WORKING CLASS IMPERIALISM
There is one factor in the collapse of the Second International that is
still unclarified. It dwells at the heart of all the events that the
Party has passed through.
The dependence of the proletarian class movement, particularly in its
economic conflicts, upon the scope and the successes of the
imperialistic policy of the state is a question which, as far as I know,
has never been discussed in the Socialist press. Nor can I attempt to
solve it in the short space of this work. So what I shall say on this
point will necessarily be in the nature of a brief review.
The proletariat is deeply interested in the development of the forces of
production. The national state created in Europe by the revolutions and
wars of the years 1789 to 1870 was the basic type of the economic
evolution of the past period. The proletariat contributed by its entire
conscious policy to the development of the forces of production on a
national foundation. It supported the bourgeoisie in its conflicts with
alien enemies for national liberation; also in its conflicts with the
monarchy, with feudalism and the church for political democracy. And in
the measure in which the bourgeois turned to "law and order," that is,
became reactionary, the proletariat assumed the historical task it left
uncompleted. In championing a policy of peace, culture and democracy,
as against the bourgeoisie, it contributed to the enlargement of the
national market, and so gave an impetus to the development of the forces
of production.
The proletariat had an equal economic interest in the democratizing and
the cultural progress of all other countries in their relation of buyer
or seller to its own country. In this resided the most important
guarantee for the international solidarity of the proletariat both in so
far as final aims and daily policies are concerned. The struggle
against the remnants of feudal barbarism, against the boundless demands
of militarism, against agrarian duties and indirect taxes was the main
object of working-class politics and served, directly and indirectly, to
help develop the forces of production. That is the very reason why the
great majority of organized labor joined political forces with the
Social Democracy. Every hindrance to the development of the forces of
production touches the trade unions most closely.
As capitalism passed from a national to an international-imperialistic
ground, national production, and with it the economic struggle of the
proletariat, came into direct dependence on those conditions of the
world-market which are secured by dreadnaughts and cannon. In other
words, in contradiction of the fundamental interests of the proletariat
taken in their wide historic extent, the immediate trade interests of
various strata of the proletariat proved to have a direct dependence
upon the successes or the failures of the foreign policies of the
governments.
England long before the other countries placed her capitalistic
development on the basis of predatory imperialism, and she interested
the upper strata of the proletariat in her world dominion. In
championing its own class interests, the English proletariat limited
itself to exercising pressure on the bourgeois parties which granted it
a share in the capitalistic exploitation of other countries. It did not
begin an independent policy until England began to lose her position in
the world market, pushed aside, among others, by her main rival,
Germany.
But with Germany's growth to industrial world-importance, grew the
dependence of broad strata of the German proletariat on German
imperialism, not materially alone but also ideally. The _Vorwaerts_
wrote on August 11th that the German workingmen, "counted among the
politically intelligent, to whom we have preached the dangers of
imperialism for years (although _with very little success_, we must
confess)" scold at Italian neutrality like the extremest chauvinists.
But that did not prevent the _Vorwaerts_ from feeding the German
workingmen on "national" and "democratic" arguments in justification of
the bloody work of imperialism. (Some writers' backbones are as
flexible as their pens.)
However, all this does not alter facts. When the decisive moment came,
there seemed to be no irreconcilable enmity to imperialistic policies in
the consciousness of the German workingmen. On the contrary, they seemed
to listen readily to imperialist whisperings veiled in national and
democratic phraseology. This is not the first time that Socialistic
imperialism reveals itself in the German Social Democracy. Suffice it to
recall the fact that at the International Congress in Stuttgart it was
the majority of the German delegates, notably the trade unionists, who
voted against the Marxist resolution on the colonial policy. The
occurrence made a sensation at the time, but its true significance comes
out more clearly in the light of present events. Just now the trade
union press is linking the cause of the German working class to the work
of the Hohenzollern army with more consciousness and matter-of-factness
than do the political organs.
As long as capitalism remained on a national basis, the proletariat
could not refrain from co-operation in democratizing the political
relations and in developing the forces of production through its
parliamentary, communal and other activities. The attempts of the
anarchists to set up a formal revolutionary agitation in opposition to
the political fights of the Social Democracy condemned them to isolation
and gradual extinction. But when the capitalist states overstep their
national form to become imperialistic world powers, the proletariat
cannot oppose this new imperialism. And the reason is the so-called
minimal programme which fashioned its policy upon the framework of the
national state. When its main concern is for tariff treaties and social
legislation, the proletariat is incapable of expending the same energy
in fighting imperialism that it did in fighting feudalism. By applying
its old methods of the class struggle--the constant adaptation to the
movements of the markets--to the changed conditions produced by
imperialism, it itself falls into material and ideological dependence on
imperialism.
The only way the proletariat can pit its revolutionary force against
imperialism is under the banner of Socialism. The working class is
powerless against imperialism as long as its great organizations stand
by their old opportunist tactics. The working class will be
all-powerful against imperialism when it takes to the battlefield of
Social Revolution.
The methods of national parliamentary opposition not only fail to
produce objective results, but the laboring masses lose all interest in
them because they find that their earnings and their very existence are
not affected by what is done in parliament. Behind the backs of the
parliamentarians imperialism wins its successes in the world market.
The methods of national-parliamentary opposition not only fail to
produce practical results, but also cease to make an appeal to the
laboring masses, because the workers find that, behind the backs of the
parliamentarians, imperialism, by armed force, reduces the wages and the
very lives of the workers to ever greater dependence on its successes in
the world market.
It was clear to every thinking Socialist that the only way the
proletariat could be made to pass from opportunism to Revolution was not
by agitation, but by a historical upheaval. But no one foresaw that
history would preface this inevitable change of tactics by such a
catastrophal collapse of the International. History works with titanic
relentlessness. What is the Rheims Cathedral to History? And what a
few hundred or thousand political reputations? And what the life or
death of hundreds of thousands or of millions?
The proletariat has remained too long in the preparatory school, much
longer than its great pioneer fighters thought it would. History took
her broom in hand, swept the International of the epigone apart in all
directions and led the slow-moving millions into the field where their
last illusions are being washed away in blood. A terrible experiment!
On its result perhaps hangs the fate of European civilization.