Frank and his associates could obtain by voting for the Baden Budget of
1910--besides the extension of the suffrage? First importance was placed
upon school reforms. Several religious normal schools were abolished;
women were permitted to serve on municipal committees for school affairs
and charities; the wages of teachers were somewhat increased; school
girls were given an extra year; physicians were introduced into the
schools; and a law was passed by which, for the first time, children
were no longer forced to take religious instruction against the will of
their parents. Social-Democrats in the legislature were allowed for the
first time to write the reports for important committees, such as those
on the schools, factory inspection, and town or township taxation. Aside
from these considerable improvements in the schools and in the election
law, the only advantage of importance was a decrease of the income tax
for those who earn less than 1400 marks ($350). One might have expected
that a government which claims to be progressive, to say nothing of
being radical or Socialistic, would altogether have exempted from
taxation incomes as small as $350--modest even for Germany. Frank
mentions also that 100,000 marks ($20,000) was appropriated for
insurance against unemployment, but this sum is trifling for a State the
size of Baden.
It was not denied by the radical Socialists that such measures are
desirable, but they did not feel that it was worth while, on that
account, to lay aside their main business, that of building up a
movement to overthrow capitalist government. As I have shown, capitalist
governments may be expected continually to inaugurate programs of
reform which, while strengthening capitalism, are incidentally of more
or less benefit to the working class. This is neither any part of
Socialism, nor does it tend towards decreasing the economic disparity
between the classes.
"If small concessions and trifles have been referred to," said the
revolutionary Karl Liebknecht, "it must not be understood that by this
it is meant to undervalue the practical work of the Badenese, but that
what has been attained is considered to be small, when measured by the
greatness of our aims. The so-called radicals, these are the true
reformers, the realistic political reformers who do not overlook the
forest on account of the trees."
Bebel, in two long speeches delivered at this Congress, defined the
Socialist attitude to existing governments and existing political
parties in a way that no longer leaves it possible that any earnest
student of Socialism can misunderstand it. He was supported by the
overwhelming majority of the Congress when he said that the policy of
the Baden Social-Democrats meant practically the support of the National
Liberals; that is to say, of the conservative party of the large
capitalists. The Socialists of Germany all consider that the parties
nearest related to theirs are the Radical or small capitalist parties,
formerly called the "Freethinkers" and the "People's" parties
(Freisinnige and Volkspartei) and now united under the name Progressive
Party. But a tacit alliance with these alone could not have been brought
about in Baden, so that the Socialists there favored going so far as to
ally themselves for all practical purposes with the chief organization
representing the bankers, manufactures, and employers--with the object,
of course, of overcoming the conservatives, the Catholic and
aristocratic parties.
"Now all of a sudden we hear that our tactics are false, that we must
ally ourselves with the National Liberals," said Bebel. "_We even have
National Liberals in our party.... But if one is a National Liberal,
then one must get out._ The Badenese speak of the great results which
they have obtained with the help of the Great Alliance [_i.e._ an
alliance with both National Liberals and Radicals]. Now results which
are reached with the help of the National Liberals don't bring us very
far.
"If we combine with capitalistic parties, you can bet a thousand to one
that we are the losers by it. It is, so to speak, a law of nature, that
in a combination of the right and the left the right draws the profits.
Such a combination cripples criticism and places us under obligations."
"_The government can well conciliate the exploited classes in case of
necessity, but never with a fundamental social transformation in the
direction of the socialization of society._" The reader must here avoid
confusion. Bebel does not say that the ruling class cannot or will not
bring about great legislative and political reforms, such as large
governmental undertakings of more or less benefit to every class of the
community, like canals or railways, but that such measures as are
_conceded to the Socialist pressure_ and at _the same time actually work
in the direction of Socialism are few and insignificant_. Bebel's
meaning is clear if we remember that we do not move towards Socialism
unless the reforms when taken together are sufficient both _to
counteract governmental changes and the automatic movement of society in
the opposite direction_.
Frank tried to make out that his action and that of his companions in
allying themselves with a progressive capitalist government was similar
to that taken by the Socialists in other countries. He mentioned
Denmark, England, and Austria, and one of the governments of Switzerland
(Berne), and also claimed that the Belgians would probably support a
Liberal government in case they and the Liberals gained a majority. All
these statements except one (that concerning England) Bebel denied. We
do not need to take his interpretation of the Austrian situation,
however, any more than Frank's, for an Austrian delegate, Schrammel, was
present and explained the position of his party. "If we voted for the
immediate consideration of the budget, we voted only for taking up the
question and not for the budget itself.... I declare on this occasion
that the comrades can rest assured as to our conduct in the Austrian
Parliament, that we would under no circumstances vote for a budget
without having the consent of our comrades in the realm. We will not act
independently, but will always submit ourselves to the decisions of the
majority taken for that particular occasion." It would seem from this
that the Austrians are considering the possibility of voting for the
budget under certain circumstances. But the Germans would also do this
much, and it is uncertain whether the cases in which the Austrians would
take this action would be any more frequent.
As to the English attitude, Bebel said: "The English cannot serve us as
a model for all things, first because England has quite other
conditions, and secondly, because there is no great Social-Democratic
Party there at the present moment. Marx would no longer point to trade
unions there as the champions of the European proletariat. From 1871
Marx showed the German Social-Democracy that it was its duty to take the
lead. We have done this, and we will continue to do it, if we are
sensible." As to Denmark, Bebel said that he was assured by one of the
most prominent representatives of the Danish movement that even if the
Socialists and Radicals had secured a majority in the recent elections,
that the former would not have become a part of the administration.
France had also been mentioned by some of the speakers, since Jaurès and
his wing of the French Party had at one time favored the policy of
supporting a progressive capitalist government. But Bebel reminded the
Congress that Jaurès had expressly declared that he had not been
persuaded to vote against the budget by the resolution to that effect
passed at the International Congress of Amsterdam, but that, after a
long hesitation, he did it "out of his own free conviction."
Bebel did not hesitate to condemn roundly those who were responsible for
this latest effort to lead the party to abandon its principles. He did
not deny that a majority of the organization in Baden and also in Hesse
agreed with its representatives. But he attributed this partly to the
fact that the revisionists controlled the Baden party newspapers, which
he accused of being partisan and of not giving full information, and
partly to the regrettable influence of "leaders." Similar conditions
occur internationally, and Bebel's words, like so much that was said and
done at this Congress, have the highest international significance.
"The peoples cannot at all grasp why one still supports a government
which one would prefer to set aside to-day rather than to-morrow," he
said. "A part of our leaders no longer understand, and no longer know
what the masses have to suffer. You have estranged yourselves too much
from the masses.
"Formerly it was said that the consuls should take care that the state
suffers no harm. _To-day one must say, let the masses take care that the
leaders prepare no harm. Democratic distrust against everybody, even
against me, is necessary. Attend to your editors._" These expressions,
like the others I have quoted, received the greatest applause from the
Congress.
It was almost unanimously agreed that, although the Socialist members of
the Baden legislature had acted against the decision of the previous
Nuremburg Congress, it was neither wise nor necessary to proceed so far
as expulsion, and Bebel especially was in favor of acting as leniently
as possible, but this does not mean that he found the slightest excuse
for the minority or that he failed to let them understand that he would
fight them to the end, if they did not yield in the future to the
radical majority.
"If a few among us should be mad enough," he said, "to think of a
split, I know it is not coming. The masses will have nothing to do
with it, and if a small body should follow, it would not take three
months until we would have them again in our armies. Our friends in
South Germany who are against our resolution ought to ask
themselves if, since the Nuremburg Congress, there has not appeared
a noteworthy reversal of sentiment. Now to-day North Bavaria is
thoroughly against the granting of the budget. Nuremburg is
decidedly against it. Stuttgarters and others who spoke at that
time occupied an entirely different standpoint to-day. The Hessian
minority against the granting of the budget was never as strong as
it is to-day. In Hanover voices are to be heard which expressed
themselves very differently before, but are now also against it. If
anybody thinks that he can easily escape from all these phenomena,
then he is mightily mistaken. I guarantee that I could draw out
quite another sentiment in Baden." "Try once!" it was called out
from the audience, and Bebel answered: "Yes, we are ready to do
this if we must. The proletarians of Baden would have to be no
proletarians at all if it were otherwise."
The principal resolution on the question, signed by a large minority of
the Congress, proposed that any persons who voted for a budget by that
very act automatically "stood outside the party." Bebel said that this
was not the customary method of the organization, and pointed out that
no means were provided in the constitution of the party for throwing out
a whole group, that the constitution had been drawn up only for
individuals, and provided that any one to be expelled should receive a
very thorough trial. As opposed to this resolution, he offered a report
in the name of the executive committee of the party, which stated,
however, that there was no fundamental difference of opinion between the
executive and the signers of the resolution above mentioned, but only a
difference as to method.
This report declared: "We are of the opinion that in case the resolution
of the party executive is passed, and notwithstanding this the
resolution is not respected, that then the conditions are present for a
trial for exclusion according to Article 23 of the organization
statutes." This article says: "No one can belong to the party who is
guilty of gross misconduct against the party program or of a
dishonorable action. Exclusion of a member may also take place if his
persistent acts against the resolutions of his party organization or of
the party congress damage the interests of the party."
The passage of Bebel's resolution, by a vote of 289 to 80, was an
emphatic repudiation of reformism. In the minority, besides the South
Germans, were to be found a considerable proportion of the delegates
from a very few of the many important cities of North Germany, namely,
Hanover, Dresden, Breslau, and Magdeburg, together with an insignificant
minority from Berlin and Hamburg.
The South Germans claimed to be fairly well satisfied with the somewhat
conciliatory resolution of Bebel in spite of his strong talk. But, as
has been the case for many years, they were very aggressive and, in
closing the debate, Frank made some declarations which brought the
Congress to take even a stronger stand than Bebel had proposed.
"To-day I say to you in the name of the South Germans," said Frank,
"that we have the very greatest interest in union and harmony in
the party. We will do our duty in this direction, but no one of us
can declare to you to-day what will happen in the budget votings of
the next few years. That is a question of conditions." This remark
caused a great disturbance and was taken by the majority as a
defiance and a warning that the South Germans intended to support
capitalistic governments in the future. In fact, other remarks by
Frank left no doubt of this. "In Nuremburg," he said "we rested our
case on the contents of certain points of the budget, namely, the
increase of the wages of laborers, and the salaries of officials.
This time we gave the political situation as a ground. These are,
as Bebel will concede, different things."... Frank went on to say
that he and his associates would obey the resolution of the
Congress not to vote for the budget _under the particular
conditions_ proscribed at Nuremburg or at Magdeburg. "But," he
said, "do you believe that there ever exists a situation in the
world which is exactly like another? Do you believe that a budget
vote to-day must absolutely be like a budget vote two years from
now?"
That is to say, Frank openly and defiantly announced that the South
Germans might easily find some new reason for doing what they wanted to
do in the future, in spite of the clear will of the Congress.
A new resolution was then brought in by the majority to this effect: "In
view of the declaration of Comrade Frank in his conclusion that he and
his friends must take exception to the position taken in the resolution
of the Congress, we move that the following sentence from the
declaration of Comrade Bebel in support of the motion of the party
executive should be raised to the position of a resolution; namely, 'We
are of the opinion that in case the resolution of the party executive is
passed, and notwithstanding the resolution is disrespected, that then
the conditions are present for a trial for exclusion according to
article 23 of the organization statutes.'"
