WHAT HAVE SOCIALISTS TO DO WITH CAPITALIST WARS?
But the German Social Democracy, we shall be told, does not want
victory. Our answer must be in the first place that this is not true.
What the German Social Democracy wants is told by its press. With two
or three exceptions Socialist papers daily point out to the German
workingman that a victory of the German arms is _his_ victory. The
capture of Maubeuge, the sinking of three English warships, or the fall
of Antwerp aroused in the Social Democratic press the same feelings that
otherwise are excited by the gain of a new election district or a
victory in a wage dispute. We must not lose sight of the fact that the
German labor press, the Party press as well as the trade union papers,
is now a powerful mechanism that in place of the education of the
people's will for the class struggle has substituted the education of
the people's will for military victories. I have not in mind the ugly
chauvinistic excesses of individual organs, but the underlying sentiment
of the overwhelming majority of the Social Democratic papers. The
signal for this attitude seems to have been given by the vote of the
fraction on August 4th.
But the fraction wasn't thinking of a German victory. It made it its
task only to avert the danger threatening from the outside, to defend
the Fatherland. That was all.
And here we come back to the question of wars of defense and wars of
aggression. The German press, including the Social Democratic organs,
does not cease to repeat that it is Germany of all countries that finds
itself on the defensive in this War. We have already discussed the
standards for determining the difference between a war of aggression and
a war of defense. These standards are numerous and contradictory. Yet
in the present case they testify unanimously that Germany's military
acts cannot possibly be construed as the acts of a war of defense. But
this has absolutely no influence upon the tactics of the Social
Democracy.
From a _historical_ standpoint the new German imperialism is, as we
already know, absolutely aggressive. Urged onward by the feverish
development of the national industry, German imperialism disturbs the
old balance of power between the states and plays the first violin in
the race for armaments.
And from the _standpoint of world politics_ the present moment seemed to
be most favorable for Germany to deal her rivals a crushing blow--which
however does not lessen the guilt of Germany's enemies by one iota.
The _diplomatic_ view of events leaves no doubt concerning the leading
part that Germany played in Austria's provocative action in Servia. The
fact that Czarist diplomacy was, as usual, still more disgraceful, does
not alter the case.
From the standpoint of _strategy_ the entire German campaign was based
on a monstrous offensive.
And finally from the standpoint of _tactics_, the first move of the
German army was the violation of Belgian neutrality.
If all this is defense, then what is attack? But even if we assume that
events as pictured in the language of diplomacy admit of other
interpretations--although the first two pages of the White Book are very
clear as to this meaning--has the revolutionary party of the working
class no other standards for determining its policy than the documents
presented by a government that has the greatest interest in deceiving
it?
"Bismarck duped the whole world," says Bebel, "and knew how to
make people believe that it was Napoleon who provoked the war,
while he himself, the peace-loving Bismarck, found himself and
his policy in the position of being attacked.
"The events preceding the war were so misleading that France's
complete unpreparedness for the war that she herself declared
was generally overlooked, while in Germany, which appeared to be
the one attacked, preparations for war had been completed down
to the very last wagon-nail, and mobilization moved with the
precision of clockwork." (_Autobiography_, Vol. III, pages
167-168.)
After such an historical precedent one might expect more critical
caution from the Social Democracy.
It is quite true that Bebel more than once repeated his assertion that
in case of an attack on Germany the Social Democracy would defend its
Fatherland. At the convention held at Essen, Kautsky answered him:
"In my opinion we cannot promise positively to share the
government's war enthusiasm every time we are convinced that the
country is threatened by attack. Bebel thinks we are much
further advanced than we were in 1870 and that we are now able
to decide in every instance whether the war which threatens is
really one of aggression or not. I should not like to take this
responsibility upon myself. I should not like to undertake to
guarantee that we could make a correct decision in every
instance, that we shall always know whether a government is
deceiving us, or whether it is not actually representing the
interests of the nation against a war of attack.... Yesterday
it was the German government that took the aggressive, to-morrow
it will be the French government, and we cannot know if the day
after it may not be the English government. The governments are
constantly taking turns. As a matter of fact what we are
concerned with in case of war is not a national, but an
international question. For a war between great powers will
become a world war and will affect the whole of Europe, not two
countries alone. Some day the German government might make the
German proletariat believe they were being attacked; the French
government might do the same with its subjects, and then we
should have a war in which the French and German working men
would follow their respective governments with equal enthusiasm,
and murder each other and cut each other's throats. Such a
contingency must be avoided, and it will be avoided if we do not
adopt the criterion of the aggressive or defensive war, but that
of the interests of the proletariat, which at the same time are
international interests.... Fortunately, it is a misconception
to assume that the German Social Democracy in case of war wanted
to judge by national and not by international considerations,
and felt itself to be first a German and then a proletariat
party."
