demands, and the immediate demands of the SPA as a poor imitation departing from socialism. Ross tacitly acknowledges ‘popularity of the SPA did not come from any ‘boring from within’ of parliamentary trickery whereby the unions were to be put on record as supporters of socialism, but by socialists … converting them to their way of thought.’

Keir Hardie visited in 1909 calling for an Independent Labour Party as a united formation. Thankfully this wasn’t without opposition, although (p. 139) Ross seems to conflate the majority ‘impossibilist’ opposition (and the IWW) with the minority ‘Left-wing’ opposition (under International Socialist Review).  One member W.E. Walling summed it up: ‘Labor parties adopt the ethics and philosophy of capitalism . . .  denying the class struggle.’

That anti-Labor party impossibilism was not synonymous with ‘the Left wing’ was aptly demonstrated when Berger, Hillquit, Harriman and Spargo all agreed ‘any member who opposes political action or advocates crime, sabotage or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working-class to aid in its emancipation, shall be expelled.’ Even Debs was ‘against sabotage, and every other form of violence and destructiveness suggested by what is known as direct action.’ Both peak vote and peak membership were achieved in 1912 when Debs ran for President and achieved six percent of the vote and membership reached 150,000 paying dues.

At this point, it should have been clear that a long-term strategy of rejection of Labor party immediate demands, commitment to the ballot box and rejection of direct action insurrection and respect for trade union autonomy was not only sustainable but an effective strategy. If their strategy was good, the same could not be said for their policy. Immediate demands were kept, with Roosevelt ‘annexing a large slice of the reform program’ and the large Debs vote was misleading (‘The Pseudo Socialist Vote’, Socialist Standard January 1913).

There were two other factors that came into play, one was World War I and the other was Bolshevism. The mainstay SPA publication Appeal to Reason (under new ownership) came out in favour of the war, and while Keir Hardie was helping conscription efforts in Britain (contrary to Ross’ assertion on p. 157 that Hardie was anti-war), Eugene Debs was locked up for publicly calling to resist conscription. This imprisoning of those perceived as socialists was part of the first Wilsonian Red Scare. The Daily Kos review of Ross’s book (LINK) comments ‘organized labor swung firmly behind the war effort … There is little evidence to support the idea that the anti-war tradition would have continued to be dominant in a genuine Labor Party.’

As we commented in the Socialist Standard at the time: ‘Victor Berger, one of the most anti-Socialist leaders of the SPA, has also been given 20 years, though he supported the Mexican War and militarism. He was widely known as a pro-German. While Berger wrote the pro-German articles for the Milwaukee Leader, Simons did the pro-Ally work on the same periodical.’ ‘The mass of S.P. membership can be estimated by their continual support of the official clique and by their sticking to such a rotten organisation. Morris Hillquit, the “brains of the S.P.,” one of the many lawyers on the National Executive, offered to organise an army of Socialists to help to explain democracy to the Germans overseas. He also admitted that if he had been a member of Congress he would have voted for the war’ (‘Class Struggle in the USA’, Socialist Standard, September 1919).

At this point, 42 SPA members left the Detroit local. With others who had not been SPA members they formed the Socialist Party of the United States on July 7 1916. They later described the SPA as confused reformers and confused direct actionists (Western Socialist #4 1966). The SPA threatened them with a lawsuit over their name and so they renamed themselves the Workers Socialist Party of the United States. No mention is made of them in Ross’ book.

The second factor of interest, was a personal visit by Trotsky to an SPA member in Brooklyn on Jan 14 1917 who ‘personally initiated and inspired much of the left-wing fury, … motivated by his pathological hatred for Hillquit in particular.’ At the 1919 August 30 convention, John Reed assaulted SPA chair Julius Gerber leading one member to comment ‘Many believe it is not only possible to follow the Russian example but mandatory. They declare that they alone hold the secret of success and it is their duty to impose it on the party.’ Ross mentions the expulsion of John Keracher’s Proletarian Party from Michigan as a ‘tiny sect almost entirely based in Detroit until the end of the 1960s.’

A measure of the socialist understanding of the members of the SPA was the anti-war St Louis Platform. This lost more pro-war members from the SPA than were lost to Bolshevism and the American Communists who boasted that they could change their line in 24 hours. Victor Berger commented ‘in this game of would-be radical phrases, the emptier the barrel the louder the sound.’

