Kautsky sees one of the reasons for the extremely bloody character of
the revolution in the war and in its hardening influence on manners.
Quite undeniable. That influence, with all the consequences that
follow from it, might have been foreseen earlier--approximately in the
period when Kautsky was not certain whether one ought to vote for the
war credits or against them.
"Imperialism has violently torn society out of its condition of
unstable equilibrium," he wrote five years ago in our German
book--_The War and the International_. "It has blown up the sluices
with which Social-Democracy held back the current of the revolutionary
energy of the proletariat, and has directed that current into its own
channels. This monstrous historical experiment, which at one blow has
broken the back of the Socialist International, represents a deadly
danger for bourgeoisie society itself. The hammer has been taken from
the hand of the worker, and has been replaced by the sword. The
worker, bound hand and foot by the mechanism of capitalist society,
has suddenly burst out of its midst, and is learning to put the aims
of the community higher than his own domestic happiness and than life
itself.
"With this weapon, which he himself has forged, in his hand, the
worker is placed in a position in which the political destiny of the
State depends directly on him. Those who in former times oppressed and
despised him now flatter and caress him. At the same time he is
entering into intimate relations with those same guns which, according
to Lassalle, constitute the most important integral part of the
constitution. He crosses the boundaries of states, participates in
violent requisitions, and under his blows towns pass from hand to
hand. Changes take place such as the last generation did not dream of.
"If the most advanced workers were aware that force was the mother of
law, their political thought still remained saturated with the spirit
of opportunism and self-adaptation to bourgeois legality. To-day the
worker has learned in practice to despise that legality, and violently
to destroy it. The static moments in his psychology are giving place
to the dynamic. Heavy guns are knocking into his head the idea that,
in cases where it is impossible to avoid an obstacle, there remains
the possibility of destroying it. Nearly the whole adult male
population is passing through this school of war, terrible in its
social realism, which is bringing forth a new type of humanity.
"Over all the criteria of bourgeois society--its law, its morality,
its religion--is now raised the fist of iron necessity. 'Necessity
knows no law' was the declaration of the German Chancellor (August 4,
1914). Monarchs come out into the market-place to accuse one another
of lying in the language of fishwives; governments break promises they
have solemnly made, while the national church binds its Lord God like
a convict to the national cannon. Is it not obvious that these
circumstances must create important alterations in the psychology of
the working class, radically curing it of that hypnosis of legality
which was created by the period of political stagnation? The
propertied classes will soon, to their sorrow, have to be convinced of
this. The proletariat, after passing through the school of war, at the
first serious obstacle within its own country will feel the necessity
of speaking with the language of force. 'Necessity knows no law,' he
will throw in the face of those who attempt to stop him by laws of
bourgeois legality. And the terrible economic necessity which will
arise during the course of this war, and particularly at its end, will
drive the masses to spurn very many laws." (Page 56-57.)
All this is undeniable. But to what is said above one must add that
the war has exercised no less influence on the psychology of the
ruling classes. As the masses become more insistent in their demands,
so the bourgeoisie has become more unyielding.
In times of peace, the capitalists used to guarantee their interests
by means of the "peaceful" robbery of hired labor. During the war they
served those same interests by means of the destruction of countless
human lives. This has imparted to their consciousness as a master
class a new "Napoleonic" trait. The capitalists during the war became
accustomed to send to their death millions of slaves--fellow-countrymen
and colonials--for the sake of coal, railway, and other profits.
During the war there emerged from the ranks of the bourgeoisie--large,
middle, and small--hundreds of thousands of officers, professional
fighters, men whose character has received the hardening of battle,
and has become freed from all external restraints: qualified soldiers,
ready and able to defend the privileged position of the bourgeoisie
which produced them with a ferocity which, in its way, borders on
heroism.
The revolution would probably be more humane if the proletariat had
the possibility of "buying off all this band," as Marx once put it.
But capitalism during the war has imposed upon the toilers too great a
load of debt, and has too deeply undermined the foundations of
production, for us to be able seriously to contemplate a ransom in
return for which the bourgeoisie would silently make its peace with
the revolution. The masses have lost too much blood, have suffered too
much, have become too savage, to accept a decision which economically
would be beyond their capacity.
To this there must be added other circumstances working in the same
direction. The bourgeoisie of the conquered countries has been
embittered by defeat, the responsibility for which it is inclined to
throw on the rank and file--on the workers and peasants who proved
incapable of carrying on "the great national war" to a victorious
conclusion. From this point of view, one finds very instructive those
explanations, unparalleled for their effrontery, which Ludendorff gave
to the Commission of the National Assembly. The bands of Ludendorff
are burning with the desire to take revenge for their humiliation
abroad on the blood of their own proletariat. As for the bourgeoisie
of the victorious countries, it has become inflated with arrogance,
and is more than ever ready to defend its social position with the
help of the bestial methods which guaranteed its victory. We have seen
that the bourgeoisie is incapable of organizing the division of the
booty amongst its own ranks without war and destruction. Can it,
without a fight, abandon its booty altogether? The experience of the
last five years leaves no doubt whatsoever on this score: if even
previously it was absolutely utopian to expect that the expropriation
of the propertied classes--thanks to "democracy"--would take place
imperceptibly and painlessly, without insurrections, armed conflicts,
attempts at counter-revolution, and severe repression, the state of
affairs we have inherited from the imperialist war predetermines,
doubly and trebly, the tense character of the civil war and the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
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