"Social Democracy Versus Communism" (1946)

Book Review from the October 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Social Democracy Versus Communism" by Karl Kautsky (Rand School of Social Science. New York)

This book, “Social Democracy versus Communism’’ (Rand School of Social Science. New York. $2) comprises selections from the various writings that Kautsky published in German during the eventful years 1932-37. The selection of subjects is good and covers theory and events: The Materialist Conception of History, The Origin of Socialism, Marxism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, The Beginning of Bolshevism, Lenin and the Russian Revolution of 1917, The Road to Power, Socialism and Democracy, to mention a few. Many of these subjects Kautsky has dealt with in larger works. In this small volume (142 pages) he touches on them again with a freshness, lucidity and soundness which lack nothing because of compression and show that Kautsky maintained his outstanding abilities as a Marxist up to a great age.

Kautsky’s anti-Sovietism was never based upon petty party considerations. His opposition to the Soviet régime and to Bolshevism arose out of his fine understanding of history and Marxist theory. His case for Democracy is not one of sentiment or preference for one form of working-class struggle as against another, but that without Democracy there can be no Socialism. Two simple propositions form the basis of Kautsky’s opposition to the Communists in Russia and elsewhere: (1) Democracy and free discussion are the only means upon which could be built a Socialist party which could give the working class the experience and knowledge which would fit it to achieve its purpose. (2) Socialism was not possible in Russia because the material conditions which would permit it were not there. These two propositions he argued with scholarship and closely reasoned deductions which were never answered by the early Bolshevists nor by their apologists and admirers since. In the section “Lenin and the Russian Revolution of 1917 ” he restates and re-examines the circumstances in which the Bolshevists took power in Russia in 1917. He argues a strong case that Russia would have developed industrially and politically more rapidly than has been the case under the dictatorship. Briefly the facts stand repeating. The Bolshevists were brought to power in 1917 by military and administrative collapse and the inability of a weak and immature capitalist class to take control of the situation. Up to the time they took power the Bolshevists demanded a Constituent Assembly based upon universal suffrage. After the election the voting revealed 9,000,000 votes cast for the Bolshevists and 23,000,000 for the other “Socialist” parties, the Menshevists and the Social Revolutionists, the openly bourgeois parties receiving only 4,000,000 votes. Thus the Bolshevists received only a quarter of the votes cast. Here was an opportunity for the “United Front” ! Ignoring the bourgeois parties, all the other parties had similar aims, and in and through the Constituent Assembly could have carried out all that was realisable at that time in the interests of the workers and peasants, allowing for the limitations imposed by the backwardness of Russia. Instead the Bolshevists watched their opportunity and used their control of the armed forces, which they had through their control of the soldiers’ soviets, to crush the Assembly. That was the last that was heard of Democracy and freedom of speech in Russia. Civil war followed with disastrous consequences for the recovery of Russia. And, Kautsky notes with emphasis, the civil war and the reign of terror followed the Bolshevist suppression of the Constituent Assembly and did not precede it. Instead of co-operation and support, which the Constituent Assembly would have received from the people through the safety valve of Democracy, there were years of civil strife, organised and unconscious resistance to the plans for industrial development and reform. The Bolshevists were only able to hold power through a ruthless dictatorship and police-ridden bureaucracy. Thus the Bolshevists overthrew the pretence of democracy. Before they came to power they had defended dictatorship within the party organisation as a necessity imposed by the secret nature of Russian political organisations in the days of the Czar.

As to whether Kautsky is right in believing that the course of European history after 1917 might have been profoundly different had the Bolshevists remained faithful to Democracy will not be discussed at length here. Certainly Sidney Hook makes a point in his preface when he says:—

   “ . . .  If one denies that there are major alternatives in history, and makes his moral judgement completely dependent on historical fact, not only must he believe that Stalinism and Hitlerism were inevitable, but that whoever wins is right.”

