Socialism As It Is

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FOOTNOTES:

[90] Kautsky, "The Capitalist Class" (pamphlet).

[91] Marx's letters to Sorge.

[92] Marx's letters to Sorge.

PART II

THE POLITICS OF SOCIALISM

CHAPTER I

"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT

The Socialist movement must be judged by its acts, by the decisions
Socialists have reached and the reasoning they have used as they have
met concrete problems.

The Socialists themselves agree that first importance is to be attached,
not to the theories of Socialist writers, but to the principles that
have actually guided Socialist parties and their instructed
representatives in capitalist legislatures. These and the proceedings of
international and national congresses and the discussion that constantly
goes on within each party, and not theoretical writings, give the only
truthful and reliable impression of the movement.

In 1900 Wilhelm Liebknecht, who up to the time of his death was as
influential as Bebel in the German Party, pointed out that those party
members who disavowed Socialist principles in their _practical
application_ were far more dangerous to the movement than those who made
wholesale theoretical assaults on the Socialist philosophy, and that
political alliances with capitalist parties were far worse than the
repudiation of the teachings of Karl Marx. In his well-known pamphlet
_No Compromise_ he showed that this fact had been recognized by the
German Party from the beginning.

I have shown the Socialists' actual position through their attitude
towards progressive capitalism. An equally concrete method of dealing
with Socialist actualities is to portray the various tendencies _within_
the movement. The Socialist position can never be clearly defined except
by contrasting it with those policies that the movement has rejected or
is in the process of rejecting to-day. Indeed, no Socialist policy can
be viewed as at all settled or important unless it has proved itself
"fit," by having survived struggles either with its rivals outside or
with its opponents inside the movement.

If we turn our attention to what is going on within the movement, we
will at once be struck by a world-wide situation. "State Socialism" is
not only becoming the policy of the leading capitalistic parties in many
countries, but--in a modified form--it has also become the chief
preoccupation of a large group among the Socialists. "Reformist"
Socialists view most of the reforms of "State Socialism" as installments
of Socialism, enacted by the capitalists in the hope of diverting
attention from the rising Socialist movement.

To Marx, on the contrary, the first "step" in Socialism was the conquest
of complete political power by the Socialists. "The proletariat," he
wrote in the Communist Manifesto "will use _its political supremacy_ to
wrest, by degrees, all capital from the capitalists, to centralize all
instruments of production in the hands of the State, _i.e. of the
proletariat organized as the ruling class_." (My italics.) Here is the
antithesis both of "reformist" Socialism within the movement and of
"State Socialism" without. The working people are _not_ expected to gain
more and more political power step by step and to use it as they go
along. It is only _after_ gaining full political _supremacy_ by a
revolution (peaceful or otherwise) that they are to socialize industry
step by step. Marx and his successors do not advise the working people
to concentrate their efforts on the centralization of the instruments of
production in the hands of governments as they now are (capitalistic),
but only _after_ they have become completely transformed into the tools
of the working people "organized as the ruling class," to use Marx's
expression.[93]

The central idea of the "reformist" Socialists is, on the contrary, that
before Socialism has captured any government, and even before it has
become an imminent menace, it is necessary that Socialists should take
the lead in the work of social reform, and should devote their energies
very largely to this object. It is recognized that capitalistic or
non-Socialist reformers have taken up many of the most urgent reforms
and will take up more of them, and that being politically more powerful
they are in a better position to put them into effect. But the
"reformist" Socialists, far from allowing this fact to discourage them,
allege it as the chief reason why they must also enter the field. The
non-Socialist reformers, they say, are engaged in a popular work, and
the Socialists must go in, help to bring about the reforms, and claim
part of the credit. They then propose to attribute whatever success they
may have gained, not to the fact that they also have become reformers
like the rest, but to the fact that they happen to be Socialists. The
non-Socialist reformers, they say again, are gaining a valuable
experience in government; the Socialists must go and do likewise.
Reforms which were steps in capitalism thus become to them steps in
Socialism. It is not the fashion of "reformists" to try to claim that
they are very great steps--on the contrary, they usually belittle them,
but it is believed that agitation for such reforms as capitalist
governments allow, is the best way to gain the public ear, the best kind
of political practice, the most fruitful mode of activity.