Norman Thomas
The 1919 conference saw the ‘Communist Left-Wing’ depart the SPA to form their own party. And in 1920 the SPA reaffirmed its disinterest in a Labour party by declaring its refusal to work with other groups. In 1927 the SPA launched its own radio station called WEVD which managed to broadcast until the 1980s. Two founding figures were lost when Eugene Debs died in 1926 and Victor Berger in 1929. A new faction rejecting the ballot box appeared, called the Militant faction proving past lessons hadn’t been learned.

In 1934 the SPA held a rally at Madison Square garden which was attacked by Communist Party members. Against the insurrectionary rhetoric of the Militant Faction inside the SPA stood the ‘Old Guard’ of the SPA who issued a 1934 restatement of principles calling themselves the Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party. It argued for education and propaganda not direct action and insurrection. In 1935, the SPA went on the offensive, Norman Thomas debated Earl Browder the new leader of the Communist Party and the ‘Old Guard’ dissolved twelve New York Militant branches.

The new presidential candidate Norman Thomas’ vote peaked in 1932, proving not quite as popular as Debs. New president Franklin D. Roosevelt received Norman Thomas and Morris Hillquit at the White House following the 1932 election shortly before Hillquit died a year later. Roosevelt’s New Deal would successfully co-opt all radical opposition and the following election in 1936 saw the SPA not on a record number of state ballots. This is the dire consequence of political trading with shrewd operators like Roosevelt.

Some resolve prevailed intermittently, with Norman Thomas observing and commenting: ‘Trotsky and above all Stalin, pioneered in that contempt for pity, and that Machiavellian ruthlessness in which Hitler has become so adept’ and expelled Trotskyist entryists in the SPA, leading one prominent Trotskyist, Hal Draper, to form the Socialist Workers Party (US). The SPA unambiguously opposed World War II and in 1940 expelled the Militants, but on the other hand also watered down even their immediate demands.

It is strange that Ross should neglect to mention at all (even in the footnotes) the World Socialist Party, a non-Leninist and non-reformist group but he also dismisses the SLP (US) as ‘sectarian’ without fully explaining why (where Kipnis devotes at least one chapter to the SLP). The SLP (US) expelled SPA members from the IWW union, seemingly disenchanting the SPA with syndicalism, before the SLP (US) found themselves expelled (see ‘Marxism in the USA’, Socialist Standard December 1968). To explain this would highlight Ross’ attachment to syndicalism and forming a Labor party by trade unions. Ross casts the 19th century Populist Party and the early 20th century Progressive Party as missed opportunities for the SPA. Ross claims ‘a Labor party, had it emerged would have profoundly differed from post-war liberalism’. This is to go against the experience of the Labour Party in Britain.

Trotskyism and the New Left
In 1952, the SPA presidential candidate Darlington Hoopes polled so disappointingly poorly that the SLP (US) outpolled them for the first time ever, and the SPA stopped fielding presidential candidates for good not long after. The SPA had survived the Commies in 1919 and survived the Militants in 1934, but it was one-time Trotskyist Max Shachtman who would prove their undoing in the 1960s.

One SPA member wrote ‘I can’t see why the official pacifist groups have to spend so much time on piffling projects like those temporary fasts, White House picketing etc. when all it does is impress its terrible weakness applying some of the minor Gandhi tactics where their chance of success is infinitely smaller that it makes them look ridiculous’.

Ross observes ‘This transformation of the American left that began with the rise of the Popular Front in the 1930s amounted to the displacement of historic American Socialism by a deeply undemocratic approach to politics. Throughout the 1960s, Erich Fromm’s ‘Let Man Prevail’ SPA manifesto was constantly in demand from the national office whereas Max Shachtman’s tome on the development of Stalinism, ‘the Bureaucratic Revolution’ gathered dust on the shelves’.

Ross writes ‘The Shachtmanite SPA majority endorsed the Democrats at the 1968 SPA conference.’ ‘A long wave of SPA resignations began.’ ‘In November 1970 the SPA and Democratic Socialist Federation jointly sponsored a rally for Israel, a merger had been in the works since 1969.’ ‘In December 1972 the SPA announced it would be known as the Social Democrats USA. The Wisconsin Socialists passed a resolution that they interpreted this to mean the SPA had ceased to exist.’ ‘In 1980 the SDUSA endorsed Ronald Reagan and invited the Nicaraguan contras to speak at their 1985 conference’.