The “right” or “wrong” of Hook’s deductions will not be argued here. But both Kautsky and Hook deliver a blow to what was a popular assumption, and is to-day a widely held belief, that the Bolshevist Dictatorship was inevitable and justifiable in Russia in 1917, and that there was no alternative. The "major alternative” the Bolshevists might have chosen was support for Democratic and constitutional freedom for the workers. A mature understanding of the part that they were playing in Russian history would have shown them that in the circumstances as they existed they could not achieve more than this. In their blindness they chose Dictatorship. The Russia that exists to-day followed logically from that step. If there was anything "inevitable” about the Bolshevist Dictator- ship it was because of the limited Socialist understanding among the select few in the ranks of the Bolshevists who claimed it. Can it be argued that the Dictatorship was any the less inevitable when history, in producing the alternative, did not at the same time produce the men who could see it and grasp it? The picture of the Russian Revolution as being an example of the "enlightened few” imposing its paternal will upon the ignorant majority was never historically true. Those who accepted the picture were mostly those who saw "Socialism” in the glorified state capitalism in Russia, and who aim at a similar state of things in this and other countries, though with the pious reservation that it should be achieved in a constitutional manner. History has shown that the "enlightened few” were very immature in their Socialist understanding and were a reflection of the general backwardness in Russia. There are many to-day who see this who were unable to do so before. If there is one lesson that comes out of the Russian Revolution above all else it is that Democracy is the life force of working-class politics, without which it cannot emancipate itself. It is an essential principle of Socialism, and to betray one is to betray the other. Russia and the Communist organisations that it controls are a warning to the workers that they abandon Democracy at their peril.

Kautsky was among the few who saw the Russian picture clearly from the beginning.

The section "Is Soviet Russia a Socialist State” is potent in facts and argument. It would be a service to the workers if it could be distributed to members of all working-class organisations. Space forbids more than a quotation:—

   "Collective ownership and management of large enterprises with fullest freedom for the workers is Socialism, which is superior to industrial capitalism. But this capitalism is superior not only to the small industry of the guild craftsman, but also to large industry with compulsory labour, as well as to every form of state economy based upon conscript labour. Every economy of this sort must be rejected in spite of the fact that it is not capitalist.
    Our duty is not merely to abolish the capitalist order, but to set up a higher order in its place. But we must oppose those forces aiming to destroy capitalism only to replace it with a barbarous mode of production.
    It is for this reason that the democratically-minded portion of the working class must oppose all tendencies toward dictatorship threatening the freedom of the workers, tendencies manifested not only by the capitalists, but also those that originate with anti-capitalist groups.
     What we see in Russia is, therefore, not Socialism but its antithesis. It can become Socialism only when the people expropriate the expropriators now in power, to use a Marxian expression. Thus the Socialist masses of Russia find themselves, with respect to the problem of control of the means of production, in the same situation which confronts the workers in capitalist countries ” (p. 90).

It is fundamentally true that the workers in Russia are faced with the same problems as workers elsewhere. But it is not the "control” of the means of production by the workers which will bring Socialism, but the ownership of them by Society. Kautsky appears to indicate here that his alternative to the prevailing form of capitalism in Russia would be "Collective ownership and management of large enterprises with fullest freedom for the workers ”; in short, a form of State Capitalism without "conscript labour.” This would conform to his position in the reformist Labour Movement and to the habit of the Labour parties everywhere in describing any form of State enterprise as Socialism.

Quoting Otto Bauer, Kautsky says:—

    "Russia is a State of unlimited absolutism, much more than it was under the Czar. The Government is all-Powerful. No meetings are permitted except those agreeable to the Government, no newspapers except those of the Government party. Members of all other organisations are at best jailed, at worst shot. The control of the police over the population has attained a measure which can hardly be imagined in free countries. It is a régime of absolutist dictatorship, of a power quite without any limitation, which holds every human being completely in its hand but is itself subject to no control.
   Such a system of dictatorship destroys all intellectual liberty. In Russia there is only one form of science—that officially authorised by the Government. He who entertains scientific views other than those prescribed officially is thrown out to starve and must, indeed, consider himself fortunate if he is not exiled or shot ” (p. 91). 