With splendid clearness Kautsky in this speech reveals the terrible
dangers--now a still more terrible actuality--that are latent in the
endeavor to make the position of the Social Democracy dependent upon an
indefinite and contradictory formal estimate of whether a war is one of
defense or one of aggression. Bebel in his reply said nothing of
importance; and his point of view seemed quite inexplicable, especially
after his own experiences of the year 1870.
Nevertheless, in spite of its theoretical inadequacy, Bebel's position
had a quite definite political meaning. Those imperialistic tendencies
which the danger of war begat excluded the possibility for the Social
Democracy's expecting salvation from the victory of either of the
warring parties. For that very reason its entire attention was directed
to the preventing of war, and the principal task was to keep the
governments worried about the results of a war.
"The Social Democracy," said Bebel, "will oppose any government which
takes the initiative in war." He meant this as a threat to William
II.'s government. "Don't reckon upon us if some day you decide to
utilize your cannon and your battleships." Then he turned to Petrograd
and London: "They had better take care not to attack Germany in a
miscalculation of weakness from within on account of the obstructionist
policies of the powerful German Social Democracy."
Without being a political doctrine, Bebel's conception was a political
threat, and a threat directed simultaneously at two fronts, the internal
front and the foreign front. His one obstinate answer to all historical
and logical objections was: "We'll find the way to expose any government
that takes the first step towards war. We are clever enough for that."
This threatening attitude of not only the German Social Democracy but
also of the International Party was not without results. The various
governments actually did make every effort to postpone the outbreak of
the War. But that is not all. The rulers and the diplomats were doubly
attentive now to adapting their moves to the pacifist psychology of the
masses. They whispered with the Socialist leaders, nosed about in the
office of the International, and so created a sentiment which made it
possible for Jaures and Haase to declare at Brussels, a few days before
the outbreak of the War, that their particular governments had no other
object than the preservation of peace. And when the storm broke loose,
the Social Democracy of every country looked for the guilty party--on
the other side of the border. Bebel's utterance, which had played a
definite part as a threat, lost all meaning the instant the first shots
were fired at the frontiers. That terrible thing took place which
Kautsky had prophesied.
What at first glance appears the most surprising thing about it all is,
that the Social Democracy had not really felt the need for a political
criterion. In the catastrophe that has occurred to the International
the arguments have been notable for their superficiality. They
contradicted each other, shifted ground, and were of only secondary
significance--the gist of the matter being that the _fatherland must be
defended_. Apart from considerations of the historical outcome of the
War, apart from considerations of democracy and the class struggle, the
fatherland that has come down to us historically must be defended. And
defended not because our government wanted peace and was "perfidiously
attacked," as the international penny-a-liners put it, but because apart
from the conditions or the ways in which it was provoked, apart from who
was right and who was wrong, war, once it breaks out, subjects every
belligerent to the danger of invasion and conquest. Theoretical,
political, diplomatic and military considerations fall into ruins as in
an earthquake, a conflagration or a flood. The government with its army
is elevated to the position of the one power that can protect and save
its people. The large masses of the people in actuality return to a
pre-political condition. This feeling of the masses, this elemental
reflex of the catastrophe, need not be criticized in so far as it is
only a temporary feeling. But it is quite a different matter in the
case of the attitude of the Social Democracy, the responsible political
representative of the masses. The political organizations of the
possessing classes and especially the power of the government itself did
not simply float with the stream. They instantly set to work most
intensively and in very varied ways to heighten this unpolitical
sentiment and to unite the masses around the army and the government.
The Social Democracy not only did not become equally active in the
opposite direction, but from the very first moment surrendered to the
policy of the government and to the elemental feeling of the masses.
And instead of arming these masses with the weapons of criticism and
distrust, if only passive criticism and distrust, it itself by its whole
attitude hastened the people along the road to this pre-political
condition. It renounced its traditions and political pledges of fifty
years with a conspicuous readiness that was least of all calculated to
inspire the rulers with respect.
Bethmann-Hollweg announced that the German government was in absolute
agreement with the German people, and after the avowal of the
_Vorwaerts_, in view of the position taken by the Social Democracy, he
had a perfect right to say so. But he had still another right. If
conditions had not induced him to postpone political polemics to a more
favorable moment, he might have said at the Reichstag session of August
4th, addressing the representatives of the Socialist proletariat:
"To-day you agree with us in recognizing the danger threatening our
Fatherland, and you join us in trying to avert the danger by arms. But
this danger has not grown up since yesterday. You must previously have
known of the existence and the tendencies of Czarism, and you knew that
we had other enemies besides. So by what right did you attack us when
we built up our army and our navy? By what right did you refuse to vote
for military appropriations year after year? Was it by the right of
treason or the right of blindness? If in spite of you we had not built
up our army, we should now be helpless in the face of this Russian
menace that has brought you to your senses, too. No appropriations
granted now could enable us to make up for what we would have lost. We
should now be without arms, without cannons, without fortifications.