The Socialist Party of America ceased to be in 1972 when the Chairman, Michael Harrington, resigned in October. Then in December it changed its name to ‘Social Democrats, USA.’ There was a minority without legal entitlement to the membership or assets, determined to continue. One minority later launched the SPUSA, a ‘broad multi-tendency democratic socialist’ organisation which exists to this day. It runs candidates for President and is doing so again this year.

Ross writes that the SPA was an exceptional party in an exceptional nation. The review of his book  in the American Conservative argues ‘Ross pays little attention to ideas and proceeds chronologically rather than analytically’ and concluded that socialist parties in Europe embraced much the same blend of social welfare, economic corporatism, and militarized internationalism that had defined the Democratic Party at least since FDR. So perhaps America is not exceptional after all.

Two excerpts from our history demonstrate the foresight of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and our American companion party and provide a rather more fitting conclusion:

  ‘If the Socialist Party of America had preached Socialism and got votes for Socialism, neither Republican nor Democrat could have enticed their votes away’ (‘Lessons from the American Elections’, Socialist Standard, January 1929). 

‘Labor Parties are the same everywhere. They are all parties of reform. Names mean nothing. The Social Democratic Party of Germany, The British Labor Party and the Socialist Party of America—where the P. P. came from in 1919—are Labor Parties, whose purpose is to reform the capitalist system. They gather into their ranks all kinds of cranks and misleaders voicing hazy notions of a land of promise somewhere in the future. Their history shows that their leaders were ever willing to betray the workers. During the war all the Labor Parties supported their respective governments. Even now in Britain where the Labor Government rules, nothing has or will be done to endanger the steady flow of profits into the coffers of the capitalists’ (The Socialist, March 1930).

DJW

A Challenge to the Socialist Party of America. (1933)

From the March 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

[As our American comrades, the Workers’ Socialist Party, have no journal of their own, they have asked us to publish the following statement. We are willing to allow reasonable space for a reply by the Socialist Party of America.— Ed. Comm.]

In every capitalist country there are organisations that call themselves Socialist and claim to stand in the interests of the working class, while their activity consists in misrepresenting Socialist teachings, distorting Marxism, and generally seeking to keep the workers’ attention focussed on any or everything but their real interest, the attainment of Socialism. The Labour Party in England is an example; their would-be imitator in the United States, the so-called Socialist Party of America, is another, amongst many others. Innumerable instances have been quoted in the Socialist Standard giving evidence of the unsound and treacherous nature of these Parties. Below is presented a further example of how such organisations make their sly attacks on the Socialist movement, and how they hedge and evade when brought to task by Socialists.

James Oneal, editor of The New Leader (New York), an official publication of the Socialist Party of America, wrote an article in his paper in which he misrepresented the Workers’ Socialist Party; whose Executive Committee thereupon sent a reply (appended below) asking for publication in The New Leader. We considered this to be no extraordinary request, more especially in the light of the following occurrence:

A news item recently appeared in the New York World-Telegram, which is an open supporter of capitalism, telling of internal controversy in the S.P. of A., pointing out a split between two of their “leaders” and their respective factions over their trade union policy. One of their members wrote to the capitalist sheet, setting forth his claim that the reporter had erred. Incidentally, this letter, signed by another S.P. of A. “leader,” Julius Gerber, contains the admission:

   "The Socialist Party permits its members the widest latitude of opinion and expression, and Mr. Thomas, differing with the majority, not only of the national executive committee but of the membership of the party, has a right to hold and express his opinion.”

We submit that the sentence quoted bears out in full all that we claimed against the S.P. of A. in our letter to The New Leader. The New York World-Telegram printed Gerber’s letter within five days. We thought the “Socialist” paper, which claims to be interested in all the problems of the working class, would show at least as much courtesy.

Our letter to The New Leader follows: —

Letter of the Workers' Socialist Party to the Socialist Party of America.To the Editor, January 13th, 1933. 

New Leader,                             7E, 15th Street,
New York, N.Y.