Kautsky continues:—

    "In this manner there has been set up, after the destruction of the old classes, a new differentiation of classes, a hierarchy headed by a Pope.
     The fruit of the Bolshevist régime has been the establishment of a new class rule. The Bolsheviks, to be sure, have destroyed the old classes, but new classes, new elements of aristocracy, have arisen under their régime. They have arisen of necessity from the conditions of the Bolshevist dictatorship, although they may be invisible at first glance because they had not been foreseen in Bolshevist ideology and phraseology. But they are there, nevertheless. They are striking ever deeper root and are becoming in ever increasing measure the determining factor in the actions and aspirations of Bolshevism. Its ultimate Communist objective is becoming more and more a matter of decoration, a mere memory or allurement for Socialist idealists whom the dictator seeks to utilise for his own purposes” (p. 98).
   "Erstwhile Communists who preached the doctrine of equality have become the parvenus of a climbing party hierarchy, archbishops and cardinals of the pope of the Bolshevist church. The new generation of Communists, however, consists for the most part of conscienceless careerists, whose Communism is limited to mere lip service and whose activities are devoted solely the attainment of power and the privileges it implies.
       Acquisition and retention of these privileges is their only aim ” (p. 99).

Sidney Hook, in his preface, takes Kautsky to task for starting off this section with the proposition that the Communists are a working-class party. He argues that it mars the strong case that he has made out, that the basic loyalties of the Communist parties are not to a set of values or principles, but to the concrete interests of the Russian State, that to abandon the working class of any nationality in order to serve the Russian State brands them the servile instruments of that State, and the enemies of the workers who have long since removed themselves from the working-class movement

To assume that the Communist Party might so betray the workers in the future charges them with no more than being consistent. But to say that the Communist Party has removed itself from the working-class movement is to ignore the fact that in some countries the workers are organised in considerable numbers in the Communist organisations through which the class struggle manifests itself.

A work which will repay time and money if the reader does not waste time trying to understand why so outstanding a Marxist theoretician was at the same time a Labour reformist.

Harry Waite

The Ineffectuals: Old and New (1951)

From the February 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Monday, the 15th January, the B.B.C. produced another of their programmes on the present half-century. It covered the twenties and was written by Rebecca West. The whole of it was an example of the ignorance, inexperience and fatuousness of the "Bright young things" who emerged into the practical world from the "upper class." We were told about the "treasure hunts" lasting most of the night, and of various futile capers, which Rebecca West defended on the ground that behind it all they were searching for a solution of the problem of war and of poverty; that the feminine section were let loose on the world to enter the professions and the like for the first time and that their freedom temporarily went to their heads. She herself belonged to that generation and she told us how their hopes were built on the expectation of abolishing war—and then these hopes were shattered; of their hopes to abolish poverty by supporting "Labour," and how thrilled they were when the first real Labour Government was voted to power in 1929—and again how their hopes were shattered. In fact the whole programme was a record of the fatuous illusions and the inevitable disillusionment of the self-styled "Intellectuals." The facts of social life and the essentials of its economic basis seemed to be outside of their knowledge and experience and they lost themselves in airy futilities. From the programme one gleaned nothing of the fact that working-class girls had been working and wrestling with the problems of life for long years before the women of Rebecca West's circle had emerged from the cocoon of pampered privilege and became writers, artists, and so forth.

But the "Intellectuals" never learn. Convinced that the sun shines out of them, they go on blowing their coloured bubbles, changing the colours as each bubble bursts without any conception of the reason the bubbles burst.

A recent example of their bubble-blowing was the "Congress of Cultural Freedom" held from June 25th to the 30th, 1950. From the Report of this Congress, published under the title "Freedom Takes the Offensive," the reader can satisfy himself on the type of people who took part in the Congress.

The Introduction informs us that the "Manifesto on Cultural Freedom" was "draw up . . . by leading intellectuals from 24 nations." Let us glance at some of the statements made by these "men of brains."

Pages 1 to 3 of the Report contain messages from nine people, all of whom see intellectual freedom in the West and intellectual chains in the East. No reference is made to the economic bondage that exists in both East and West and hampers working-class aspirations in both spheres. But as we shall see the "intellectuals" are not concerned about any but their own little circle of wind-bags.