When this motion was put, Frank and the South Germans left the room, and
it was carried by 228 to 64, the minority this time consisting mostly of
North Germans. This vote showed the very highest number that could be
obtained from other sections to sympathize with the South Germans; for
the resolution in its finally accepted form was certainly a very sharp
one, and Richard Fisher, a member of the Reichstag from Berlin, and
others for the first time took a stand with the minority. It is
doubtful, however, whether the total support the South Germans secured
at any and all points together with their own numbers reached as high a
figure as 120 or one third of the Congress. In the matter of their right
openly to disobey the majority, the Baden Party could not even secure
this vote, but was only able to bring together against the majority
(consisting of 301) seventy-one delegates, nearly all South Germans.
It appears, then, that the overwhelming majority of the German Party is
unalterably opposed to "reformism," "revisionism," opportunism,
compromise, or any policy other than that of revolutionary Socialism.
For not only the question of supporting capitalist governments, but all
similar policies, were condemned by these decisive majorities.
How much this means may be gathered from the fact that "revisionists" as
the "reformists" are called in Germany, practically propose that the
Socialist Party should resolve itself for an indefinite period into an
ordinary democratic reform party in close alliance with other
non-Socialist parties.
"The weightiest step on the road to power," wrote the revisionist
Maurenbrecher, "is that we should succeed in the coming Reichstag in
shaping the Liberal and Social-Democratic majority (formed) for defense
against the conservatives, into a positive and effective working
majority." In discussing the support of the budget by the
Social-Democrats of Baden, Quessel explained definitely what kind of
positive and effective work such an alliance would be expected to
undertake; namely, "To fight personal government [of the Kaiser], to
protect earnestly the interest of the consumers against the exploiting
agrarian politicians, to undertake limitations of armaments on the basis
of international treaties, to introduce a new division of the election
districts [which has not been done since 1871], and to bring about a
legal limitation of the hours of labor to ten at the most." Already the
radical parties now united, favor all these measures except the
limitation of armaments, which from the analogy with peace movements in
other countries, and certain indications even in Germany, they may favor
within a very few years. Quessel's program is that of the non-Socialist
reformers, and a step, not towards Socialism, but towards collectivist
capitalism.
Karl Kautsky has dealt with the immediate bearing in German Socialism of
what he calls "the Baden rebellion," at some length, in answer to
Maurenbrecher, Quessel, and others. "The idea of an alliance from
Bassermann [the National Liberal leader] to Bebel appears at the first
glance to be quite reasonable," he writes, for "divided we are nothing,
united we are a power. And the immediate interest of the Liberals and of
the Social-Democrats is the same: 'the transformation of Germany from a
bureaucratic feudal state into a constitutional, parliamentary, Liberal,
and industrial State.'" Kautsky, however, combats the proposed alliance,
from the standpoint of the Social-Democratic Party, along three
different lines. First, he shows that the purposes of the Liberals in
entering into such a combination are entirely at variance with those of
the Socialists; second, that the Liberals are discredited before the
German people and are not likely to have the principle or the capacity
even to obtain those limited reforms which they have set on their
program, and, third, that even if the two former reasons did not hold,
the Socialists would necessarily have everything to lose by such common
action.
The second argument seems to prove too much. Kautsky reasons that
neither the Radical not the Liberal parties can be relied upon even to
carry out their own platforms:--
"The masses now trust the Social Democracy exclusively because it
is the only party which stands in irreconcilable hostility to the
reigning régime, which does not treat with it, which does not sell
principles for offices; the only one which swings into the field
energetically against militarism, personal government, the
three-class election system, the hunger tyranny [the protective
tariff]. On this depends the tremendous efficiency which our party
has to-day. On this depends the great results which it promises
us.... The whole effect of the Great Alliance policy [the proposed
alliance of Socialists with the Radicals and National Liberals], if
ever it became possible in the nation, at the best would be this:
that we would serve to the Liberals as the step on which they would
climb up into the government crib, in order to continue the same
reactionary policies which are now being carried on, with a few
unimportant variations: imperialism, the naval policy, increase of
the army, the increase of officials, the continuation of the
protective tariff policy, and the postponement of Prussian
electoral reforms."
But if the Liberals and Radicals refuse to carry out their own pledges,
the conclusion would seem to be, not Kautsky's revolutionary one, but
that the Socialists, far from stopping with a mere alliance, must take
up the Liberals' or the Radicals' functions, as the "reformists" desire.
However, there are strong grounds for believing that the Liberals in
Germany will at last rise to the level of their own opportunities, as
they have done in other countries. Already, the last Reichstag passed a
resolution demanding that the Kaiser should be held responsible to that
body, which means an end to personal rule; already the Radicals are in
favor of Prussian electoral reform, and would undertake sweeping, if not
satisfactory, changes in the tariff; and already the agitation against
militarism is sincere and profound among those powerful elements of the
capitalists whose interests are damaged by it, as well as among the "new
middle-class." If the present tendencies continue, why may not the
Radicals go farther? Is it not probable even that the Reichstag election
districts will be equalized, and possible that equal suffrage in Prussia
will be established by their support? For if the Radicals recognized,
like those of other countries, that equal suffrage would render the
reforms of capitalist collectivism feasible, they could considerably
increase their vote by means of these reforms and hold the balance of
power for a considerable period; the Socialists would be far from a
majority, as they would thus lose those supporters who have voted with
them solely because for the moment the Socialists were advancing the
Radical program more effectively than the Radicals.
The chief Socialist argument against any political alliance with
capitalist parties is, however, of a more general character. Referring
to the elections of 1912, Kautsky said:--
"How far they will bring us an increase in seats cannot be
determined to-day.... But an increase of votes is certain--if we
remain what we have been, the deadly enemy of the existing social
and political condition, which is oppressing the masses more
cruelly all the time, and for the overthrow of which they are all
the time more ardently longing. If, on the other hand, we go into
the electoral struggle arm in arm with the Freethinkers (Radicals)
or even with the National Liberals, if we make ourselves their
_accomplices_, if we declare ourselves ready for the same miserable
behavior which the Freethinkers made themselves guilty of by
entering into an alliance with von Buelow, we may disillusion the
masses; we may push them from us and kill political life. If the
Social Democracy ceases to be an opposition party, if even this
party is ready to betray its friends as soon as it becomes by such
means "capable of governing," those who are oppressed by
present-day conditions will lose all confidence in progress by
political struggle; then we shall be sowing on the one side the
seeds of political indifference and on the other those of an
anarchistical labor unionism." (Italics mine.)[199]
Here is the generally accepted reason for the Socialist's radical
attitude. In most countries Socialists are unwilling to make themselves
_accomplices_ in what they consider to be the political crimes of all
existing governments. Especially do they feel that no reform to which
the capitalists would conceivably consent would justify any alliance.
The inevitable logic of Kautsky's own position is that, _even if the
liberals in Germany and elsewhere do undertake a broad program of
reform_, including all those Kautsky mentions as improbable, no
sufficient ground for an alliance is at hand.
Kautsky himself now admits that there seems to be a revival of genuine
capitalistic Liberalism in Germany, which may lead the Liberal parties
to become more and more radical and even ultimately to democratize that
country--with the powerful aid, of course, of the Social-Democrats.
Evidence of this possibility he saw both in the support given by
Liberals of all shades to Socialist candidates in many of the second
ballots (in the election of 1912) and the fact that Bebel secured the
overwhelming majority of Liberal votes as temporary President, while
another revolutionary Socialist, Scheidemann, was actually elected by
their aid as first temporary Vice President of the Reichstag.
Kautsky asserts cautiously that this denotes a _possible_ revolution in
German Liberalism. He again mentions Imperialism as the great issue that
forbids even temporary coöperation between Socialists and the most
advanced of the Radicals. But he admits that the rapid development of
China and other Eastern countries will probably check the profits to be
made by Europe and America from their economic development. And after
Imperialism begins to wane in popularity among certain of the middle
classes, _i.e._ the salaried and professional classes, he thinks the
latter _may_ turn to genuine democratic, though capitalistic,
Liberalism.[200]
He reaches this conclusion with some hesitation, however. These new
middle classes differ fundamentally from the older middle classes, which
were composed chiefly of small farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans. The
old middle classes, when they found themselves in a hopeless position,
have often joined with the proletariat to bring about revolutions, only
to betray it, however, after they had won. The new middle class is most
dependent on the large capitalists for favor and promotion, and so is
not in the least revolutionary. It does not care to fight with the
proletariat until the latter becomes very strong, but when victory seems
possible, by a concerted action will be ready, because of its lack of
property, to stand steadfastly for Socialism.
The question remains as to when such a Socialist victory will be
imminent. Kautsky holds that as soon as Imperialism fails as a
propaganda, the ground is ready for Socialism to flourish, and that the
new middle class then divides into two parts, one of which remains
reactionary, while the other becomes Socialistic (_Berliner Vorwaerts_,
February 25, 1912).
I have shown that after Imperialism, on the contrary, we may expect a
temporarily successful Liberal policy based on capitalistic
collectivism, and even on complete political democracy, where the small
farmers are sufficiently numerous. This view would accord with the
latest opinion of Kautsky, except that he expects the new policy to be
supported chiefly by the salaried and professional classes. I have
proved, on the contrary, that it is to the economic interest also of all
those capitalists, whether large or small, who are deeply rooted in the
capitalist system and therefore want its evolution to continue. In favor
of "State Socialism," therefore, will be found most active trust
magnates, the prosperous middle and upper groups of farmers, and those
remaining capitalists who either through their economic or through
their _political_ position have no cause to be alarmed at the present
concentration of capital. Against the collectivist tendency will be all
those capitalists who want to compete with trusts, city landlords, and
real estate dealers, and financial magnates whose power consists largely
in their control over the wealth of inactive large capitalists or small
investors.
Kautsky has begun to see that a progressive capitalistic policy _may_
take hold of the professional and salaried classes in Germany; he would
probably not deny that in many other countries it is being taken up by
certain groups of capitalists also, and that this same tendency may soon
be seen in Germany. And when it is, the German Socialists will obviously
be less anxious about the fate of much-needed reforms, will find
themselves able more frequently to trust these reforms to capitalistic
progressives, and will give themselves over more largely than ever to
the direct preparation of the masses for the overthrow of capitalist
government.
That is to say, the Socialist movement, like all the other forces of
individual and social life, becomes more aggressive as it becomes
stronger--and it is, indeed, inexplicable how the opposite view has
spread among its opponents.
Not only does it seem that the German movement is showing little or no
tendency to relax the radical nature of its demands, but it does not
appear that its enemies are, for the present at least, to be given the
satisfaction of seeing even a minority split off from the main body.
That a split may occur in the future is not improbable, but if the
movement continues to grow as it has grown, it can afford to lose many
minorities, just as it has suffered comparatively little damage from the
desertion of several prominent individual figures.
It is true that the division of opinion in the Party might now be
sharper but for the artificial unity created by the great fight for a
more democratic form of government that lies immediately ahead. If the
needed reforms are granted without any very revolutionary proceedings on
the part of the Socialists, as similar reforms were granted in Austria,
the Party might then conceivably divide into two parts, in which case it
is probable that a majority of the four million Socialist _voters_ might
go with the anti-revolutionist and reform wing, but it is equally
probable that a large majority of the Party members--now nearly a
million (including women)--would go with the revolutionists. In case of
a split, the reform wing of the party, already in the friendliest
relations with the non-Socialist radicals, would doubtless join with
them to constitute a very powerful, semidemocratic party, similar to the
Radicals and Labourites of Great Britain or the so-called "Socialist
Radicals" and "Independent Socialists," who dominate the Parliament of
France. Besides a difference in ideals, which counts for little in
practical politics,--for nothing, in the extremely opportunist policies
of the "reformists,"--the only difference of importance between them is
in their attitude towards militarism and war. If peace is firmly
established with France, it is difficult to see what can keep the
reformers and the "reformists" of Germany much longer apart.