          Dear Sir,

   Under instructions from the Executive Committee of the Workers’ Socialist Party, I am sending you the enclosed letter, which concerns itself with an article, signed by yourself, which appeared in the New Leader of January 7th, 1933.
  In our estimation, your article contained an error, which should be corrected through the same medium in which it was made. Therefore, as a matter of courtesy to us—and the facts—will you please publish the enclosed in the New Leader at your earliest opportunity?
                                           Yours truly,
                                               (Signed) Scott Frampton,
                                                              National Secretary.

"To the Editor, New Leader, 7, E. 15th St.,
                                              New York, N.Y.

“Dear Sir:
   
       “Mr. James Oneal’s musical number, ‘The Chorus of Chaos,’ in the New Leader of January 7th, 1933, very carelessly includes the Workers’ Socialist Party in a list of what Oneal designates as Socialist organisations. The accurate heading for his inventory is ‘Organisations that advocate use of the ballot.' Only one of the groups listed can successfully maintain its claim to be Socialist: that is the Workers' Socialist Party. The others may bear labels, but it can be easily demonstrated —by a Socialist—that they are all not only not Socialist, but anti-Socialist and anti-working-class. It is worthy of note that Oneal considers his own Party, the so-called Socialist Party of America, a member of the Chorus of Chaos. The Workers’ Socialist Party declines the nomination, and maintains itself to be the only Socialist Party in the United States.
 
   “Says Mr. Oneal, anent the groups listed by him, ‘ . . . let them endeavour to formulate a fundamental programme and philosophy and they will find some difficulties,' the inference being that none of the groups have a fundamental programme. The Workers’ Socialist Party refusing to be included, this inference is correct for the remaining organisations.

   
     “Mr. Oneal writes : 'If we could get representatives of the whole twenty groups into an orchestra, what a symphony this amalgam of communism, syndicalism, parlour bolshevism, socialism, impossibilism, opportunism, liberalism, progressiveness, intellectualism, technocracy, radicalism and agrarianism would be! ’ Why the 'If’ ?

   
     “Let us give ear to Mr. Hillquit for a moment. He felt it necessary lately to call upon the ‘Socialist Party of America’ to 'determine fundamental questions of Socialist principles . . .' (The American Socialist Quarterly, April, 1932). After a third of a century of its existence he admits his Party does not yet know the fundamental principles of Socialism. Says he (same place) 'It must appear before the people with a clear-cut, convincing and aggressive programme and a consistent and harmonious social arid political philosophy. And it is on this point that our Party is somewhat weak.'

   
   “On this point, as well as on fundamentals, the Workers' Socialist—Party is clear and Socialist. It holds—

 
   " 'That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railroads, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone all wealth is produced. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.' Furthermore, there is no confusion of the issue by a clutter of prescriptions of social paragoric reform ‘demands.' Of course, the clear-cut Socialist programme does not attract non-Socialist support. Mr. Hillquit knows this.

 
  "Hillquit had this in mind at the New York City convention of his Party, January 16th and 17th, 1932, when he was voicing his opposition to the proposal to restore the reference to the class struggle to the application card. ‘He felt that 75 per cent. of new members signing the blank would not know what the class struggle meant.' (New Leader, February 6th, 1932.) Evidence is at hand that they would be unable to find its meaning, after signing, within the 'Socialist' Party of America. At their convention in May, 1932, Hillquit explained this in part, as follows:

   
   " 'There is opposition to me because I represent working classes, Marxian Socialism as against three other trends which have appeared in our party,' Mr. Hillquit declared. 'One of these trends is the militant group, a well-meaning, immature movement that will eventually settle down but is at yet untamed and dangerous. Then there is the movement of extreme opportunism, appealing to intellectuals and college men. Then, thirdly, there is the practical, 'get-something- to-day’ school of socialism; get control of a city and show the people a good sewer system as an achievement. That is not my type of socialism, and to-day all these factions are in unholy alliance against me.’ (Herald-Tribune, May 24th, 1932.)

   "Thus a 'leader’ agonised. In contrast, the Workers’ Socialist Party declares that the emancipation of the working class 'must be the work of the working class itself.' But then, we are not a member of Mr. Oneal's orchestra.

   "At this same convention (see report quoted) 'Charges of Ku-Klukism in the party, anti-Semitism and sectional bitterness were hurled by supporters of Mr. Hillquit in more than three hours of furious debate. Mayor Hoan’s backers pleaded for a party more popular and practical, one not fashioned along the lines of doctrinaire Marxism.’ j

   "The Workers* Socialist Party declares that '. . . the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.' But then we are not angling for politically ignorant votes for Milwaukee, office-holders.