The first contribution is by Arthur Koestler. He makes a series of muddled statements, without any clear definitions, that leave the reader in the air. His second paragraph runs as follows:—

"In fact, the thesis which I wish to put before you is that the antinomies "Socialism and Capitalism," "Left and Right," have to-day become virtually empty of meaning, and that so long as Europe remains bogged down in these false alternatives which obstruct clear thinking, it cannot hope to find a constructive solution for its problems."

After this one would expect some definition of Socialism, but it is not given, and, although there is some criticism of nationalisation, one is left with the idea that Mr. Koestler identifies nationalisation with Socialism. For instance on page 8 he says, "Equally problematic is the question: just how much nationalisation makes a country Socialist or Capitalist?" The concluding paragraph of his contribution is a pearl. It is an excellent example of the impotence of his tribe:

"Sometimes I have a feeling in my bones that the terrible pressure which this conflict [between Capitalism and Socialism] exerts on all humanity might perhaps represent a challenge, a biological stimulus as it were, which will release the new mutation of human consciousness; and that its content might be a new spiritual awareness, born of anguish and suffering, of the full meaning of freedom. And I don't mean by that freedom from want, freedom from fear, and the rest. Since the dawn of civilization people have fought under the slogan of freedom; but it was always freedom from some particularly irksome oppression, freedom in a restricted sense. I mean freedom in a much deeper and fuller sense than any we can conceive to-day or see realized anywhere in organic nature. If that is the case, then we are indeed living in an interesting time, and the answer we shall give to destiny's challenge is not without import for the future of our species."

What a pity he did not reveal that which is inconceivable to-day.

Sidney Hook poses a number of questions but does not give the answers, and James T. Farrell makes a fervent plea for "artists, thinkers and scientists," and gives an imaginary picture of freedom in the West, ending with a plea for the "moral impulse." Here are some extracts from his contribution: —

"Our task is to make as clear and as explicit as we can the meaning of freedom of culture, and, having done this, to show . . . what differentiates us from totalitarianism. To show how we live under different conditions of cultural life than do artists, thinkers and scientists in the stricken lands behind the Iron Curtain . . .
"We are free to admire what we value, and to reject what we do not value. We can criticize and we can oppose. We can participate in or ignore politics, as we think best. We can act as free artists, thinkers and scientists. And it is these rights which we should defend, use and expand. In these rights, we find the essence of cultural freedom . . .
"The freedom we possess should impose an obligation and a sense of duty upon us. In one of his great speeches, Abraham Lincoln used the phrase: 'With malice towards none, with charity for all . . . ' I hope that, without any sacrifice of firmness of purpose, we all permeate our thinking with the spirit implied in these words of Lincoln. Especially when we look towards Soviet-dominated countries where artists and thinkers and scientists are forced to wear the uniform of totalitarianism, and where the dignity of men and women has been ground into dust. To these suffering people, to the terrorised artists and thinkers behind the Iron Curtain, we cannot and should not bear malice."

Lack of space deprives us of the opportunity of tearing to pieces the above and the rest of the nonsense Mr. Farrell has contributed about the "traditions of civilisation." If Mr. Farrell could tear his attention away from the "artists, thinkers, and scientists" for a few moments he might notice the existence of conscripts, of wage-freezing, of heresy hunting, of form-filling that puts our life-histories at the disposal of the State, the lack of housing accommodation, the armaments drive, and the numerous other joys of our jolly old Western democracy.

Another contributor, Richard Lowenthal, finishes his little piece with what reads like a plea for war: —

"The defence of freedom, then, is nothing else but the defence of this vital Western capacity for growth, and it resolves itself into a dual task: the task of going on to find creative solutions to the West's internal problems, and the task of defending the Western society's territory against the pressure of Soviet totalitarianism from outside."

Like the rest of the contributors, Mr. Lowenthal offers no solution "to the West's internal problems." However, if his remarks read like a plea for war, James Burnham is quite open about it, as the following remarks of his show: —

"Moreover, I must add, in order to be fully honest, that I am not, under any and all circumstances, against atomic bombs. I am against those bombs, now stored or to be stored later in Siberia or the Caucasus, which are designed for the destruction of Paris, London, Rome, Brussels, Stockholm, New York, Chicago . . . Berlin, and of Western Civilisation generally. But I am—yesterday and to-day at any rate—for those bombs made in Los Alamos, Hanford, and Oak Ridge, and guarded I know not where in the Rockies  or American deserts."