A more or less "State Socialistic" Party, such as would result from this
fusion would, of course, involve concessions by both sides. While the
non-Socialist "reformers" would have to adopt a more aggressive attitude
in their fight for a certain measure of democracy and against
militarism, and would have to be ready to defend the rights of the more
conservative labor unions, the "reformists" would have to take up a
still more active interest in colonies and still further their
republicanism. Many of them have already gone far in these directions.
Colonialism even had the upper hand among the Germans at the Stuttgart
Congress (1907); and the tendency of the South Germans to break the
Socialist tradition and tacitly to accept monarchy by participation in
court functions is one of the most common causes of recrimination in the
German Party. It is difficult, then, to see how these two movements can
long keep apart. The only question is whether, when the time comes,
individuals or minorities will leave the Socialist Party for this
purpose, or whether in some of the States the Party organization will be
captured as a whole, leaving only a minority to form a new Socialist
Party.
"It is a well-known fact," says W. C. Dreher, expressing the
prevalent view of the German movement, "that, for some years, many
voters have been helping those who by no means subscribe to the
Socialists' creed,--doing so as the most effective means of
protecting against the general policy of the government. It is
equally certain that a large part of the regular Socialist
membership is composed of discontented men who have but a lukewarm
interest in collectivism, or believe that it can never be
realized.... If a change should come over Germany, if Prussia
should get rid of its plutocratic suffrage reform and give real
ballot reform, if the protective duties should be reduced in the
interest of the poorest class of consumers,--it may be safely
assumed that the tide of Socialism would soon begin to ebb."[201]
If Mr. Dreher had added the reduction of military burdens to tariff
reform and equal Reichstag election districts, an extended suffrage
for Prussia, and a responsible ministry, there would have been at
least this truth in his statement--that _if all these things were
accomplished_, the tide of Socialist _votes_ would for the moment
be checked. His interpretation of the situation, however, is
typical of the illogical statements now so commonly made concerning
the growth of the German movement. That political tide which is
wrongly assumed to be wholly Socialist would indeed be suddenly and
greatly checked; but there is no reason to suppose that the
Socialist tide proper, as indicated by growth of the Socialist
Party membership, would be checked, nor that the Socialist vote
even, after having been purified of the accidental accretions,
which are its greatest hindrance, would rise less rapidly than
before.
The German Socialist situation is important internationally for the
decisive defeat of the "revisionists," and for the light it throws on
party unity, but it is still more important for the _means_ that have
been adopted for preserving that unity. If Socialist parties are to
reconstruct society, they must first control their own members in all
matters of common concern, especially those who are elected to public
office. For before a new society can arise against the resistance of the
old, the Socialist parties, according to the prevailing Socialist view,
must form a "State within a State."
This principle is soon to be put to a severe test in the United States.
The policy which says that the Socialist movement must be directed by
organized Socialists, who can be taxed, called on for labor, or expelled
by the Party, and not by mere voters, over whom the Party has no
control, becomes of the first moment when forms and methods of
organization are prescribed for all parties by law. By the primary laws
of a number of States, anybody who for any reason has voted for
Socialist candidates may henceforth have a voice not only in selecting
candidates, but in forming the party organization, and in constructing
its platform. In some States even, any citizen may vote at any primary
he pleases. This makes it possible for capitalist politicians to direct
or disrupt the Socialist Party at any moment, until the time arrives
when it has secured a majority or a very large part of the electorate,
not only as Socialist voters, but as members of the Socialist
organization. As Socialists do not expect this to happen for some years
to come, or until the social revolution is at hand, it is evident that
this new legislation may destroy Socialist parties as they have been,
and necessitate the direction of Socialist politics by leagues or
political committees of Socialist labor unions--while the present
Socialist parties become Populist or Labor parties of the Australian
type. _This might create a revolution for the better in that it would
free the new Socialist organization from office seeking and other forms
of political corruption._ But it would at the same time mark the
complete abandonment of the present Socialist method, _i.e._ the strict
control of all persons elected to office by an independent organization
which in turn controls its conditions of admission to membership.
One of the most widely circulated of the leaflets issued from the
national headquarters of the American Socialist Party, entitled
"Socialist Methods" appeals for public support largely on the ground
that "in nominating candidates for public offices the Socialists require
the nominee to sign a resignation of the office with blank date, which
is placed in the hands of the local organization to be dated and
presented to the proper officer in case the candidate be elected and
fails to adhere to the platform, constitution, or mandates of the
membership."
The newer primary laws taken in connection with the recall, as practiced
in many American cities and several States, threaten this most valuable
of all Socialist methods and may even undermine the Socialist Party as
at present organized. The initiative in this process of disruption
comes, of course, from Socialist officeholders who owe either their
nomination or their election or both, in part at least, to declared
non-Socialists, and still more largely to voters who only partially or
occasionally support the Socialist Party and have no connection with the
organization.
Thus, Mayor Stitt Wilson of Berkeley, California, has refused to comply
with this custom of executing an undated resignation from office in
advance of election, and the local organization has defended his action
on the ground that the "Berkeley municipal charter, providing as it does
for the initiative, referendum, and recall, there is no necessity for
any official placing his resignation in the hands of the local,"
ignoring the fact that a handful of the least Socialistic of those who
had voted for Mr. Wilson in coöperation with his opponents could defeat
a recall unanimously indorsed by the Socialist Party. According to this
principle a mere majority in the Socialist Party would be helpless
against a mayor who is allowed to make his appeal to the far more
numerous non-Socialist and anti-Socialist public.
As the custom of requiring signed resignations, by which alone the
Socialist Party controls its members in public office, is not yet
prescribed by the Party constitution, local and state organizations have
a large measure of autonomy, and the Berkeley case was dropped until the
next national convention (1912). But the action taken by the Socialists
of Lima, Ohio, indicates that the Party will not allow itself to be
destroyed in this manner. Mayor Shook, by his appointment to office of
non-Socialists, and even of a prominent anti-Socialist, caused the local
that elected him to present his signed resignation to the city council,
which the latter body ignored at the mayor's request. The mayor was
promptly expelled from the Party, and the Socialists of the country have
almost unanimously approved the expulsion.[202]
The comment of the _New York Call_ on this incident undoubtedly reflects
the feeling of the majority of the Socialist Party:--
"Owing to the multiplicity of elections we must go through, owing
to the peculiar division and subdivision of the administrative
authority in this country, this is a thing we shall have to face
with accumulating frequency. But that the Socialist Party is sound
on the theories of what it is after, and on its own rights as an
organization, are both demonstrated by the action taken by Local
Lima. The members permanently expelled the traitor. Now let him go
ahead and do what he can, personally gain what he can. He does it
as a non-Socialist, as a man who is held up to contempt by every
decent party member, and is probably held in the most absolute
contempt by those who were able to seduce him with such ease.
"At the present state of our development, it is easy for a
plausible adventurer to take advantage of the Socialist movement
and to use it to a certain point. Where such an adventurer falls
down never to rise again, is when he tries 'to deliver the goods'
to those whom he serves....
"That he did not possess even rudimentary honesty is shown by the
fact that he prevented his letter of resignation from being
received by the City Council. This manner of resignation is not and
never has been with the Socialists a mere formality. It is a
vital, necessary thing, and should be insisted upon at all times
and in all places. No man should go on the ticket unless he has
signed the resignation, and no man, unless he is a scoundrel, will
sign it unless he intends to live up to it.
"There may be other Shooks in the party, but they should be
searched out before nominations, instead of being permitted to
reveal themselves after nomination."[203]
"The Socialist Party must conform to the conditions imposed upon other
parties," says Mr. J. R. MacDonald in agreement with Mr. Wilson's
position.[204] On the contrary, no Socialist Party could possibly
survive such an attitude. It is only the refusal to conform that assures
their continued existence.
There is no possibility that the Socialist parties of Continental Europe
would for a moment allow the State to prescribe their form of
organization. Kautsky thus describes the German and the French methods
of control:--
"A class is only sure that its interests in Parliament will always
be furthered by its representatives in the most decisive and for
the time being most effective manner, if it is not content with
electing them to Parliament, but always oversees and directs their
Parliamentary activities."
Kautsky illustrates this principle of controlling elected persons by
referring to the methods of labor unions, and proceeds:--
"The same mass action, the same discipline, the same 'tyranny'
which characterize the economic organizations of labor is also
suitable to labor parties, and this discipline applies not only to
the masses, it also applies to those who represent them before the
public, to its leaders. No one of these, no matter in what position
he may be, can undertake any kind of political action against the
will or _even without the consent of his comrades_. The Social
Democratic representative is no free man in _this capacity_, as
burdensome as that may sound, but the delegate of his party. If his
views come into conflict with theirs, then he must cease to be
their representative.
"The present-day Member of Parliament ... is not the delegate of
his election district, but, as a matter of fact, if not legally,
the delegate of his party. But this is not true of any party to
such an extent as it is of the Social Democracy. And while the
party discipline of the bourgeois parties is, in truth, the
discipline of a small clique which stands above the separated
masses of voters, with the Social Democracy it is the discipline of
an organization which embraces the whole mass of the aggressive and
intelligent part of the proletariat, and which is stretching
itself more and more to embrace the whole of the working class."
(My italics.)[205]
In the introduction to the same booklet, Kautsky sums up for us in a few
words the methods in use in France:--
"Our French comrades have created for the solution of this
difficulty a body between the Party Congress and the Party
Executive like our Committee of Control, but different from the
latter in that it counts more members who are elected not by the
Congress, but directly by the comrades of the various districts
which they represent. A right to elect five members to the Party
Congress gives the right to elect one member to the National
Council.
"The National Council elects from the twenty-two members of the
permanent Executive Committee the five party secretaries, whose
functions are paid. It conducts the general propaganda, oversees
the execution of party decisions, prepares for the Congresses,
oversees the party press and the group in Parliament, and has the
right to undertake all measures which the situation at the moment
demands."[206]
We see that the Socialist members of the national legislatures, both in
Germany and France, are under the most rigid control, and we cannot
doubt that if such control becomes impossible on account of legislation
enacted by hostile governments, an entirely new form of organization
will be devised by which the members of the Socialist Party can regain
this power. Either this will be done, or the "Socialist" Party which
continues to exist in a form dictated by its enemies, will be Socialist
in name only, and Socialists will reorganize--probably along the lines I
have suggested.
It would seem, then, that neither by an attack from without or from
within is the revolutionary character of Socialism or the essential
unity of the Socialist organization to be destroyed.
The departure from the Party of individuals or factions that had not
recognized its true nature, and were only there by some misunderstanding
or by local or temporary circumstances is a necessary part of the
process of growth. On the contrary, the Party is damaged only in case
these individuals and factions remain in the organization and become a
majority. The failure of those who represent the Party's fundamental
principles to maintain control, might easily prove fatal; with the
subordination of its principles the movement would disintegrate from
within. In fact, the possibility of the deliberate wrecking of the
Party in such circumstances, by enemies within its own ranks, has been
pointed out and greatly feared by Liebknecht and other representative
Socialists. This tendency, however, seems to be subsiding in those
countries in which the movement is most highly developed, such as
Germany and France.
FOOTNOTES:
[196] Quoted by Chairman Singer at the Congress of 1909.
[197] Quoted by _Vorwaerts_ (Berlin), Sept. 24, 1909.
[198] The proceedings of most of the German Party Congresses may be
obtained through the _Vorwaerts_ (Berlin), those of the International
and American Congresses from the Secretary of the Socialist Party, 180
Washington St., Chicago, Ill.
[199] Kautsky, "Der Aufstand in Baden," in the _Neue Zeit_, 1910, p.
624.
[200] The _Socialist Review_, April, 1909.
[201] The _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1911.
[202] The _New York Call_, Jan. 6 and 8, 1912.
[203] The _New York Call_, Jan. 9, 1912.
[204] The _Socialist Review_ (London), April, 1909.
[205] "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," 1911 edition, pp. 114-116.
[206] "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," 1911 edition, pp. 14-15.