One of the leading American Socialist weeklies has made a very clear and
typical statement of this policy:--

"_If we leave the field of achievement to the reformer, then it is
going to be hard to persuade people that reform is not sufficient.
If Socialists take every step forward as part of a general
revolutionary program_, and never fail to point out that these
things are but steps forward in a stairway that mean nothing save
as they lead to a higher stage of society, then the Socialist
movement will carry along with it all those who are fighting the
class struggle. The hopelessness of reform as a goal will become
apparent when its real position in social evolution is pointed
out."[94]

The leading questions this proposed policy arouses will at once come to
the reader's mind: Will the capitalist reformers in control of national
governments allow the Socialist "reformists" to play the leading part in
their own chosen field of effort? If people tend to be satisfied with
reform, what difference does it make as to the ultimate political or
social ideals of those who bring it about? If the steps taken by
reformers and "reformists" are the same, by what alchemy can the latter
transform them into parts of a revolutionary program?

Mr. Simons, nevertheless, presents this "reformism" as the proper policy
for the American Party at its present stage:--

"It has become commonplace," he says, "to say that the Socialist
movement of the United States has entered upon a new stage, and
that with the coming of many local victories and not a few in
State and nation, Socialist activity must partake of the character
of preparation for the control of society.

"Yet our propaganda has been slow to reflect this change. This is
natural. For more than a generation the important thing was to
advertise Socialism and to inculcate a few doctrinal truths. This
naturally developed a literature based on broad assertions,
sensational exposures, vigorous denunciations, and revival-like
appeals that resulted in sectarian organization.

"It has been hard to break away from this stage. It is easier to
make a propaganda of 'sound and fury' than of practical
achievement. Once the phrases have been learned, it is much simpler
to issue a manifesto than to organize a precinct. It always
requires less effort to talk about a class struggle than to fight
it; to defy the lightning of international class rule than to
properly administer a township. Yet, if Socialism is inevitable, if
the Socialist Party is soon to rule in State and nation, then it is
of the highest importance that Socialists should know something of
the forces with which they are going to deal; something of the
lines of evolution which they are going to further; something of
the government which they are going to administer; something of the
task which they profess to be eager to accomplish."

It might seem that, after the first stage has been passed, the next
promising way to carry Socialism forward, the way actually to "fight"
the class struggle and to achieve something practical is, as Mr. Simons
says, to talk less and to go in and "administer a township."
Revolutionary Socialists agree that advertising, the teaching of a few
basic doctrines, emotional appeals, and the criticism of present society
have hitherto taken up the principal share of the Socialist agitation,
and that all these together are not sufficient to enable Socialists to
achieve their aim, or even to carry the movement much farther. They
agree that activity is the best teacher and that the class struggle must
be actually fought. But they propose other activities and feel that a
whole intermediate stage of Socialist evolution, including the capture
of national governments, lies between the Socialist agitation of the
past and any administration of a township that can do anything to bring
recruits to Socialism and not merely to "State Socialist" reform.

This is the view of the revolutionary majority of the international
movement. But the "reformist" minority is both large and powerful, and
since it draws far more recruits than does the revolutionary majority
from the ranks of the book educated and capitalistic reformers, its
spokesmen and writers attract a disproportionately large share of
attention in capitalistic and reform circles, and thus give rise to
widespread misunderstanding as to the position of the majority.

Not only are both the more or less Socialistic parties in Great Britain
and the Labour parties of the British colonies "reformist" to the extent
that they are either entirely outside or practically independent of the
international movement, but the parties of Belgium, Italy, and South
Germany have, for a number of years, concentrated their attention almost
exclusively on such reforms as the capitalist governments of their
countries are likely to allow to be enacted--the dominant idea being to
obtain all that can be obtained for the working classes at the present
moment, even when, for this purpose, it becomes necessary to subordinate
or to compromise entirely the plans and hopes of the future. And it is
only within the last year or two that the revolutionary wing in these
last-named countries has begun to grow rapidly again and promises to
regain control.

There can be no doubt that Socialist "reformism" has become very
widespread. President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, who
had every facility of meeting European Socialists and unionists on a
recent tour, made some observations which are by no means without a
certain foundation.[95] He says that he talked to these people about
Socialism and, though they all knew "the litany, service, and
invocation" and the Socialist text for the coming revolution, they
preserved this knowledge for their speech making, while in conversation
it all faded away into the misty realms of the imagination.
"Positively," writes Mr. Gompers, "I never found one man in my trip
ready to go further into constructive Socialism than to repeat
perfunctorily its time-worn generalities. On the other hand, I met men
whom I knew years ago, either personally or through correspondence or by
their work, as active propagandists of the Socialists' theoretical
creed, who are now devoting their energies to one or other of the
practical forms of social betterment--trade unionism, cooeperation, legal
protection to the workers--and who could not be moved to speak of
utopianism [Mr. Gompers's epithet for Socialism]." It is doubtless true,
as Mr. Gompers says, that the individuals he questioned have practically
abandoned their Socialism, even though they remain members of the
Socialist parties. For if such activities as he mentions could be
claimed as "Socialism," then there is very little public work an
intelligent and honest workingman can undertake, no matter how
conservative it may be, which is not to go by that name.