A nice discriminating and humane lover of peace and freedom is Mr. Burnham! This final example of the wisdom of the intellectuals is perhaps a fitting point at which to finish.

Gilmac.

On Understanding Marx (1933)

Book Review from the July 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx" By Sidney Hook . New York: The John Day Go. $2.50.

Karl Marx, the one-time almost unknown exile, the patient digger for economic facts in the British Museum Library, is now a "world figure." No man of his generation could claim so many alleged followers, so many bitter enemies, as Marx, if he were alive to-day. He has become almost a god for millions, a veritable devil for other millions. Just as the books of Voltaire and Rousseau were publicly burned in France in the years preceding the French Revolution, so the other day, on an immensely larger scale, tons of Marx's volumes were consigned to the flames by the fanatical Nazis in Germany, whose leaders, like Canute, hope to hold back the rise of the tide that will sweep away this capitalism.

No man's ideas have suffered more at the hands of his self-claimed disciples. Even in Marx's own time his views were distorted and misrepresented by would-be friends as well as opponents, so that Marx himself was driven to declare that he "was no Marxist." What, then, would he say to-day, when "Marxism" is used to cover all manner of ideas, from reformism and pacifism to the dogmas and crazy political "interpretations" of the Communist press?

A book which restated soundly and in reasonably short compass the fundamental ideas of Marx and applied them to modern events would at the present period prove especially valuable. The volume before us calls attention to the confusion that to-day exists as to Marx and his theories in its very title. It is noteworthy in several ways. Its author is assistant Professor of Philosophy at New York University, and, so far as I know, this is the first time a member of the staff of an "English-speaking" university has written a fairly full exposition on Marx. Furthermore, the book treats well and at greater length than is usual in introductory works, of the less studied aspects of Marx's system, especially the dialectic method and the interaction of activity and thought.

It is impossible to adequately comment on all the virtues and vices of a book so full of intellectual meat as this is, but, as it will probably be widely read, it certainly calls for whatever praise or condemnation it merits from the Socialist point of view. There are many minor points of criticism that could be raised if space permitted, but the outstanding merits and faults of the work are all that can be dealt with here.

Let me commence with well-merited praise for the three fine chapters on the Materialistic Conception of History, which, in my opinion, except, for one or two points to be mentioned, are excellent, and more satisfactory than the exposition by Boudin or that by Plechanov, in his valuable "Fundamental Problems of Marxism."

The rebuttal of the manifold crude misconceptions of the theory, such as those which identify it with the views that economic interests on the one hand, or mere technical developments on the other, are the basic factors in history, is well, if briefly, done. An appendix gives the four valuable letters by Engels on Historical Materialism, in which he explained certain difficulties and criticised false interpretations.

I believe that Hook's theoretical treatment of the role of "great men" in history is essentially sound and far closer to Marx than the absurd view sometimes put forward as Marxian that their historic influence is practically negligible. It is all the more surprising, therefore, to find that when our author descends from the abstract to the concrete he falls into a queer contradiction of his main argument and enormously overrates the role of political leaders. In considering the question as to whether or not "great men" always arise when there is an historical setting which calls for them, he writes: "Why did not a great man arise to unify India against foreign imperialism in the nineteenth century, and China in the twentieth? Where was the great leader hiding when Italy was objectively ready for revolution in 1921 and Germany in 1923? Was he not needed then?" (p.172). Apart from the false assumption that the "objective conditions" were ready in any of these cases, are we to believe that the "great leader" would have brought about the desired result if they had been? Hook may object to such an interpretation, but to me the unescapable inference of his statement is that Fascism triumphed because Mussolini appeared and a "Socialist" leader did not, or because Mussolini was a Fascist, not a Socialist.

The chapters on economics are fairly good, considering their brevity, though they are too abstract. On p.193 there is a strange slip in defining "capital" in Marx's sense as "wealth used for the production of more commodities," instead of, as Marx always stressed, wealth used for the purpose of acquiring surplus value. (See "Capital," Vol. 1. p. 128, Glashier Edition.)