Your voting to-day in favor of the war credit of five billion is an
admission that your annual refusal of the budget was only an empty
demonstration, and, worse than that, was political demagogy. For as
soon as you came up for a serious historical examination, you denied
your entire past!"
That is what the German Chancellor could have said, and this time his
speech would have carried conviction. And what could Haase have
replied?
"We never took a stand for Germany's disarmament in the face of dangers
from without. Such peace rubbish was never in our thoughts. As long as
international contradictions create out of themselves the danger of war,
we want Germany to be safe against foreign invasion and servitude. What
we are trying for is a military organization which cannot--as can an
artificially trained organization--be made to serve for class
exploitation at home and for imperialistic adventures abroad, but will
be invincible in national defense. We want a militia. We cannot trust
you with the work of national defense. You have made the army a school
of reactionary training. You have drilled your corps of officers in the
hatred of the most important class of modern society, the proletariat.
You are capable of risking millions of lives, not for the real interests
of the people, but for the selfish interests of the ruling minority,
which you veil with the names of national ideals and state prestige. We
do not trust you, and that is why we have declared year after year, 'Not
a single man or a single penny for this class government!''
"But five billions!" voices from both the right and the left might
interrupt.
"Unfortunately we are now left no choice. We have no army except the one
created by the present masters of Germany, and the enemy stands without
our gates. We cannot on the instant replace William II.'s army by a
people's militia, and once this is so, we cannot refuse food, clothing
and materials of war to the army that is defending us, no matter how it
may be constituted. We are neither repudiating our past nor renouncing
our future. We are forced to vote for the war credits."
That would have been about the most convincing thing that Haase could
have said.
Yet, even though such considerations might give an explanation of why
the Socialist workers as _citizens_ did not obstruct the military
organization, but simply fulfilled the duty of citizenship forced upon
them by circumstances, we should still be waiting in vain for an answer
to the principal question: Why did the Social Democracy, as the
political organization of a class that has been denied a share in the
government, as the implacable enemy of bourgeois society, as the
republican party, as a branch of the International--why did it take upon
itself the responsibility for acts undertaken by its irreconcilable
class enemies?
If it is impossible for us immediately to replace the Hohenzollern army
with a militia, that does not mean that we must now take upon ourselves
the responsibility for the doings of that army. If in times of peaceful
normal state-housekeeping we wage war against the monarchy, the
bourgeoisie and militarism, and are under obligations to the masses to
carry on that war with the whole weight of our authority, then we commit
the greatest crime against our future when we put this authority at the
disposal of the monarchy, the bourgeoisie and militarism at the very
moment when these break out into the terrible, anti-social and barbaric
methods of war.
Neither the nation nor the state can escape the obligation of defense.
But when we refuse the rulers our confidence we by no means rob the
bourgeois state of its weapons or its means of defense and even of
attack--as long as we are not strong enough to wrest its power from its
hands. In war as in peace, we are a party of opposition, not a party of
power. In that way we can also most surely serve that part of our task
which war outlines so sharply, the work of national independence. The
Social Democracy cannot let the fate of any nation, whether its own or
another nation, depend upon military successes. In throwing upon the
capitalist state the responsibility for the method by which it protects
its independence, that is, the violation of the independence of other
states, the Social Democracy lays the cornerstone of true national
independence in the consciousness of the masses of all nations. By
preserving and developing the international solidarity of the workers,
we secure the independence of the nation--and make it independent of the
calibre of cannons.
If Czarism is a danger to Germany's independence, there is only one way
that promises success in warding off this danger, and that way lies with
us--the solidarity of the working masses of Germany and Russia. But
such solidarity would undermine the policy that William II. explained in
saying that the entire German people stood behind him. What should we
Russian Socialists say to the Russian workingmen in face of the fact
that the bullets the German workers are shooting at them bear the
political and moral seal of the German Social Democracy? "We cannot
make our policy for Russia, we make it for Germany," was the answer
given me by one of the most respected functionaries of the German party
when I put this question to him. And at that moment I felt with
particularly painful clearness what a blow had been struck at the
International from within.
The situation, it is plain, is not improved if the Socialist parties of
_both_ warring countries throw in their fate with the fate of their
governments, as in Germany and France. No outside power, no
confiscation or destruction of Socialist property, no arrests and
imprisonments could have dealt such a blow to the International as it
struck itself with its own hands in surrendering to the Moloch of state
just when he began to talk in terms of blood and iron.
