THE COLLAPSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL
At their Convention in Paris two weeks before the outbreak of the
catastrophe, the French Socialists insisted on pledging all branches of
the International to revolutionary action in case of a mobilization.
They were thinking chiefly of the German Social Democracy. The
radicalism of the French Socialists in matters of foreign policy was
rooted not so much in international as national interests. The events of
the War have now definitely confirmed what was clear to many then. What
the French Socialist Party desired from the sister party in Germany was
a certain guarantee for the inviolability of France. They believed that
only by thus insuring themselves with the German proletariat could they
finally free their own hands for a decisive conflict with national
militarism.
The German Social Democracy, for their part, flatly refused to make any
such pledge. Bebel showed that if the Socialist parties signed the
French resolution, that would not necessarily enable them to keep their
pledge when the decisive moment came. Now there is little room for
doubt that Bebel was right. As events have repeatedly proved, a period
of mobilization almost completely cripples the Socialist Party, or at
least precludes the possibility of decisive moves. Once mobilization is
declared, the Social Democracy finds itself face to face with the
concentrated power of the Government, which is supported by a powerful
military apparatus that is ready to crush all obstacles in its path and
has the unqualified co-operation of all bourgeois parties and
institutions.
And of no less importance is the fact that mobilization wakes up and
brings to their feet those elements of the people whose social
significance is slight and who play little or no political part in times
of peace. Hundreds of thousands, nay millions of petty hand-workers, of
hobo-proletarians (the riff-raff of the workers), of small farmers and
agricultural laborers are drawn into the ranks of the army and put into
a uniform, in which each one of these men stands for just as much as the
class-conscious workingman. They and their families are forcibly torn
from their dull unthinking indifference and given an interest in the
fate of their country. Mobilization and the declaration of war awaken
fresh expectations in these circles whom our agitation practically does
not reach and whom, under ordinary circumstances, it will never enlist.
Confused hopes of a change in present conditions, of a change for the
better, fill the hearts of these masses dragged out of the apathy of
misery and servitude. The same thing happens as at the beginning of a
revolution, but with one all-important difference. A revolution links
these newly aroused elements with the revolutionary class, but war links
them--with the government and the army! In the one case all the
unsatisfied needs, all the accumulated suffering, all the hopes and
longings find their expression in revolutionary enthusiasm; in the other
case these same social emotions temporarily take the form of patriotic
intoxication. Wide circles of the working class, even among those
touched with Socialism, are carried along in the same current. The
advance guard of the Social Democracy feels it is in the minority; its
organizations, in order to complete the organization of the army, are
wrecked. Under such conditions there can be no thought of a
revolutionary move on the part of the Party. And all this is quite
independent of whether the people look upon a particular war with favor
or disfavor. In spite of the colonial character of the Russo-Japanese
war and its unpopularity in Russia, the first half year of it nearly
smothered the revolutionary movement. Consequently it is quite clear
that, with the best intentions in the world, the Socialist parties
cannot pledge themselves to obstructionist action at the time of
mobilization, at a time, that is, when Socialism is more than ever
politically isolated.
And therefore there is nothing particularly unexpected or discouraging
in the fact that the working-class parties did not oppose military
mobilization with their own revolutionary mobilization. Had the
Socialists limited themselves to expressing condemnation of the present
war, had they declined all responsibility for it and refused the vote of
confidence in their governments as well as the vote for the war credits,
they would have done their duty at the time. They would have taken up a
position of waiting, the oppositional character of which would have been
perfectly clear to the government as well as to the people. Further
action would have been determined by the march of events and by those
changes which the events of a war must produce on the people's
consciousness. The ties binding the International together would have
been preserved, the banner of Socialism would have been unstained.
Although weakened for the moment, the Social Democracy would have
preserved a free hand for a decisive interference in affairs as soon as
the change in the feelings of the working masses came about. And it is
safe to assert that whatever influence the Social Democracy might have
lost by such an attitude at the beginning of the war, would have been
won several times over once the inevitable turn in public sentiment had
come about.
But if this did not happen, if the signal for war mobilization was also
the signal for the fall of the International, if the national labor
parties fell in line with their governments and the armies without a
single protest, then there must be deep causes for it common to the
entire International. It would be futile to seek these causes in the
mistakes of individuals, in the narrowness of leaders and party
committees. They must be sought in the conditions of the epoch in which
the Socialist International first came into being and developed. Not
that the unreliability of the leaders or the bewildered incompetence of
the Executive Committees should ever be justified. By no means. But
these are not fundamental factors. These must be sought in the
historical conditions of an entire epoch. For it is not a question--and
we must be very straightforward with ourselves about this--of any
particular mistake, not of any opportunist steps, not of any awkward
statements in the various parliaments, not of the vote for the budget
cast by the Social Democrats of the Grand Duchy of Baden, not of
individual experiments of French ministerialism, not of the making or
unmaking of this or that Socialist's career. It is nothing less than
the complete failure of the International in the most responsible
historical epoch, for which all the previous achievements of Socialism
can be considered merely as a preparation.
A review of historical events will reveal a number of facts and symptoms
that should have aroused disquiet as to the depth and solidity of
Internationalism in the labor movement.
I am not referring to the Austrian Social Democracy. In vain did the
Russian and Servian Socialists look for clippings from articles on world
politics in the _Wiener Arbeiter Zeitung_ that they could use for
Russian and Servian workingmen without having to blush for the
International. One of the most striking tendencies of this journal
always was the defense of Austro-German imperialism not only against the
outside enemy but also against the internal enemy--and the _Vorwaerts_
was one of the internal enemies. There is no irony in saying that in
the present crisis of the International the _Wiener Arbeiter Zeitung_
remained truest to its past.
French Socialism reveals two extremes--an ardent patriotism, on the one
hand, not free from enmity of Germany; on the other hand, the most vivid
anti-patriotism of the Herve type, which, as experience teaches, readily
turns into the very opposite.
As for England, Hyndman's Tory-tinged patriotism, supplementing his
sectarian radicalism, has often caused the International political
difficulties.
It was in a far less degree that nationalistic symptoms could be
detected in the German Social Democracy. To be sure, the opportunism of
the South Germans grew up out of the soil of particularism, which was
German nationalism in octavo form. But the South Germans were rightly
considered the politically unimportant rearguard of the Party. Bebel's
promise to shoulder his gun in case of danger did not meet with a
single-hearted reception. And when Noske repeated Bebel's expression, he
was sharply attacked in the Party press. On the whole the German Social
Democracy adhered more strictly to the line of internationalism than any
other of the old Socialist parties. But for that very reason it made
the sharpest break with its past. To judge by the formal announcements
of the Party and the articles in the Socialist press, there is no
connection between the Yesterday and To-day of German Socialism.
But it is clear that such a catastrophe could not have occurred had not
the conditions for it been prepared in previous times. The fact that
two young parties, the Russian and the Servian, remained true to their
international duties is by no means a confirmation of the Philistine
philosophy, according to which loyalty to principle is a natural
expression of immaturity. Yet this fact leads us to seek the causes of
the collapse of the Second International in the very conditions of its
development that least influenced its younger members.