PART III
SOCIALISM IN ACTION
CHAPTER I
SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE"
Socialists have always taught that Socialism can develop only out of the
full maturity of capitalism, and so favor the normal advance of
capitalist industry and government and the reforms of capitalist
collectivism--on their constructive side. But if capitalism in its
highest form of "State Socialism" is the only foundation upon which the
Socialism can be built, it is at the same time that form of capitalism
which will prevail when Socialism reaches maturity and is ready for
decisive action; and it is, therefore, the very enemy against which the
Socialist hosts will have been drilled and the Socialist tactics
evolved.
The older capitalism, which professed to oppose all industrial
activities of the government, must disappear, but it is not the object
of attack, for the capitalists themselves will abandon it without
Socialist intervention in any form. Socialists have urged on this
evolution from the older to the newer capitalism by taking the field
against the reactionaries, but they do not, as a rule, claim that by
this action they are doing any more for Socialism than they are for
progressive capitalism.
Socialism can only do what capitalism, after it has reached its
culmination in State capitalism, leaves undone; namely, to take
effective measures to establish equal opportunity and abolish class
government. To accomplish this, Socialists realize they must reckon with
the resistance of every element of society that enjoys superior
opportunities or profits from capitalist government, and they must know
just which these elements are. It must be decided which of the
non-privileged classes are to be permanently relied upon in the fight
for this great change, to what point each will be ready to go, and of
what effective action it is capable. Next, the classes upon which it is
decided to rely must be brought together and organized. And, finally,
the individual members of these classes must be developed, by education
and social struggles, until they are able to overcome the resistance of
the classes now in control of industry and government.
The popular conviction that the very _existence_ of social classes is in
complete contradiction with the principles of democracy, no amount of
contrary teaching has been able to blot out. What has not been so
clearly seen is the active and constant _resistance_ of the privileged
classes to popular government and industrial democracy, _i.e._ the class
struggle.
"We have long rested comfortably in this country on the assumption,"
says Senator La Follette, "that because our form of government was
democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results.
Now there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of
democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny
and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any
other. We are slowly realizing that democracy is a life, and involves
continual struggle."[207]
Senator La Follette fails only to note that this struggle to make
democracy a reality is not a struggle in the heart of the individual,
but between groups of individuals, that these groups are not formed by
differences of temperament or opinion, but by economic interests, and
that nearly every group falls into one of two great classes, those whose
interests are with and those whose interests are against the capitalists
and capitalist government.
Why is the sinister rôle of the upper classes not universally grasped?
Because the ideas and teachings of former generations still survive,
however much contradicted by present developments. At the time of the
American and French Revolutions and for nearly a century afterwards,
when political democracy was first securing a world-wide acceptance _as
an ideal_, it was looked upon as a creed which had only to be mentally
accepted in order to be forthwith applied to life. The only forces of
resistance were thought to be due to the ignorance or possibly to the
unregenerate moral character of the unconverted. The democratic faith
was accepted and propagated by the French and others almost exactly as
religion had been. As late as the middle of the last century this
conception of democracy, due to the wide diffusion of small and in many
localities approximately equal farms and small businesses, continued to
prevail.
About the middle of the nineteenth century the first advance was made.
It became recognized with the coming of railroads and steamships that
society could never become fixed as a Utopia or in any other form, but
must always be subject to change,--and the ideal of social evolution
gained a considerable acceptance even before the evolution theory had
been generally applied to biology. It was seen that if the ideal of
democracy was to become a reality, a certain degree of intellectual and
material development was required,--but it was thought that this
development was at hand. It was a period when wealth was rapidly
becoming more equally distributed, when plenty of free land remained,
and when it was commonly supposed that universal free trade and
universal peace were about to dawn upon the nations, and equal
opportunity, if not yet achieved, was not far away. The obstacles in the
way of progress were not the resistance of privileged classes, but the
time and labor required for mankind to conquer the world and nature.
With the establishment of so-called democratic and constitutional
republics in the place of monarchies and landlord aristocracies, and the
abolition of slavery in the United States, all systematic opposition to
social progress, except in the minds of a few perverted or criminal
individuals, was supposed to be at an end.
A generation or two ago, then, though it was now recognized that the
golden age could not be attained immediately by merely converting the
majority to a wise and beneficent social system (as had been proposed in
the first half of the century), yet it was thought that, with the
advance of science and the conquest of nature, and without any serious
civil strife, "equality of opportunity" was being gradually and rapidly
brought to all mankind. This state of mind has survived and is still
that of the majority to-day, when the conditions that have given rise to
it have disappeared.
Not all previous history has a greater economic change to show than the
latter half of the nineteenth century, which converted all the leading
countries from nations of small capitalists into nations of hired
employees. Even such a far-sighted and broad-minded statesman as
Lincoln, for example, had no idea of the future of his country, and
regarded the slaveowners and their supporters as the only classes that
dreamed that we could ever become a nation of "hired laborers" (the
capitalism of to-day), any more than we could remain in part a nation of
"bought laborers." Lincoln puts a society based on hired labor in the
same class with a society based on owned labor, on the ground that both
lead to an effort "to place capital on an equal footing, if not above
labor in the structure of the government." This effort, marked by the
proposal of "the abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the
denial to the people of the right to participate in the selection of
public officers except the legislative" (so similar to tendencies
prevailing to-day), he calls "returning despotism." And so inevitable
did it seem to Lincoln that a nation based on hired labor would evolve a
despotic government, that he fell back on the fact that the population
was composed chiefly not of laborers, but of small capitalists, and
would probably remain so constituted, as the only convincing ground that
our political democracy would last. In a word, our greatest statesman
recognized that our political democracy and liberty were based on the
wide distribution of the land and other forms of capital. (See Lincoln's
Message of December 3, 1861.) If Lincoln foresaw no class struggle
between "hired labor" and the "returning despotism," this was only
because he mistakenly expected that the nation would continue to consist
chiefly of small capitalists. Yet his conclusions and those of his
contemporaries, so clearly limited to conditions that have passed away,
are taught like a gospel to the children in our public schools to-day.
The present generation, however, is slowly realizing, through the
development of organized capitalism in industry and government, and the
increase of hired laborers, that it is not nature alone that
civilization must contend against, not merely ignorance or poverty or
the backwardness of material development, but, more important than all
these, the systematic opposition of the employing and governing classes
to every program of improvement, except that which promises still
further to increase their own wealth and power.
The Socialist view of the evolution of society is that the central fact
of history is this struggle of classes for political and economic power.
The governing class of any society or period, Marx taught, consists of
the economic exploiters, the governed class of the economically
exploited. The governing class becomes more and more firmly established
in power, until it begins to stagnate, but the machinery of production
continues to evolve, and falls gradually into the hands of some
exploited element which is able to use this economic advantage as a
means for overthrowing its rulers. Marx felt that with the vast
revolution in society marked by modern science and modern machinery, the
time is fast approaching when the exploited classes of to-day will be
able to overthrow the present ruling class, the capitalists, and at the
same time establish an industrial democracy, where all class oppression
will be brought to an end.
However his predictions may turn out in the future, Marx's view of the
past is rapidly gaining ground and is possibly accepted by the majority
of those most competent to speak on these questions to-day, including
many leading economists and sociologists and prominent figures in
practical political life. Winston Churchill, for example, says that "the
differences between class and class have been even aggravated in the
passage of years," that while "the richer classes [are] ever growing in
wealth and in numbers, and ever declining in responsibility, the very
poor remain plunged or plunging even deeper into helpless, hopeless
misery." This being the case, he predicts "a savage strife between class
and class," unless the most radical measures are taken to check the
tendency. Nor are his statements mere rhetoric, for he shows
statistically "that the increase of income assessable to income tax is
at the very least more than ten times greater than the increase which
has taken place in the same period in the wages of those trades which
come within the Board of Trade returns."[208] In other words, the income
of the well-to-do classes (which increased nearly half a billion pounds,
that is, almost doubled, in ten years) is growing ten times more rapidly
than that even of the organized and better paid workmen, who alone are
considered in the Board of Trade returns.
Here is a situation which is world-wide. The position of the working
class, or certain parts of it, may be improving; the income of the
employing and capitalist class is certainly increasing _many fold_ more
rapidly. Here is the financial expression of the growing _divergence_ of
classes which Marx had in mind, a divergence that we have no reason
whatever for supposing will be checked, as Mr. Churchill suggests, even
by his most "Socialistic" reforms, short of surrendering the political
and economic power to those who suffer from this condition.
At the German Socialist Congress at Hanover in 1899, Bebel said that
even if the income of the working class was increasing, or even if the
purchasing power of total wages was becoming greater, the income of the
nation as a whole was increasing much more rapidly and that of the
capitalist class at a still more rapid rate. The great Socialist
statesman laid emphasis on the essential point that capitalists are
absorbing continually a greater and a greater proportion of the national
income.
The class struggle, says Kautsky, rests not upon the fact that the
misery of the proletariat is growing greater, but on _its need to
annihilate a pressure that it feels more and more keenly_.
"The class struggle," he writes, "becomes more bitter the longer it
lasts. The more capable of struggle the opponents become in and through
the struggle itself, _the more important become the differences in their
conditions of life, the more the capitalists raise themselves above the
proletariat by the ever growing exploitation_."[209]
This feature of present-day (capitalistic) progress, Socialists view as
the very essence of social injustice, no matter whether there is a
slight and continuous or even a considerable progress of the working
class. The question for them is not whether from time to time something
more falls to the workingman, but what proportion he gets of the total
product. It would never occur to any one to try to tell a business man
that he ought not to sell any more goods because his profits were
already increasing "fast enough." It is as absurd to tell the workingman
that the moderate advance he is making either through slight
improvements as to wages and hours, or through political and social
reforms, ought to blind him to all the possibilities of modern
civilization from which he is still shut off, and which will remain out
of his reach for generations, unless his share in the income of society
is rapidly increased to the point that he (and other non-capitalist
producers) receive the total product.
The conflict of class interests is not a mere theory, but a widely
recognized reality, and the worst accusation that can be made against
Socialists is not that they are trying to create a war of classes where
none exists, but that some of them at times interpret the conflict in a
narrow or violent sense (I shall discuss the truth or untruth of this
criticism in later chapters). Yet Mr. Roosevelt voices the opinion of
many when he calls the view that the maximum of progress is to be
secured only after a struggle between the classes, the "most mischievous
of Socialist theses," says that an appeal to class interest is not
"legitimate," and that the Socialists hope "in one shape or another to
profit at the expense of the other citizens of the Republic."[210]
"There is no greater need to-day," said Mr. Roosevelt in his Sorbonne
lecture, "than the need to keep ever in mind the fact that the cleavage
between right and wrong, between good citizenship and bad citizenship,
runs at right angles to, not parallel to, the lines of cleavage between
class and class, between occupation and occupation. Ruin looks us in the
face if we judge a man by his position instead of judging him by his
conduct in that position."
This is as much as to say that there are only individuals, but no class,
which it is better to have outside than inside of a progressive
majority. The Socialist view is the exact opposite. It holds that _the
very foundation of Socialism as a method_ (which is its only aspect of
practical importance) is that the Socialist movement assumes a position
so militant and radical that every privileged class will voluntarily
remain on the outside; and events are showing the wisdom and even the
necessity of these tactics. Socialists would say, "Ruin looks us in the
face if, in politics, we judge the men who occupy a certain position
(the members of a certain class) by their conduct as individuals,
instead of judging them by the fact that they occupy a certain position
and are members of a certain class."
Again, to the Chamber of Commerce at New Haven, Mr. Roosevelt expressed
a view which, to judge by their actions, is that of all non-Socialist
reformers: "I am a radical," he said, "who most earnestly desires to see
a radical platform carried out by conservatives. I wish to see great
industrial reforms carried out, not by the men who will profit by them,
but by the men who will lose by them; by such men as you are around me."