----
In his speech at the convention at Essen Kautsky drew a terrifying
picture of brother rising against brother in the name of a "war of
defense"--as an argument, by no means as an actual possibility. Now
that this picture has become a bloody actuality, Kautsky endeavors to
reconcile us to it. He beholds no collapse of the International.
"The difference between the German and the French Socialists is
not to be found in their standards of judgment, nor in their
fundamental point of view, but merely in the difference of their
interpretation of the present situation, which, in its turn, is
conditioned by the _difference in their geographical position_
[!]. Therefore, this difference can scarcely be overcome while
the war lasts. Nevertheless it is not a difference of principle,
but one arising out of a particular situation, and so it need
not last after that situation has ceased to exist." (_Neue
Zeit_, 337, p. 3.)
When Guesde and Sembat appear as aides to Poincare, Delcasse and Briand,
and as opponents to Bethmann-Hollweg; when the French and German
workingmen cut each other's throats and are not doing so as enforced
citizens of the bourgeois republic and the Hohenzollern Monarchy, but as
Socialists performing their duty under the spiritual leadership of their
parties, this is not a collapse of the International. The "standard of
judgment" is one and the same for the German Socialist cutting a
Frenchman's throat as for the French Socialist cutting a German's
throat. If Ludwig Frank takes up his gun, not to proclaim the
"difference of principle" to the French Socialists, but to shoot them in
all agreement of principle; and if Ludwig Frank should himself fall by a
French bullet--fired possibly by a comrade--that is no detriment to
"standards" they have in common. It is merely a consequence of the
"difference in their geographical position." Truly, it is bitter to
read such lines, but doubly bitter when they come from Kautsky's pen.
The International was opposed to the war.
"If, in spite of the efforts of the Social Democracy, we should
have war," says Kautsky, "then every nation must save its skin
as best it can. This means for the Social Democracy of every
country the same right and the same duty to participate in its
country's defense, and none of them may make of this a cause for
casting reproaches [!] at each other." (_Neue Zeit_, 337, p.
7.)
Of such sort is this common standard to save one's own skin, to break
one another's skulls in self-defense, and not to "reproach" one another
for doing so.
But will the question be answered by the _agreement_ in the standard of
judgment? Will it not rather be answered by the _quality_ of this
common standard of judgment? Among Bethmann-Hollweg, Sasonov, Grey and
Delcasse you also find agreement in their standards. Nor is there any
difference of principle between them either. They least of all have any
right to cast reproaches at each other. Their conduct simply springs
from "a difference in their geographical position." Had
Bethmann-Hollweg been an English minister, he would have acted exactly
as did Sir Edward Grey. Their standards are as like each other as their
cannon, which differ in nothing but their calibre. But the question for
us is, can we adopt _their_ standards for _our own_?
"Fortunately, it is a misconception to assume that the German
Social Democracy in case of war wanted to judge by national and
not by international considerations, and felt itself to be first
a German and then a proletariat party."
So said Kautsky in Essen. And now when the national point of view has
taken hold of all the workingmen's parties of the International in place
of the international point of view that they held in common, Kautsky not
only reconciles himself to this "misconception," but even tries to find
in it agreement of standards and a guarantee of the rebirth of the
International.
"In every national state the working class must also devote its
entire energy to keeping intact the independence and the
integrity of the national territory. This is an essential of
democracy, that basis necessary to the struggle and the final
victory of the proletariat." (_Neue Zeit_, 337, p. 4.)
But if this is the case, how about the Austrian Social Democracy? Must
it, too, devote its entire energy to the preservation of the
non-national and anti-national Austro-Hungarian Monarchy? And the
German Social Democracy? By amalgamating itself politically with the
German army, it not only helps to preserve the Austro-Hungarian national
chaos, but also facilitates the destruction of Germany's national unity.
_National unity is endangered not only by defeat but also by victory_.
From the standpoint of the European proletariat it is equally harmful
whether a slice of French territory is gobbled up by Germany, or whether
France gobbles up a slice of German territory. Moreover the
preservation of the European _status quo_ is not a thing at all for our
platform. The political map of Europe has been drawn by the point of
the bayonet, at every frontier passing over the living bodies of the
nations. If the Social Democracy assists its national (or
anti-national) governments with all its energy, it is again leaving it
to the power and intelligence of the bayonet to correct the map of
Europe. And in tearing the International to pieces, the Social
Democracy destroys the one power that is capable of setting up a
programme of national independence and democracy in opposition to the
activity of the bayonet, and of carrying out this programme in a greater
or less degree, quite independently of which of the national bayonets is
crowned with victory.
The experience of old is confirmed once again. If the Social Democracy
sets national duties above its class duties, it commits the greatest
crime not only against Socialism, but also against the interest of the
nation as rightly and broadly understood.