A grave fault of Hook's is that he takes a basic idea of Marx's and then rides it to death, exaggerating it to the point where it becomes absurd, and in a manner which it is certain would have shocked Marx's logical sense.

Throughout the book he stresses Marx's philosophic tenet that the test of the truth of any theoretical proposition lies in action-upon the outcome of activity directed by the idea in question. Hook applies this principle correctly enough for the most part. But, when he writes, '"What justifies Marx and Engels in holding that the mode of economic production is the decisive factor in social life is the revolutionary will of the proletariat which is prepared to act upon that assumption " (p.181), he is straining the principle until it becomes sheer nonsense. Even if we overlook the slightly awkward fact that, except for a small minority, the proletariat have as yet no "revolutionary will" and are not "prepared to act on that assumption," Hook's view would fail to explain how it is that many bourgeois historians now accept the economic factor as decisive. I am afraid that they, unphilosophic fellows, simply "justify" themselves by an appeal to historic data and contemporary events, and this is precisely what Marx and Engels did.

Similarly, Hook, after appearing to give endorsement to the Marxian theory of value, declares it to be of little use in the analyses of complex economic phenomena or the prediction of economic trends, and says: "It is rather the self-conscious theoretical expression of the practical activity of the working class engaged in a continuous struggle for a higher standard of living ..." (p.222). Need I point out that the theory of value has never yet been the accepted theory of more than a small minority in the working class movement, industrial or political ?

Again, at the close of a chapter in which he sets out to prove by historical examples the soundness of Marx's view as to the decisive role of class struggles in history, our author, true to his obsession, avers that, "the truth of Marx's theory of the class struggle can be established only in the experience of the social revolution, i.e., after class society has been overthrown", (p.248).

It is difficult for us to take these aberrations of Hook's literally, for he writes as an advocate of Marx, but if we do they amount to a declaration that, for the most part, Marx's immense theoretical work is a mass of deductive, a priori reasoning, an elaborate "justification" for his revolutionary politics. Many open opponents of Marx have, of course, made this accusation, but it is new to find a would-be exponent tending in that direction.

Marx was a life-long revolutionist, but it is grotesquely untrue to even imply that he was nothing else, that everything he did and wrote was motivated almost exclusively by his revolutionary aims, No human activities are so circumscribed, though some neurotics tend that way, and Marx was thoroughly "human," very much of an "all-round man," a man, as any alert reader of his works is bound to see, intensely interested in philosophy, science and history for their own sake as well as for their bearing on the problems of the working class movement, and he had a wide-awake intellect. Had he not been all this, the unscientific and unhistorical distortions that would have unavoidably crept into, even dominated, his work, would have exposed it to critical annihilation long before the expiration of half a century.

Hook has four chapters dealing with the distorted "interpretations" of Marxism by the German Social Democrats and the syndicalists of France, by which the former sought to justify their anti-Marxian policy of reformism, and the latter their non-political "direct-action," and he treats briefly but well of the economic and political conditions out of which these "schools" arose.

He describes what he calls the "orthodox canonisation of Marx" by Kautsky, Hilferding and Co. But when he comes to deal with Lenin, he subscribes to the latest "canonisation" without a blink. Though he can see the distortions of the Kautskyans he appears blind - or, at least, keeps silent-about most of those of the Communists. Just as the former had their roots in definite social conditions, so the newer distortions, the "orthodoxy" of Moscow, originally germinated in the underground, illegal struggles against the blood-soaked Czarist absolutism but was only brought to its present detailed perfection under the Soviet regime, with its dictatorship of the Communist Party over the proletariat and peasantry.