Socialists, on the contrary, believe that industrial reforms will never
lead to equality of opportunity except when carried out wholly
independently of the conservatives who will lose by them. They believe
that such reforms as are carried out by the capitalists and their
governments, beneficent, radical, and even stupendous as they may be,
will not and cannot constitute the first or smallest step towards
industrial democracy.
Mr. Roosevelt's views are identical on this point with those of Mr.
Woodrow Wilson and other progressive leaders of the opposite party.
Mayor Gaynor of New York, for example, was quoted explaining the great
changes that took place in the fall elections of 1910 on these grounds:
"We are emerging from an evil case. The flocking of nearly all the
business men, owners of property, and even persons with $100 in the
savings bank, to one party made a division line and created a contrast
which must have led to trouble if much longer continued. The
intelligence of the country is asserting itself, and business men and
property owners will again divide themselves normally between the
parties, as formerly." Here again is the fundamental antithesis to the
Socialist view. Leaving aside for the moment the situation of persons
with $100 in the savings bank, or owners of property in general (who
might possess nothing more than a small home), Socialists are working,
with considerable success, towards the day when at least one great party
will take a position so radical that the overwhelming majority of
business men (or at least the representatives of by far the larger part
of business and capital) will be forced automatically into the opposite
organization.
Without this militant attitude Socialists believe that even the most
radical reforms, not excepting those that sincerely propose equal
opportunity or the abolition of social classes _as their ultimate aim_,
must fail to carry society forward a single step in that direction.
Take, as an example, Dr. Lyman Abbott, whose advanced views I have
already referred to (see Part I, Chap. III). Notwithstanding his
advocacy of industrial democracy, his attack on the autocracy of
capitalism and the wages system, and his insistence that the distinction
between non-possessing and possessing classes must be abolished, Dr.
Abbott opposes a class struggle. Such phrases amount to nothing from the
Socialist standpoint, if all of these objects are held up merely as an
ideal, and if nothing is said of the rate at which they ought to be
attained or the means by which the _opposition_ of privileged classes is
to be overcome. No indorsement of any so-called Socialist theory or
reform is of practical moment unless it includes that theory which has
survived out of the struggles of the movement, and has been tested by
hard experience--a theory in which ways and means are not the last but
the first consideration,--namely, the class struggle.
Mr. Roosevelt and nearly all other popular leaders of the day denounce
"special privilege." But the denouncers of special privilege, aside from
the organized Socialists, are only too glad to associate themselves with
one or another of the classes that at present possess the economic and
political power. To the Socialists the only way to fight special
privilege is _to place the control of society in the hands of a
non-privileged majority. The practical experience of the movement_ has
taught the truth of what some of its early exponents saw at the outset,
that a majority _composed even in part_ of the privileged classes could
never be trusted or expected to abolish privileges. Neither Dr. Abbott,
Mr. Roosevelt, nor other opponents of the Socialist movement, are ready
to indorse this practical working theory. For its essence being that all
those who by their economic expressions or their acts stand for anything
less than equality of opportunity should be removed from positions of
power, it is directed against every anti-Socialist. Dr. Abbott, for
example, demands only "opportunity," instead of equal opportunity, and
Mr. Roosevelt wishes merely "to start all men in the race for life on a
_reasonable_ equality." (My italics.)[211]
Let us see what Marx and his successors say in explanation of their
belief that the "class struggle" must be fought out to an end. Certainly
they do not mean that each individual capitalist is to be regarded by
his working people as their private enemy. Nor, on the other hand, can
the expression "class struggle" be interpreted, as some Socialists have
asserted, to mean that there was no flesh and blood enemy to be
attacked, but only "the capitalist system." To Marx capitalism was
embodied not merely in institutions, which embrace all classes and
individuals alike, but also in the persons of the capitalist class. And
by waging a war against that class he meant to include each and every
member of it who remained in his class, and every one of its supporters.
To Marx the enemy was no abstraction. It was, as he said, "the person,
the living individual" that had to be contended with, but only as the
embodiment of a class. "It is not sufficient," he said, "to fight the
general conditions and the higher powers. The press must make up its
mind to oppose _this_ constable, _this_ attorney, _this_
councilor."[212] These individuals, moreover, he viewed not merely as
the servants or representatives of a system, but as part and parcel of a
class.
The struggle that Marx had in mind might be called _a latent civil
war_. It was not a mere preparation for revolution, since it was as real
and serious in times of peace as in those of revolution or civil war.
But it was a civil war in everything except the actual physical
fighting, and he was always ready to proceed to actual fighting when
necessary. Throughout his life Marx was a revolutionist. And when his
successors to-day speak of "the class struggle," they mean a conflict of
that depth and intensity that it may lead to revolution.
None of the classical Socialist writers, however, has failed to grasp
the absolute necessity to a successful social movement, and especially
to a revolutionary one, of making the class struggle broad, inclusive,
and democratic. In 1851 Marx wrote to the Socialists: "The forces
opposed to you have all the advantages of organization, discipline, and
habitual authority; unless you bring _strong odds_ against them you are
defeated and ruined." (The italics are mine.)
Edward Bernstein, while representing as a rule only the ultra-moderate
element of the Party, expresses on this question the views of the
majority as well. "Social Democracy," he says, "cannot further its work
better than by taking its stand unreservedly on the theory of
democracy." And he adds that in practice it has always favored
coöperation with all the exploited, even if "its literary advocates have
often acted otherwise, and still often do so to-day."
Not many years ago, it is true, there was still a great deal of talk in
Germany about the desirability of a "dictatorship of the proletariat,"
the term "proletariat" being used in its narrow sense. That is, as soon
as the working class (in this sense) became a political majority, it was
to make the government embody its will without reference to other
classes--it being assumed that the manual laborers will only demand
justice for all men alike, and that it was neither safe nor necessary to
consult any of the middle classes. And even to-day in France much is
said by the "syndicalists" and others as to the power of well-organized
and determined minorities in the time of revolution--it being assumed,
again, that such minorities will be successful only in so far as they
stand for a new social principle, to the ultimate interest of all (see
Chapter V). It cannot be questioned that in these schemes the majority
is not to be consulted. But they are far less widely prevalent than
they were a generation ago.
The pioneer of "reformist" Socialism in Germany (Bernstein) correctly
defines democracy, not as the rule of the majority, but as "an absence
of class government." "This negative definition has," he says, "the
advantage that it gives less room than the phrase 'government by the
people' to the idea of oppression of the individual by the majority,
which is absolutely repugnant to the modern mind. To-day we find the
oppression of the minority by the majority 'undemocratic,' although it
was originally held up to be quite consistent with government by the
people.... Democracy is in _principle_ the suppression of class
government, though it is not yet the _actual_ suppression of
classes."[213]
Democracy, as we have hitherto known it, opposes class _government_, but
countenances the existence of classes. Socialism insists that as long as
social classes exist, class government will continue. The aim of
Socialism, "the end of class struggles and class rule," is not only
democratic, but the only means of giving democracy any real meaning.
"It is only the proletariat" (wage earners), writes Kautsky, "that has
created a great social ideal, the consummation of which will leave only
one source of income, _i.e._ labor, will abolish rent and profit, will
put an end to class and other conflicts, and put in the place of the
class struggle the solidarity of man. This is the final aim and goal of
the class struggle by the Socialist Party. The political representatives
of the class interests of the proletariat thus become representative of
the highest and most general interests of humanity."[214]
It is expected that nearly all social classes, though separated into
several groups to-day, will ultimately be thrown together by economic
evolution and common interests into two large groups, the capitalists
and their allies on the one side, and the anti-capitalists on the other.
The final and complete victory of the latter, it is believed, can alone
put an end to this great conflict. But in the meanwhile, even before our
capitalist society is overthrown and class divisions ended, the very
fusing together of the several classes that compose the anti-capitalist
party is bringing about a degree of social harmony not seen before.
Already the Socialists have succeeded in this way in harmonizing a large
number of conflicting class interests. The skilled workingmen were
united for the first time with the unskilled when the latter, having
been either ignored or subordinated in the early trade unions, were
admitted on equal terms into the Socialist parties. Then the often
extremely discontented salaried and professional men of small incomes,
having been won by Socialist philosophy, laid aside their sense of
superiority to the wage earners and were absorbed in large numbers.
Later, many agricultural laborers and even agriculturists who did all
their own work, and whose small capital brought them no return, began to
conquer their suspicion of the city wage workers. And, finally, many of
those small business men and independent farmers, the _larger part_ of
whose income is to be set down as the direct result of their own labor
and not a result of their ownership of a small capital, or who feel that
they are being reduced to such a condition, are commencing in many
instances to look upon themselves as non-capitalists rather than
capitalists--and to work for equality of opportunity through the
Socialist movement.
The process of building up a truly democratic society has two parts:
first, the organization and union in a single movement of all classes
that stand for the abolition of classes, and class rule; and second, the
overthrow of those social elements that stand in the way of this natural
evolution, their destruction and dissolution _as classes_, and the
absorption of their members by the new society as individuals.
It becomes of the utmost importance in such a vast struggle, on the one
hand, that no classes that are needed in the new society shall be marked
for destruction, and on the other that the movement shall not lean too
heavily or exclusively on classes which have very little or too little
constructive or combative power. What, then, is the leading principle by
which the two groups are to be made up and distinguished? Neither the
term "capitalist classes" nor the term "working classes" is entirely
clear or entirely satisfactory.
Mr. Roosevelt, for example, gives the common impression when he accuses
the Socialists of using the term "working class" in the narrow sense and
of taking the position that "all wealth is produced by manual workers,
that the entire product of labor should be handed over to the
laborer."[215] I shall show that Socialist writers and speakers, even
when they use the expression "working class," almost universally include
others than the manual laborers among those they expect to make up the
anti-capitalistic movement.
Kautsky's definition of the working class, for example, is: "Workers
who are divorced from their power of production to the extent that they
can produce nothing by their own efforts, and are therefore compelled in
order to escape starvation to sell the only commodity they
possess--their labor power." In present-day society, especially in a
rich country like America, it is as a rule not sheer "starvation" that
drives, but needs of other kinds that are almost as compelling. But the
point I am concerned with now is that this definition, widely accepted
by Socialists, draws no line whatever between manual and intellectual
workers. In another place Kautsky refers to the industrial working class
as being the recruiting ground for Socialism, which might seem to be
giving a preferred position to manual workers; but a few paragraphs
below he again qualifies his statement by adding that "to the working
class there belong, just as much as the wage earners, the members of the
new middle class," which I shall describe below.[216]
In other statements of their position, it is the context which makes the
Socialist meaning clear. The party Platform of Canada, for instance,
uses throughout the simple term "working class," without any
explanation, but it speaks of the struggle as taking place against the
"capitalists," and as it mentions no other classes, the reader is left
to divide all society between these two, which would evidently make it
necessary to classify many besides mere manual wage earners rather among
the anti-capitalist than among the capitalist forces.
The platform of the American Socialist Party in 1904 divided the
population between the "capitalists," and the "working or _producing
class_." "Between these two classes," says this platform, "there can be
no possible compromise ... except in the conscious and complete triumph
of the working class as the only class that has the right or _power_ to
be."
"By working people," said Liebknecht, "we do not understand merely the
manual workers, but _every one who does not live on the labor of
another_." His words should be memorized by all those who wish to
understand the first principles of Socialism:--
"Some maintain, it is true, that the wage-earning proletariat is
the only really revolutionary class, that it alone forms the
Socialist army, and that we ought to regard with suspicion all
adherents belonging to other classes or other conditions of life.
Fortunately these senseless ideas have never taken hold of the
German Social Democracy.