   "We could go on almost indefinitely, covering the whole history of the 'Socialist' Party of America, showing that its aim is not socialism, that it is not made up of Socialists—in fact, a Socialist would not even apply for admission. The New Leader columnist, S. A. de Witt, put it nicely: 'And we simply just cannot go on much further along the line of opportunistic social reform, and still keep our identity as Socialists.' (New Leader, Aug. 30th, 1930.) 'Identity as Socialists,' indeed! amongst a pack of pedlars of every imaginable half-baked quack nostrum, from early Christianity, through advocacy of the capital levy, and to 'controlled' inflation, pleading to help the capitalist dunderheads to monkey with the currency, and weeping to the workers what a whacking they will suffer if the inflation does take place! (Thomas’s column in the New Leader, June 25th, 1932.) Out of their own mouths they stand condemned of having no claim to call themselves Socialist. They are the 'orchestra' that Mr. Oneal suggests; but that they make a symphony playing all those old, worn-out reform tunes of capitalist composition— really, that would be carrying the simile a little too far.

   "On the other hand, Mr. Oneal could easily have informed himself of the fundamental programme of the Workers’ Socialist Party; it appears in the form of a brief, but sufficient, Object and Declaration of Principles,  on every piece of literature that Party distributes. He can find it on the back cover page of the Socialist Standard, to be had at the Rand School bookstore. We have quoted it, in part, above. This programme is the one clear note that Mr. Oneal's unmusical (that is, un-Socialist) ear failed to distinguish above the clash and clatter of his Chaotic Chorus, the so-called Socialist Party of America."

The Executive Committee.

Workers Socialist Party of the United States.

The Socialist Party of America Refuses Publication

In the New Leader of January 21st appeared this reply: —

  We have received from Scott Frampton, national Secretary of the Workers’ Socialist Party, nearly five pages disagreeing with the item in the New Leader of January 7th, entitled “The Chorus of Chaos.” The letter presents the case for the Workers’Socialist Party, which “maintains itself to be the only Socialist Party in the United States.”
  We have a high respect for the devotion of this group to education in fundamentals of Socialist philosophy, but we submit that the sentence we quote above justifies the caption we gave to our item. The claim of the Workers’ Socialist Party is the claim of the S.L.P., the Socialist Party, the Communists and others, and these mutually conflicting claims constitute a “chorus of chaos.” The letter of Comrade Frampton enumerates the reasons for the claim his party makes.
  We have no desire to open our columns to a general debate between the organisations we mentioned regarding the respective claims of each. Our statement was a general one. It did not single out the Workers’ Socialist Party, nor did it exclude the Socialist Party.
   If there is to be a debate on this theme, the New Leader is content to call attention to the theme, but not to provide the forum for discussing the merits of the various organisations.

Their last paragraph can only mean that they are ‘content' to attack the Workers' Socialist Party, but refuse to discuss the matter. The reason for this is dear. There are workers, now members of the S.P. of A., who are honestly and sincerely anxious to find out about Socialism. The leaders dare not face a discussion in their press with Socialists; they know how easily we can demonstrate their anti-Socialist character, and that they, would lose members as a result. They also know that the ‘claim of the Workers' Socialist Party' is NOT 'the claim of the S.L.P.' S.P. of A., etc. The S.P. of A. is the result of a split in the S.L.P., more than thirty years ago, because of that party’s unsound, un-Socialist make-up, its 'chorus of chaos.’ The ‘Communist' Party is the result of a split in the S.P. of A. for the same reason. And the 'chorus of chaos' is not made up of  'these mutually conflicting claims,' but is exactly what we showed it is in our letter to the New Leader.

To say that the Workers' Socialist Party was not singled out is weak. The inclusion of Socialists in with a mess of anti-Socialists is nothing else but 'singling out’; it is an attack. This same New Leader, of January 21st, claims editorially, that ‘ . . . this evident desire for thorough knowledge of Socialist principles is welcome.’ We insist that if they mean welcome to the S.P. of A. ‘ leaders,' then they would have taken up our challenge and thrashed the matter out for the benefit of all those workers who read the New Leader. But evidently they are content to remain the anti-Socialist Party of America.