When Marx used the phrase, "dictatorship of the proletariat," which he did on extremely few occasions, he meant, as the context shows, nothing more than the political domination of the working class majority during the period of the , socialisation of capitalist property. Hook appears to accept this view, but he refrains from pointing out that the Soviet dictatorship, with its disfranchisement of the old exploiters, its indirect and "managed" elections, its stifling and penalising of opposition opinion, even within the ranks of the Communists, find no justification in Marx's use of the phrase. This repression is without doubt necessary to the retention of power by the Communist Party in its present form, but, to justify it by "interpretations" of Marx is distortion of the crudest type. To be fair to Hook, he does not do this - he keeps silent on the matter - but roasts the Kautskyans. It is our business to call attention and to condemn both sets of "distorters"

Hook, following the general argument of the Communists, tries to prove (p.287) that it was Marx's settled opinion that, in general, the workers can and will be compelled to resort to armed struggle against the state in order to win political control. Now if Marx had laid this down as one of his major propositions it would be perfectly impossible to ignore the fact or suppress it. There would be no room for argument, at least, as to what Marx said. But actually, in the vast bulk of his writings, Marx said very little about revolutionary organisation and tactics or the form the revolution might be expected to take. Only in his earlier writings, during or immediately after the 1848 period, of revolts, do we find any attempt at a detailed programme of action. After the revolts had subsided and it had become evident to him that capitalism had settled down for a far longer period of life and expansion than he had previously thought, Marx's statements on the proletarian revolution were in very general and guarded terms. He knew that neither he nor anyone else could lay down methods of procedure for an event that would not materialise for many years, and which would do so under conditions very different from those of his day and which would vary from country to country.

Hook writes, "Ultimately, whether fifty per cent or ninety per cent of the population support the revolution, the state power will be won not by pencil and ballot paper, but by workers with rifles. As late as 1872 in speaking of the continental countries . . . Marx wrote: ' It is to force that in due time the workers will have to appeal if the dominion of labour is at long last to be established.'"Rifles against tanks, poison gas and aircraft? - come, come! Mr. Hook, and where would they get even rifles? Believe it or not, this slight quotation from Marx's voluminous writings is the solitary one that Hook gives to support his contention. It contains nothing to indicate that Marx was not referring to the use of force against the bourgeoisie after the working class had gained control of the state armed forces. The phrase, "as late as 1872" is significant. It shows that Hook is fully aware of the big difference between Marx's earlier and later views on working class tactics. Yet nowhere in his book does he point this out.

There were sound historical reasons for this difference. In the bourgeois revolutionary struggles of 1848, armed insurrection for the bourgeoisie and their working class allies was, in the absence of a wide suffrage, the only form of struggle available and, what is most important, the weapons and fighting methods then in use, made victory for the insurgents, under favourable conditions, possible. Marx and Engels then believed that "the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution." (Communist Manifesto, IV.)

Following the compromise of the German bourgeoisie with the aristocracy and the defeat of the revolution, Marx in 1850 surveyed the conditions for further advance in his "Address to the Communist League." During the developing struggle of the workers along with the petty-bourgeoisie for a liberal constitution, he advocated the independent organisation and arming of the workers. But for the period which would follow the establishment of parliamentary government Marx urged the use to the full of the political franchise and conspicuously refrained from advocating the continuance of the workers in armed preparedness or the resort to armed risings. Marx knew that under the new conditions such risings would inevitably lead to crushing repression, the crippling of the workers' movement, and the possible abrogation for a time of the hard- won and politically invaluable suffrage rights.

In 1895 Engels, at the end of his fruitful life, wrote an introduction to Marx's old work, "The Class Struggles in France," and in it he summed up the lessons he and Marx had learned on this question of working class tactics during decades of economic, and political evolution. A few extracts are quoted below, but the reader should on no account miss reading the enlightening essay in full. Engels wrote:-

With this successful utilisation of the general franchise an entirely new method of the proletarian struggle had come into being and had been quickly built up. It was found that the State institutions, wherein the rule of the bourgeoisie is organised, did furnish further opportunities by means of which the working class can oppose these same institutions . . . And so it came, about that bourgeoisie and Government feared far more the legal than the illegal action of the workers' party, more the successes of the elections than those of rebellion.

After showing in some detail how the newer developments in the art of warfare had rendered successful insurrection against the state forces impossible - and what would he have thought of those of to-day? - Engels continues:-

If we are not so foolish as to please them by allowing ourselves to be led into street fights, there remains nothing for them save to be broken to pieces upon this fatal legality.