"The wage-earning class is most directly affected by capitalist
exploitation; it stands face to face with those who exploit it, and
it has the especial advantage of being concentrated in the
factories and yards, so that it is naturally led to think things
out more energetically and finds itself automatically organized
into 'battalions of workers.' This state of things gives it a
revolutionary character which no other part of society has to the
same degree. We must recognize this frankly.
"Every wage earner is either a Socialist already, or he is on the
high road to becoming one.
"We must not limit our conception of the term 'working class' too
narrowly. As we have explained in speeches, tracts, and articles,
we include in the working class all those who live exclusively _or
principally_ by means of their own labor, and who do not grow rich
from the work of others.
"Thus, besides the wage earners, we should include in the working
class the small farmers and small shop keepers, who tend more and
more to drop to the level of the proletariat--in other words, all
those who suffer from our present system of production on a large
scale." (My italics.)
The chief questions now confronting the Socialists are all connected,
directly or indirectly, with these producing middle classes, who, on the
whole, do not live on the labor of others and suffer from the present
system, yet often enjoy some modest social privilege.
While Liebknecht considered that the wage-earning class was more
revolutionary and Socialistic than any other, he did not allow this for
one moment to persuade him to give a subordinate position to other
classes in the movement, as he says:--
"The unhappy situation of the small farmers almost all over Germany
is as well known as that of the artisan movement. It is true that
both small farmers and small shopkeepers are still in the camp of
our adversaries, but only because they do not understand the
profound causes that underlie their deplorable condition; it is of
prime importance for our party to enlighten them and bring them
over to our side. _This is the vital question for our party,
because these two classes form the majority of the nation._... We
ought not to ask, 'Are you a wage earner?' but, 'Are you a
Socialist?'
"If it is limited to the wage earners, Socialism cannot conquer. If
it included all the workers and the moral and intellectual élite of
the nation, its victory is certain.... Not to contract, but to
expand, ought to be our motto. The circle of Socialism should
widen more and more, _until we have converted most of our
adversaries to being our friends_, or at least disarm their
opposition.
"And the indifferent mass, that in peaceful days has no weight in
the political balance, but becomes the decisive force in times of
agitation, ought to be so fully enlightened as to the aims and the
essential ideas of our party, that it would cease to fear us and
can be no longer used as a weapon against us."[217] (My italics.)
Karl Kautsky, though he takes a less broad view, also says that the
Socialist Party is "the only anti-capitalist party,"[218] and contends
in his recent pamphlet, "The Road to Power," that its recruiting ground
in Germany includes three fourths of the nation, and probably even more,
which (even in Germany) would include a considerable part of those
ordinarily listed with the middle class.
Kautsky's is probably the prevailing opinion among German Socialists.
Let us see how he proposes to compose a Socialist majority. Of course
his first reliance is on the manual laborers, skilled and unskilled.
Next come the professional classes, the salaried corporation employees,
and a large part of the office workers, which together constitute what
Kautsky and the other Continental Socialists call the _new_ middle
class. "Among these," Kautsky says, "a continually increasing sympathy
for the proletariat is evident, because they have no special class
interest, and owing to their professional, scientific point of view, are
easiest won for our party through scientific considerations. The
theoretical bankruptcy of bourgeois economics, and the theoretical
superiority of Socialism, must become clear to them. Through their
training, also, they must discover that the other social classes
continuously strive to debase art and science. Many others are impressed
by the fact of the irresistible advance of the Social Democracy. So it
is that friendship for labor becomes popular among the cultured classes,
until there is scarcely a parlor in which one does not stumble over one
or more 'Socialists.'"
It is difficult to understand how it can be said that these classes have
no special "class interest," unless it is meant that their interest is
neither that of the capitalists nor precisely that of the industrial
wage-earning class. And this, indeed, is Kautsky's meaning, for he seems
to minimize their value to the Socialists, because _as a class_ they
cannot be relied upon.
"Heretofore, as long as Socialism was branded among all cultured
classes as criminal or insane, capitalist elements could be brought
into the Socialist movement only by a complete break with the
whole capitalist world. Whoever came into the Socialist movement at
that time from the capitalist element had need of great energy,
revolutionary passion, and strong proletarian convictions. It was
just this element which ordinarily constituted the most radical and
revolutionary wing of the Socialist movement.
"It is wholly different to-day, since Socialism has become a fad.
It no longer demands any special energy, or any break with
capitalist society to assume the name of Socialist. It is no
wonder, then, that more and more these new Socialists remain
entangled in their previous manner of thought and feeling.
"The fighting tactics of the intellectuals are at any rate wholly
different from those of the proletariat. To wealth and power of
arms the latter opposes its overwhelming numbers and its thorough
organization. The intellectuals are an ever diminishing minority,
with no class organization whatever. Their only weapon is
persuasion through speaking and writing, the battle with
'intellectual weapons' and 'moral superiority,' and these 'parlor
Socialists' would settle the proletarian class struggle also with
these weapons. They declare themselves ready to grant the party
their moral support, but only on condition that it renounces the
idea of the application of force, and this not simply where force
is hopeless,--there the proletariat has already renounced it,--but
also in those places where it is still full of possibilities.
Accordingly they seek to throw discredit on the idea of revolution,
and to represent it as a useless means. They seek to separate off a
social reform wing from the revolutionary proletariat, and they
thereby divide and weaken the proletariat."[219]
In the last words Kautsky refers to the fact that although a large
number of "intellectuals" (meaning the educated classes) have come into
the Socialist Party and remain there, they constitute a separate wing of
the movement. We must remember, however, that this same wing embraces,
besides these "parlor Socialists," a great many trade unionists, and
that it has composed a very considerable portion of the German Party,
and a majority in some other countries of the Continent; and as Kautsky
himself admits that they succeed in "dividing the proletariat," they
cannot be very far removed politically from at least one of the
divisions they are said to have created. It is impossible to attribute
the kind of Socialism to which Kautsky objects to the adhesion of
certain educated classes to the movement (for reasons indicated in Part
II).
While many of the present spokesmen of Socialism are, like Kautsky,
somewhat skeptical as to the necessity of an alliance between the
working class and this section of the middle class, others accept it
without qualification. If, then, we consider at once the middle ground
taken by the former group of Socialists, and the very positive and
friendly attitude of the latter, it must be concluded that the Socialist
movement _as a whole_ is convinced that its success depends upon a
fusion of at least these two elements, the wage earners and "the new
middle class."
A few quotations from the well-known revolutionary Socialist, Anton
Pannekoek, will show the contrast between the narrower kind of
Socialism, which still survives in many quarters, and that of the
majority of the movement. He discriminates even against "the new middle
class," leaving nobody but the manual laborers as a fruitful soil for
real Socialism.
"To be sure, in the economic sense of the term, then, the new
middle class are proletarians; but they form a very special group
of wage workers, a group that is so sharply divided from the _real_
proletarians that they form a special class with a special position
in the class struggle.... Immediate need does not _compel_ them as
it does the real proletarians to attack the capitalist system.
Their position may arouse discontent, but that of the workers is
unendurable. For them Socialism has many advantages, for the
workers it is an _absolute_ necessity." (My italics.)[220]
The phrase "absolute necessity" is unintelligible. It is
comparatively rarely that need arises to the height of actual
compulsion, and when it does instances are certainly just as common
among clerks as they are among bricklayers.
Pannekoek introduces a variety of arguments to sustain his
position. For instance, that "the higher strata among the new
middle class have a definitely capitalistic character. The lower
ones are more proletarian, but there is no sharp dividing line."
This is true--but the high strata in every class are capitalistic.
The statement applies equally well to railway conductors, to
foremen, and to many classes of manual workers.
"And then, too," Pannekoek continues, "they, the new middle class,
have more to fear from the displeasure of their masters, and
dismissal for them is a much more serious matter. The worker stands
always on the verge of starvation, and so unemployment has few
terrors for him. The high-class employee, on the contrary, has
comparatively an easy life, and a new position is difficult to
find."
Now it is precisely the manual laborer who is most often
blacklisted by the large corporations and trusts; and the
brain-working employee is better able to adapt himself to some
slightly different employment than is the skilled worker in any of
the highly specialized trades.
"For the cause of Socialism we can count on this new middle
class," says Pannekoek, "even less than on the labor unions. For
one thing, they have been set over the workers, as superintendents,
overseers, bosses, etc. In these capacities they are supposed to
speed up the workers to get the utmost out of them."
Is it not even more common, we may ask, that one manual worker is
set over another than that a brain worker is set over a manual
laborer?
"They [the new middle class] are divided," writes Pannekoek, "into
numberless grades and ranks arranged one above the other; they do
not meet as comrades, and so cannot develop the spirit of
solidarity. Each individual does not make it a matter of personal
pride to improve the condition of his entire class; the important
thing is rather that he personally struggles up into the next
higher rank."
If we remember the more favorable hours and conditions under which
the brain workers are employed, the fact that they are not so
exhausted physically and that they have education, we may see that
they have perhaps even greater chances "to develop their
solidarity" and to understand their class interests than have the
manual workers. It is true that they are more divided at the
present time, but there is a tendency throughout all the highly
organized industries to divide the manual laborers in the same way
and to secure more work from them by a similar system of
promotions.
Pannekoek accuses the brain workers of having something to lose,
again forgetting that there are innumerable groups of more or less
privileged manual laborers who are in the same position. And
finally, he contends that their superior schooling and education is
a disadvantage when compared to the lack of education of the manual
laborers:--
"They have great notions of their own education and refinement,
feel themselves above the masses; it naturally never occurs to them
that the ideals of these masses may be scientifically correct and
that the 'science' of their professors may be false. As theorizers
seeing the world always with their minds, knowing little or nothing
of material activities, they are fairly convinced that mind
controls the world."
On the contrary, nearly all influential Socialist thinkers agree
that present-day science, _poorly as it is taught_, is not only an
aid to Socialism, but the very best basis for it.
Pannekoek is right, for instance, when he says that most of the
brain workers in the Socialist movement come from the circles of
the small capitalists and bring an anti-Socialist prejudice with
them, but he forgets that, on the other side, the overwhelming
majority of the world's working people are the children of farmers,
peasants, or of absolutely unskilled and illiterate workers, whose
views of life were even more prejudiced and whose minds were
perhaps even more filled up with the ideas that the ruling classes
have placed there.
The arguments of the American Socialist, Thomas Sladden, representing
as they do the views of _many thousands of revolutionary workingmen in
this country_, are also worthy of note. His bitterness, it will be seen,
is leveled less against capitalism itself than against what he considers
to be intrusion of certain middle-class elements into Socialist ranks.
"We find in the United States to-day," writes Sladden, "that we
have created several new religions, one of the most interesting of
which is called Socialism, and is the religion of a decadent middle
class. This fake Socialism or middle-class religion can readily be
distinguished from the real Socialist movement, which is simply the
wage working class in revolt on both the industrial and political
fields against present conditions.... Yesterday I was a bad
capitalist--to-day I am a good Socialist, but I pay my wage slaves
the same wages to-day as I did yesterday.... They never take the
answer of Bernard Shaw, who, when asked by a capitalist what he
could do, saying that he could not help being a capitalist, was
answered in this manner: You can go and crack rock if you want to;
no one forces you to be a capitalist, but you are a capitalist
because you want to be. No one forces Hillquit to be a lawyer; he
could get a job in a lumber yard. There is no more excuse for a man
being a capitalist or a lawyer than there is for him being a
Pinkerton detective. He is either by his own free will and accord.
The system,--they acclaim in one breath,--the system makes us do
what we do not wish to do. The system does nothing of the kind; the
system gives a man the choice between honest labor and dishonest
labor skinning, and a labor skinner is a labor skinner because he
wishes to be, just the same as some men are pickpockets because
they wish to be."