The chief characteristic of the reformists is, indeed, frankly to claim,
either that all the capitalist-collectivist reforms of the period are
Socialist in origin, or that they cannot be put into execution without
Socialist aid, or that such reforms are enacted only as concessions, for
fear that Socialism would otherwise sweep everything before it.

Rev. Carl D. Thompson, formerly a Socialist member of the Wisconsin
Legislature, and now Town Clerk of Milwaukee, for example, claims
Millerand as a Socialist minister, though the French Socialist Party
agreed by an almost unanimous vote that he is not to be so considered,
and attributes to this minister a whole series of reforms in which he
was only a single factor among many others. Many important legislative
changes which have taken place in Italy since 1900, Mr. Thompson
accredits to the opportunist Socialist leader, Turati, with his handful
of members of the chamber, though it is certain that even at the present
moment the Socialists have not yet arrived at a position where they can
claim that they are shaping governmental action as strongly as their
Radical allies. Mr. Thompson states that the "Socialist Independent
Labour Party" of Great Britain had thirty-four representatives in
Parliament at a time when the larger non-Socialist Labour Party, which
included it, had only this number. He claimed that a majority of this
latter party were Socialists, when, as a matter of fact, only a minority
were members of any Socialist party even in the ultra-moderate sense in
which the term is employed in England, and he accredits all the chief
reforms brought about by the Liberal government to this handful of
"Socialists," including even the old age pensions which were almost
unanimously favored by the old parties.[96] He even lists among his
signs of the progress of Socialism the fact that, at the time of
writing, fifty-nine governments owned their railways, while a large
number had instituted postal savings banks.

The same tendency to claim everything good as Socialism is very common
in Great Britain. Even the relatively advanced Socialist, Victor
Grayson, avoids the question whether there is any social reform which is
not Socialism,[97] and it seems to be the general position of British
Socialists that every real reform is Socialism--more or less.

August Bebel, on the contrary, is quoted as saying, "_It is not a
question of whether we achieve this or that; for us the principal thing
is that we put forward certain claims which no other party can put
forward._" The great German Socialist sees clearly that if Socialism is
to distinguish itself from the other parties it must rest its claims
solely on demands which are made exclusively by Socialists. This is what
those who claim that every reform is Socialism, or is best promoted by
Socialists, fail to see. By trying to make the word, "Socialism" mean
everything, they inevitably make it mean nothing.

It is true that for a time the very advertisement of the word
"Socialism," by this method, and even the widest and loosest use of
Socialist phrases had the effect of making people think about Socialist
principles. But this cannot be long continued before the public begins
to ask questions concerning the exact meaning of such expressions as
applied to everyday life. The Socialist paper, _Justice_, of London,
urged that "the very suggestion that any of the Liberal members of
Parliament were connected with the Socialist movement created a more
profound impression than all they ever said or did." This is doubtless
true, but when the novelty has once worn off of this situation it is
what so-called Socialists do that alone will count.

For example, the leading reformist Socialist of Great Britain, Mr. J. R.
MacDonald, wishes to persuade the Socialists of America to carry on "a
propaganda of immediately practicable changes, justified and enriched by
the fact that they are the realization of great ideals."[98] Such a
reduction of the ideal to what is actually going on, or may be
immediately brought about, makes it quite meaningless. Evidently the
immediately practicable changes that Mr. MacDonald suggests are
themselves his ideal, and what he calls the ideal consists rather of
phrases and enthusiasms that are useful, chiefly, for the purpose of
advertising his Party and creating enthusiasm for it.

The underlying motive of the "reformists" when they claim non-Socialist
reforms as their own, and relegate practically all distinctively
Socialist principles and methods to the vague and distant future, is
undoubtedly their belief that reforms rather than Socialism appeal to
the working class.

"The mass of workingmen will support the Socialist Party," a Socialist
reformer wrote recently, "not because they are being robbed under
capitalism, but because they are made to understand that this party can
be relied upon to advance certain measures which they know will benefit
them and their families here and now.

"The constructive Socialist believes that the cooeperative commonwealth
will be realized, not by holding it up in contrast to capitalism,--but
only by the working class fighting first for this thing, then for that
thing, until private enterprise is undermined by its rewards being eaten
up by taxes and its incentive removed by the inroads made upon profits."