Of all this, Hook says not a word. He raises strong objections to the view expressed by Marx as early as 1872, that "there are certain countries, such as the United States and England, in which the workers may hope to secure their ends by peaceful means." (Quoted by Steckloff, "History of the First International," p.240.) He calls it a "joker" that Engels qualified this by saying that Marx "never forgot to add that he hardly expected the English ruling class to submit, without a 'pro-slavery rebellion,' to this peaceful and legal revolution." ("Capital," I, xiv, Glaisher Ed.) The "joker," however, is on Hook, for it is obvious that by "pro-slavery rebellion" is meant one against the victorious workers and the state forces they controlled - which has no bearing as to the method of first winning such control. In his effort to show how for once Marx erred in making this exception in the cases of England and America, Hook emphasises the numerous times in English history, from Cromwell on, that the government meted out violent repression, instancing Peterloo, Egypt, Ireland and India. What irrelevant argument! Who knew the brutality of the rule of the English capitalists better than Marx? But he also knew that even they cannot do exactly as they like, and he evidently believed that, faced by a powerfully organised and politically educated working class, victorious at the polls, the capitalists wou1d be forced to re1inquish the state power.

As for America, Hook asks: "Was it likely that in a country in which feeble and I 'constitutional' attempts to abolish chattel slavery had called forth the most violent civil war of the nineteenth century, the abolition of wage-slavery could be effected by moral suasion?" (p. 295.) He overlooks the fact that the planters of the south and the capitalists of the north were separated geographically, and had separate State government and forces, and secondly, that the cause of the war was not "abolition" but "secession" Why, by the way, does he not instance the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, which was done constitutionally and almost without resistance? The reference to "moral suasion" is beside the point, for the Socialist case for parliamentary action does not rest on that at all but on the fact that a working class majority grounded in Socialism will constitute an irresistible political force.

At this point Hook wins the sympathy of his reader, when, after asking, "What led Marx and Engels into the error of qualifying their general position as they did?" he admits, with evident pain, that, "after toying with several hypotheses, the author frankly confesses that he does not know." (p. 296.) May I suggest to him that he turn again to the afore-mentioned Introduction by Engels and not only read it, for a casual reference (p.31) - giving, however, no glimpse of its embarrassing contents – suggests he has already done this, but mark, learn and inwardly digest it. After which there may be no further need to toy with any more hypotheses. But - one never can tell.

As a trump card, our author warns us that: "The Socialists captured a legal majority of the Finnish Parliament in 1918. Before they could put through their programme, they were drowned in rivers of blood by an armed counter-revolution." (p.290.) As an illegitimate argument this would be hard to beat. He omits to mention that Finland was and is a predominantly agrarian country, quite unripe for Socialism, that consequently the so-called Socialists were not Socialists at all but only reformers, and were far from having a genuinely Socialist majority behind them, and that the violent suppression was chiefly accomplished by German regiments specially brought over to do the job at the request of the Finnish ruling class – in other words, not by the state forces of Finland but by those of another and more powerful state.

We have never held, as a matter of fact, that a merely formal majority at the polls under no matter what circumstances, will give the workers power to achieve Socialism. We have always emphasised that such a majority must be educated in the essentials of Socialist principles and have a party democratically organised and disciplined. It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, will be decisive. In our Declaration of Principles we stress the necessity of capturing the machinery of government including the armed forces. That is the fundamental thing. The method, though important, is second to this. The attitude of fetishism which the communists show towards "violence," their advocacy of street warfare against overwhelming odds, and their efforts to build up a party on mere desperation and unintelligent discontent only serves to make more difficult the Socialist education and organisation of the workers.

As a Socialist I can only conclude that Hook's book is going to contribute further to the misunderstanding of Karl Marx, however much some of his material on Marxian philosophy and Historical Materialism may enlighten the worker-student who is already fairly well grounded. Hook fails to give us a really satisfactory exposition of Marxian theories in relation to the problems .of to-day, largely through falling under the spell of the new dispensation from Moscow. He has missed his mark.

R. W. Housley. (Workers' Socialist Party, U.S.A.)