It can readily be realized that such arguments will always have great
weight with the embittered elements of the working class. Nor do the
most representative Socialists altogether disagree with Sladden. They,
too, feel that if the war is not levied against individuals, neither is
it levied against a mere abstract system, but against a ruling class.
However, they make exceptions for such capitalists as the late Paul
Singer, who definitely abandon their class and throw in their lot with
the Socialist movement, while Sladden would admit neither Singer, nor
those other millions mentioned by Liebknecht (see above), for he demands
that the Socialist Party must declare that "no one not eligible to the
labor unions of the United States is eligible to the Socialist Party."
The high-water mark of this brand of revolutionism was reached in the
State of Washington, when these revolutionary elements in the Socialist
Party withdrew to form a new workingmen's party, the chief novelty of
which was a plank dividing the organization into "an active list and an
assistant list, only wage workers being admitted to the active list."
The wage workers were defined as the class of modern wage laborers who,
having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their
labor power in order to live. These are the active list, and they alone
hold office and vote. "The assistant list cannot hold office and cannot
vote," and the Party will "do active organizing work among wage earners
alone." This reminds one very much of the notorious division into active
and passive citizens at the early stages of the French Revolution, which
gave such a splendid opportunity to the Jacobines to organize a revolt
of the passive citizens and was one of the chief causes leading up to
the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic reaction that followed. The
Washington plan, however, has been a complete failure. It has had no
imitators in the Socialist movement, nor is it likely to have.
On the other hand, the most influential representatives of the extreme
revolutionary wing of the movement, like Hervé in France, have
championed the non-wage-earning elements of the movement as fearlessly
as the reformists.
"In the ranks of our party," writes Hervé, "are to be found small
merchants, small employers, wretched, impoverished, educated
people, small peasant proprietors, none of whom on account of
occupation can enter into the general Federation of Labor, which
only admits those receiving wages and salaries. These are
revolutionary elements which cannot be neglected; these volunteers
of the Revolution who have often a beautiful revolutionary
temperament would be lost for the Revolution if our political
organization was not at hand to nourish their activity. Besides,
the General Federation of Labor is a somewhat heavy mass; it will
become more and more heavy as it comprises the majority of the
_working class which is by nature rather pacific at the bottom_."
While there is no sufficient reason for the accusation that the
Socialist movement neglects the brain workers of the salaried and
professional classes, there is somewhat more solid ground, in spite of
the above quoted declarations of Liebknecht and Hervé, for the
accusation that it antagonizes those sections of the middle classes
which are, even to a slight degree, small capitalists, as, for example,
especially the farmers.
"The unimaginative person," says Mr. H. G. Wells, "who owns some little
bit of property, an acre or so of freehold land, or a hundred pounds in
the savings bank, will no doubt be the most tenacious passive resister
to Socialist ideas; and such I fear we must reckon, together with the
insensitive rich, as our irreconcilable enemies, as irremovable pillars
of the present order."[221]
This view is widespread among Socialists, and is even sustained by
Kautsky. "Small merchants and innkeepers," he writes, "have despaired of
ever rising by their own exertions; they expect everything from above
and look only to the upper classes and to the government for
assistance," though they "find their customers only in laboring circles,
so that their existence is absolutely dependent upon the prosperity or
adversity of the laboring classes." The contradiction Kautsky finds goes
even further. He says, "Servility depends upon reaction--and furnishes
not only the willing supporters, but the fanatical advocates of the
monarchy, the church, and the nobility." With all this they (the
shopkeepers, etc.) remain democratic, since it is only through democracy
that they can obtain political influence. Kautsky calls them the
"reactionary democracy."[222] But if they are democratic and in part
economically dependent on the laboring classes, then why should not this
part cast its lot economically and politically with the working class?
Kautsky extends his criticism of the small capitalists very far and even
seems in doubt concerning the owners of small investments such as
savings bank deposits. "Well-meaning optimists," he says, "have seen in
this a means of decentralizing capital, so that after a while, in the
most peaceable manner, without any one noticing it, capital would be
transformed into social property. In fact, this movement really means
the transformation of all the money of the middle and lower classes,
which is not used by them for immediate consumption, into money capital,
and as such placing it at the disposal of the great financiers for the
buying out of industrial managers, and thereby assisting in the
concentration on industry in the hands of a few financiers."
The classes which have invested their capital directly or indirectly in
stocks or bonds through savings banks and through insurance companies
number many millions, and include the large majority of all sections of
the middle class, even of its most progressive part, salaried employees,
and the professional element. It is undoubtedly true, as Kautsky says,
that small investors are not obtaining any direct control over capital,
and that their funds are used in the way he points out, constituting one
of the striking and momentous tendencies of the time. But it does not
follow that they are destined to lose such investments altogether, as
the legislative reforms to protect banks may be extended to the
railroads and other forms of investments. The small investors will
scarcely be turned to favor capitalism by their investments, which bring
in small profit and allow them nothing to say in the management of
industry, but neither will the losses they sometimes suffer from this
source be sufficient in themselves to convert them into allies of the
working class.
As in the case of the farmers and small shopkeepers, everything here
depends upon the economic and political program which the working class
develops and offers in competition with the "State Socialism" of the
capitalists. If it were true that the ownership of the smallest amount
of property brings it about that Socialism is no longer desired, not a
small minority of the population will be found aligned with the
capitalists, but all the four million owners of farms, and the other
millions with a thousand dollars or so invested in a building and loan
association, an insurance policy or a savings bank deposit, a total
numbering almost half of the occupied population. A bare majority, it is
true, might still be without any stake in the community even of this
modest character. But neither in the United States nor elsewhere is
there any hope that a majority of the absolutely propertyless, even if
it becomes a large one, will become sufficiently large within a
generation, or perhaps even within a century, to enable it to overthrow
the capitalists, unless it draws over to its side certain elements at
least, of the middle classes, who, though weaker in some respects are
better educated, better placed, and politically stronger than itself.
The revolutionary spokesmen of the international Socialist movement now
recognize this as clearly as do the most conservative observers.
The outcome of the great social struggle depends on the relative success
of employers and employed in gaining the support of those classes which,
either on account of their ownership of some slight property, or because
they receive salaries or fees sufficiently large, must be placed in the
middle class, but who cannot be classified _primarily_ as small
capitalists That this is the crux of the situation is recognized on all
sides. Mr. Winston Churchill, for instance, demands that everything be
done to strengthen and increase numerically this middle class, composed
of millions of persons whom he claims "would certainly lose by anything
like a general overturn, and ... are everywhere the strongest and the
best organized millions," and his "State Socialism" is directed chiefly
to that end. He believes that these millions, once become completely
converted into small capitalists, would certainly prevent by an
overwhelming resistance any effort on the part of the rest of the people
to gain what he curiously calls, "a selfish advantage."
Mr. Churchill says that "_the masses of the people should not use the
fact that they are in a majority as a means to advance their relative
position in society_." There could not be a sharper contrast between
"State Socialism" and Socialism. To Socialists the whole duty of man as
a social being is to persuade the masses to "use the fact that they are
in a majority as a means to advance their relative position in society."
Mr. Churchill seems to feel that as long as everybody shares _more or
less_ in the general increase of prosperity from generation to
generation, and, as he says, as long as there is "an ever increasing
volume of production and an increasing wide diffusion of profit," there
is no ground for complaint--whether the relative division of wealth and
opportunity between the many and the few becomes more equal or not. But
he realizes that his moral suasion is not likely to be heeded and is
wise in putting his trust in the middle-class millions. For these are
the bone of contention between capitalism and Socialism.
While the new middle class (that is, the lower salaried classes,
corporation employees, professional men, etc.) is increasing numerically
more rapidly than any other, large numbers within it are being deprived
of any hope of rising into the wealthy or privileged class. As a
consequence they are everywhere crowding into the Socialist ranks--by
the hundred thousand in countries where the movement is oldest. Even in
the organized Socialist parties these middle-class elements everywhere
form a considerable proportion of the whole. Practically a third of the
American Party according to a recent reckoning were engaged either in
farming (15 per cent) or in commercial (9 per cent) or professional
pursuits (5 per cent).
It is plain that certain sections of the so-called middle class are not
only welcomed by Socialist parties, but constitute their most dependable
and indispensable elements. Indeed, the majority of the Socialists agree
with Kautsky that the danger lies in the opposite direction, that an
unreliable small capitalist element has been admitted that will make
trouble until it leaves the movement, in other words, that Socialist
friendship for these classes has gone to the point of risking the
existence of their organization. Surely their presence is a guarantee
that Socialists have not been ruled by the working class or proletarian
"fetish," against which Marx warned them more than half a century ago.
FOOTNOTES:
[207] The _American Magazine_, October, 1911.
[208] Winston Churchill, _op. cit._, p. 389.
[209] _Die Neue Zeit_, Oct. 27, 1911.
[210] Speech just before Congressional Elections of 1910.
[211] Speech delivered by Mr. Roosevelt, Dec. 13, 1910.
[212] John Spargo, "Karl Marx."
[213] Edward Bernstein, "Evolutionary Socialism," p. 143.
[214] Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," pp. 58-59.
[215] The _Outlook_, March 13, 1909.
[216] Karl Kautsky in _Vorwaerts_ (Berlin), Feb. 7, 1909.
[217] Quoted by Jaurès, "Studies in Socialism," p. 103.
[218] Karl Kautsky, "Erfurter Programm," p. 258.
[219] Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," pp. 48-49.
[220] The _International Socialist Review_ (Chicago), October, 1911.
[221] H. G. Wells, "This Misery of Boots," p. 34.
[222] Karl Kautsky, "The Social Revolution," p. 51.
CHAPTER II
THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES AND THE LAND QUESTION
I have pointed out the relation of the Socialist movement to all classes
but one,--the agriculturists,--a class numerically next in importance to
the industrial wage earners.
On the one hand most agriculturists are small capitalists, who, even
when they do not own their farms, are often forced to-day to invest a
considerable sum in farm animals and machinery, in rent and interest and
in wages at the harvest season; on the other hand, a large part of the
farmers work harder and receive less for their work than skilled
laborers, while the amount they own, especially when tenants, scarcely
exceeds what it has cost many skilled workers to learn their trade. Are
the great majority of farmers, then, rather small capitalists or
laborers?
For many years Socialists paid comparatively little attention to the
problem. How was it then imagined that a political program could obtain
the support of the majority of the voters without presenting to the
agricultural population as satisfactory a solution of their difficulties
as that it offered to the people of the towns? On the other hand, how
was it possible to adapt a program frankly "formulated by or for the
workingmen of large-scale industry" to the conditions of agriculture?
The estimate of the rural population that has hitherto prevailed among
the Socialists of most countries may be seen from the following language
of Kautsky's:--
"We have already seen how the peasant's production [that of the
small farmer] isolates men. The capitalists' means of production
and the modern State, to be sure, have a powerful tendency to put
an end to the isolation of the peasant through taxation, military
service, railways, and newspapers. But the increase of the points
of contact between town and country as a rule only have the effect
that the peasant farmer feels his desolation and isolation less
keenly. They raise him up as a peasant farmer, but awake in him a
longing for the town; they drive all the most energetic and
independently thinking elements from the country into the towns,
and rob the former of its forces. So that the progress of modern
economic life has the effect of increasing the desolation and
lonesomeness of the country rather than ending it.
"The truth is that in every country the agricultural population is
economically and politically the most backward. That does not imply
any reflection on it; it is its misfortune, but it is a fact with
which one must deal."[223]
Not only Kautsky and Vandervelde, but whole Socialist parties like those
of Austria and Germany, are given to the exploitation of the supposed
opposition between town and country, the producer and the consumer of
agricultural products. At the German Socialist Congress of 1911, Bebel
declared that to-day those who were most in need of protection were the
consumers of agricultural products, the workingmen, lower middle classes
and employees. He felt the day was approaching when the increased cost
of living would form the chief question before the German people, the
day when the German people would raise a storm and tear down the tariffs
on the necessaries of life as well as other measures that unduly favor
the agriculturists--while the proposal of socialization would come up
first in the field of agriculture.