The National Executive Committee of the Workers' Socialist Party (U.S.A.), 

per Scott Frampton, Nat. Secretary

Marxism To-Day. (1929)

From the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The above is the title of a series of articles in the widely read magazine, “Current History,” for October, 1928.

These articles comprise a discussion by three writers—Prof. Laski, Morris Hillquit, and Prof. Carver, who holds the Chair of Economics at Harvard University. With the threadbare apologies of arguments used by Prof. Carver against Marx we are not now concerned. Neither shall we deal with the theory of Hillquit that Marxism is “essentially evolutionary,” especially as “Father” Hillquit, of the Socialist Party of America, forgets to supply any evidence to support the title of his article.

The position held by Prof. Laski and the following he has among many workers may make it worth while to call attention to some of the Professor’s statements. The title of his contribution is "The Value and Defects of the Marxist Philosophy.” While he says something about the value of Marxian philosophy, he never once attempts to show the defects of the Marxian view. In other words, he used the name .of Marx to support a number of policies, but never attempts to show that Marx accepted them.

He says Marx developed the strategy of Communism, and this was it:—

   "The Industrial Revolution brought with it the massing of the workers in the factories; trade unions developed in consequence to protect the interests of the workers. As these come to realise that their divorce from the means of production keeps them in subjection to the Capitalist regime, they become increasingly hostile to it.
   “They develop accordingly a growing class consciousness. Their solidarity finds expression in a revolutionary party which becomes dissatisfied with small concessions and insists upon the seizure of the State.
   “There then develops the final struggle with the Capitalists, who to retain power will stop at no means, however violent or brutal. The workers accordingly are driven to retort in kind. They seize in open warfare the institutions of the State and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, which by its iron rigor controls the transition from a Capitalist to a Communist Society. The period admittedly is one of bloody conflict, since no class—witness the Civil Wars in England and the French and Russian Revolutions—will peacefully submit to its own suppression. Since, therefore, the master class cannot be persuaded to surrender by democratic means, the class-conscious workers are the spearhead of the proletariat who drive the latter to victory.”

Where does Prof. Laski get this from? What he has done, no doubt, in order to find some arguments against Marx, is to neglect Marx and Engels’ writings and simply borrow from the manifestoes and theses of the Bolsheviks and father the lot on to Marx.

Marx and Engels, after laying bare the evolution of class society, insisted, as long ago as 1848 in the "Communist Manifesto," that the emancipation of the working class could only be achieved by the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority. In the same manifesto the workers are told that their first step must be to win the battle of democracy.

Right through their writings they insist upon the need for political action to accomplish the Social Revolution. The belief in violence as the road to Revolution was denounced by Marx and Engels in their attacks on Bakunin and his general strike and insurrection mania. The Bolshevik dream of a minority winning power for the rest of the workers was scathingly answered by Engels in his article (printed in The Socialist Standard) on "The Programme of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Commune.”

Even if Prof. Laski attempted to use the fragmentary writings of Marx and Engels on the class struggles in France between 1848 and 1850, he would have to face the fact that both Marx and Engels recognised that conditions were the determining factor in laying down a policy. So that when these battles were over they recognised the need of a different policy. And their activity in favour of universal suffrage and the organisation of the workers is plain evidence of their realism. Read! Mr. Laski, Engels' striking preface of 1895 to Marx’s "Class Struggles in France,” and see there how he recognised that no minority action, no violent attack, no clever seizure of State, could ignore the need for Socialist education and organisation of the working class for political control of the State.

In no publication did Marx urge that the dictatorship of the proletariat was a necessary step under modern conditions for the world’s workers.

In semi-feudal countries with a large peasantry, where the wage workers were a minority two or three generations ago, the phrase dictatorship was used in outlining policy. But in most cases Marx preferred the phrase used in the Communist Manifesto and also in the Programme of the Communist League of 1848—"the Rule of the Proletariat.” And the dictatorship referred to was not, like in Russia, a dictatorship of a few, but, as Engels indicates in the preface to the "Commune of Paris”—a "dictatorship" which relied upon universal suffrage. Mr. Laski should know that in modern countries with a majority composed of wage workers, the phrase "dictatorship of proletariat” has lost its meaning. It is out of date. For if the workers are the majority, how can there be a dictatorship of the majority!

But Professors are always trying to put Marx right, and so next month we will see how Prof. Carver does it.

Adolph Kohn

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.