While, in view of the actual level of prices in Germany, there is no
doubt that even the smallest of the agriculturists are getting some
share of the spoils of the tariffs and other measures Bebel mentions,
there can also be little question that in such a storm of revolt as he
predicts the pendulum would swing too far the other way, and they would
suffer unjustly. It is true that the agriculturist produces bread, while
the city worker consumes it, but so also do shoe workers produce shoes
that are consumed by garment workers, and certainly no Socialist
predicts any lasting struggle between producers of shoes and producers
of clothing. It is true also that if the wage earner's condition is to
be improved, some limit must be set to prices as wages are raised. But
the flour manufacturer and the baker must be restrained as well as the
grain producer. Nor do Socialists expect to accomplish much by the mere
regulation of prices. And when it comes to their remedy, socialization,
there is less reason, as I shall show, for beginning with land rent than
with industrial capital, and the Socialist parties of France and America
recognize this fact.
But it is the practical result of this supposed opposition of town and
country rather than its inconsistency with Socialist principles that
must hold our attention. Certainly no agricultural program and no appeal
to the agricultural population, perhaps not even one addressed to
agricultural laborers, can hope for success while this view of the
opposition of town and country is maintained; for all agriculturists
want what they consider to be reasonable prices for their products, and
their whole life depends directly or indirectly on these prices. When
the workmen agitate, as they so often do in Europe, for cheap bread and
meat, without qualifying their agitation by any regard for the
agriculturists, all hope of obtaining the support of _any_ of the
agricultural classes, even laborers, is for the time being abandoned.
The predominance of town over country is so important to Kautsky that he
even opposes such a vital piece of democratic reform as direct
legislation where the town-country population is the more numerous than
that of the towns. "We have seen" he says, "that the modern
representative system is not very favorable to the peasantry or to the
small capitalists, especially of the country towns. The classes which
the representative system most favors are the large owners of capital or
land, the highly educated, and under a democratic electoral system, the
militant and class-conscious part of the industrial working class. So in
general one can say parliamentarism favors the population of the large
towns as against that of the country."
Far from being disturbed at this unjust and unequal system, Kautsky
prefers that it should _not_ be reformed, unless the town population are
in a majority. "Direct legislation by the people works against these
tendencies of parliamentarism. If the latter strives to place the
political balance of power in the population of the large towns, the
former puts it in the masses of the population, but these still live
everywhere and for the most part in a large majority, with the exception
of England, in the country and in the small country towns. Direct
legislation takes away from the population of the large towns their
special political influence, and subjects them to the country
population."[224]
He concludes that wherever and as long as the agricultural population
remains in a majority, the Socialists have no special reason to work for
direct legislation.
Of course Kautsky and his school do not expect this separation or
antagonism of agriculture and industry to last very far into the future.
But as long as capitalism lasts they believe agriculturists will play an
entirely subordinate rôle in politics. "While the capitalist mode of
production increases visibly the difficulties of the formation of a
revolutionary class (in the country), it favors it in the towns," he
says. "It there concentrates the laboring masses, creates conditions
favorable to every organization for their mental evolution and for their
class struggle.... It debilitates the country, disperses the
agricultural workers over vast areas, isolates them, robs them of all
means of mental development and resistance to exploitation."[225]
Similarly Vandervelde quotes from Voltaire's essay on customs a sentence
describing the European peasantry of a hundred and fifty years ago as
"savages living in cabins with their females and a few animals," and
asks, "who would dare to pretend that these words have lost all their
reality?" He admits that "rural barbarism has decreased," but still
considers the peasantry, not as a class which must take an active part
in bringing about Socialism, but as one to which "conquering Socialism
will bring political liberty and social equality."[226]
Kautsky says that either the small farmer is not really independent, and
pieces out his income by hiring himself out occasionally to some larger
landowner or other employer, or else, if entirely occupied with his own
work, that he manages to compete with large-scale cultivation only "by
overwork and underconsumption, by barbarism, as Marx says."
"To-day the situation of the city proletariat," Kautsky adds, "is
already so superior to the barbaric situation of the older peasants,
that the younger peasants' generation is leaving the fields along with
the class of rural wage earners." There can be no question that small
farms, those without permanent hired labor, survive competition with the
larger and better equipped, only by overwork and underconsumption. But
the unfavorable comparison with city wage earners and the repetition
to-day of Marx's term "barbarism" is no longer justified. Where these
conditions still exist, they are due largely to special legal obstacles
placed in the way of European peasants, and to legal privileges given to
the great landlords,--in other words, to remnants of feudalism.
Kautsky's error in making this as a statement of general application
would seem to be based on a confusion of the survivals of feudalism, as
seen in some parts of Europe, with the necessary conditions of
agricultural production, as seen in this country.
Kautsky himself has lately given full recognition to another factor in
the agricultural situation--the horrors of wage slavery, which acts in
the very opposite manner to these feudal conditions and _prevents_ both
small agriculturists and agricultural laborers from immigrating to the
towns in greater numbers than they do, and persuades them in spite of
its drudgery to prefer the life of the owner of a small farm.
"Since labor in large-scale industry takes to-day the repulsive form of
wage labor," he says, "many owners of small properties keep holding on
to them with the greatest sacrifices, for the sole purpose of avoiding
falling into the serfdom and insecurity of wage labor. Only Socialism
can put an end to small production, not of course by the forceful
ejection of small owners, but by giving them an opportunity to work for
the perfected large establishments with a shortened working day and a
larger income."[227] Surely there is little ground to lay special stress
on the "barbarism" of small farms, if such a large proportion of farmers
and agricultural laborers prefer it on good grounds to "the serfdom and
insecurity" of labor on large farms or in manufacturing establishments.
It is doubtless chiefly because European conditions are such as to make
the conversion of the majority of agriculturists difficult, that so many
European Socialists claim that an existing or prospective preponderance
of manufacturers makes it unnecessary. But, while in many countries of
Europe the remnants of feudalism, or rather of eighteenth-century
absolutism and landlord rule, to which this backward political condition
is largely due, have not only survived, but have been modernized,
through the protection extended to large estates, so as to become a part
and parcel of modern capitalism, this condition does not promise to be
at all lasting. There are already signs of change in the agricultural
sections of Bohemia, Hungary, and Italy, while in France, where the
political influence of the large landlord class is rapidly on the
decline, the Socialists have appealed successfully, under certain
conditions, not only to agricultural laborers, but also to small
independent farmers.
As Socialists come to take a world view, giving due prominence to
countries like France and the United States, where agriculture has had
its freest development, they grow away from the older standpoint and
give more attention to the rural population. The rapid technical
evolution of agriculture and the equally rapid changes in the ownership
of land in a country like the United States have encouraged our
Socialists to reëxamine the whole question. I cannot enter into a
discussion, even the most cursory, of agricultural evolution in this
country, but a few indications from the census of 1910 will show the
general tendencies.
Farm owners and tenants probably now have $45,000,000,000 in property
(1910), fully a third of the national wealth, and with 6,340,000 farms
they are just about a third of our population. This calculation does not
allow for interest (where farmers have borrowed) or rent (where they are
tenants); on the other hand, it does not allow for the fact that many
farmers have bank accounts and outside investments. But it indicates the
prosperity of a large part of the farming class.
The value of the land of the average farm has doubled since 1900 ($2271
in 1900--$4477 in 1910) in spite of a decrease in the size of farms,
while the amount spent for labor increased 80 per cent, which the
statistics show was due in part to higher wages, but in larger part _to
the greater amount of labor and the greater number of laborers used_.
Other expenditures increased almost proportionately, and the capital
employed in land, buildings, machinery, fertilizers, and labor has
almost doubled in this short period. As prices advanced less than 25 per
cent during the decade, all these increases were largely _real_. The
gross income of the average farm owner, measured in what it could buy,
evidently rose by more than 50 per cent, and his _real_ net income
nearly as fast. The average farm owner then was receiving a fair share
of the increase of the national wealth.
But farmers cannot profitably be considered as a single class. Tenants
are rarely at the same time landlords. Farmers paying interest are
usually not the same as those holding mortgages. A few of the debtors
may be very successful men who borrow only to buy more land and hire
more labor. But very few tenants are in this class. We may safely assume
that those who own without a mortgage or employ labor steadily with one
are getting _more_ than an average share of the national wealth, while
tenants or those who have mortgaged their land heavily and do not
regularly hire labor (except at harvest) are, in the average case,
getting less. Investments of borrowed money in the best machinery or
farm animals by a single family working alone and on a very small scale,
may give a good return above interest, but this return is strictly
limited unless with most exceptional or most fortunate persons.
Now the statistics of the increase of agricultural _wages_ show that
they rose in no such proportion as the increase of agricultural
capital--and the possibility of a farm hand saving his wages and
becoming the owner of one of these more and more costly farms is more
remote than ever. But there is a third solution--the agricultural
laborer may neither remain a laborer nor become an owner. If he can
accumulate enough capital for machinery, horses, farm animals, and seed,
he can pay for the use of the land from his annual product, he can
become a tenant. On the other side, if the value of the usual 160-acre
homestead rises to $20,000 or $30,000, the owner is easily able to make
a few thousand dollars in addition by selling his farm animals and
machinery and to retire to the country town and live on his rent.
It is evident that the position of most of these farm tenants is very
close to that of laborers. Though working on their own account, it is so
difficult for them to make a living that they are forced to the longest
hours and to the exploitation of their wives and children under all
possible and impossible circumstances. Already farm tenants are almost
as numerous in this country as farm owners. The census figures indicated
that the proportion of tenants had risen from 23 per cent in 1880 to 37
per cent in 1910. Not only this, but a closer inspection of the figures
by States will show that, whereas in new States like Minnesota, where
tenancy has not had time to develop, it embraced in 1900 less than 20
per cent of the total number of farms, in many older States the
percentage had already risen high above 40. This increase of tenants
proves an approach of the United States to the fundamental economic
condition of older countries--the divorce of land cultivation from land
ownership, and the census of 1910 shows that three eighths of the farms
of the United States are already in that condition.
Land and hired labor are the chief sources of agricultural wealth, and
capital is most productive only when it is invested in these as well as
other means of production. That is, if the small farmer is really a
small capitalist, if he is to receive a return from his capital as well
as his own individual and that of his family labor, he must, as a rule,
either have enough capital to provide work for others and his family, or
he must get a share of the unearned increment through the ownership of
his farm, or long leases without revaluation. Farm tenants who do not
habitually employ labor, or those whose mortgages are so heavy as
practically to place them in the position of such tenants, are, for
these reasons, undoubtedly accessible to Socialist ideas--_as long as
they remain farm tenants_.
But now after discarding all the European prejudices above referred to,
let us look at the other side. Tenants everywhere belong to those
classes which, as Kautsky truly says, in the passage quoted in a
previous chapter, are also a recruiting ground for the capitalists. They
are more likely to be the owners of the capital, now a considerable sum,
needed to _operate_ a small farm (cattle, machinery, etc.) than are farm
laborers, and it is for their benefit chiefly that the various
governmental plans for creating new small farms through irrigation,
reclamation, and the division of large estates are contrived. And it is
even possible that practically all the present tenants may some day be
provided for.
By maintaining or creating small farms then, or providing for a system
of long leases and small-sized allotments of governmentally owned land,
guaranteed against any raise in rents during the term of the lease,
capitalist governments may gradually succeed in firmly attaching the
larger part of the struggling small farmers and farm tenants to
capitalism. While still in the individualistic form capitalism will
establish, wherever it can, privately owned small farms; when it will
have adopted the collectivist policy, it will inaugurate a system of
national ownership and long leases.