The working people, that is, are not intelligent enough to realize that
they are "robbed under capitalism," and are not getting their
proportionate share of the increase of wealth, nor courageous enough to
take up the fight to overthrow capitalism; they appreciate only small
advances from day to day, and every step by which "private capitalism"
is replaced by State action is such an advance, while these advances are
to be secured chiefly through a Socialist Party. In a word, the
Socialist Party is to ask support because it can accomplish more than
other parties for social reform under capitalism, which at the present
period means "State Socialism."

For while "reformist" Socialists are taking a position nearly identical
with that of the non-Socialist reformers, the latter are coming to adopt
a political policy almost identical with that of the reformist
Socialists. I have noted that one of America's leading economists
advises all reformers, whether they are Socialists or not, to join the
Socialist Party. Since both "reformist" Socialists and "Socialistic"
reformers are interested in labor legislation, public ownership,
democratic political reforms, graduated taxation, and the governmental
appropriation of the unearned increment in land, why should they not
walk side by side for a very considerable distance behind "a somewhat
red banner," and "without troubling themselves about the unlike
goals"--as Professor John Bates Clark recommends? The phrases of
Socialism have become so popular that their popularity constitutes its
chief danger. At a time when so many professed anti-Socialists are
agreeing with the New York _Independent_ that, though it is easy to have
too much Socialism, at least "we want _more_" than we have, it becomes
exceedingly difficult for non-Socialists to learn what Socialism is and
to distinguish it from innumerable reform movements.

Less than a decade ago the pros and cons of Socialism were much
debated. Now it is usually only a question of Socialism sooner or later,
more or less. Socialism a century or two hence, or in supposed
installments of a fraction of a per cent, is an almost universally
popular idea. For the Socialists this necessitates a revolutionary
change in their tactics, literature, and habit of thought. They were
formerly forced to fight those who could not find words strong enough to
express their hostility; they are rapidly being compelled to give their
chief attention to those who claim to be friends. The day of mere
repression is drawing to a close, the day of cajolery is at hand.

Liebknecht saw what was happening years ago, and, in one of the most
widely circulated pamphlets the Socialists have ever published (_No
Compromise_), issued an impressive warning to the movement:--

"The enemy who comes to us with an open visor we face with a smile;
to set our feet upon his neck is mere play for us. The stupidly
brutal acts of violence of police politicians, the outrages of
anti-Socialist laws, penitentiary bills--these only arouse feelings
of pitying contempt; the enemy, however, that reaches out the hand
to us for a political alliance, and intrudes himself upon us as a
friend and a brother,--_him and him alone have we to fear_.

"Our fortress can withstand every assault--it cannot be stormed nor
taken from us by siege--it can only fall _when we ourselves open
the doors to the enemy and take him into our ranks as a fellow
comrade_."

"We shall almost never go right," says Liebknecht, "if we do what our
enemies applaud." And we find, as a matter of fact, that the enemies of
Socialism never fail to applaud any tendency of the party to compromise
those acting principles that have brought it to the point it has now
reached. For Liebknecht shows that the power which now causes a
Socialist alliance to be sought after in some countries even by
Socialism's most bitter enemies would never have arisen had the party
not clung closely to its guiding principle, the policy of "no
compromise."

There is no difficulty in showing, from the public life and opinion of
our day, how widespread is this spirit of political compromise or
opportunism; nor in proving that it enters into the conduct of many
Socialists. Such an opposition to the effective application of broad and
far-sighted plans to practical politics is especially common, for
historical reasons, in Great Britain and the United States. In this
country it has been especially marked in Milwaukee from the earliest
days of the Socialist movement there. In 1893 the _Milwaukee Vorwaerts_
announced that "if you demand too much at one time you are likely not to
get anything," and that "nothing more ought to be demanded but what is
attainable at a given time and under given circumstances."[99] It will
be noticed that this is a clear expression of a principle of action
diametrically opposite to that adopted by the international movement as
stated by Bebel and Liebknecht. Socialists are chiefly distinguished
from the other parties by the fact that they concentrate their attention
on demands beyond "what is attainable at a given time and under given
circumstances." They might _attempt_ to distinguish themselves by
claiming that they stand for the _ultimate_ goal of Socialism, though
their immediate program is the same as that of other parties, but any
politician can do that--as has been shown recently by the action of
Briand, Millerand, Ferri, and other former Socialists in France and
Italy--and the day seems near when hosts of politicians will follow
their example.

Any static or dogmatic definition of Socialism, like any purely
idealistic formulation, no matter how revolutionary or accurate it may
be, necessarily invites purely opportunist methods. A widely accepted
static definition declares that Socialism is "the collective ownership
of the means of production and distribution under democratic
management." As an ultimate ideal or a theory of social evolution, this
is accepted also by many collectivist opponents of Socialism, and may
soon be accepted generally. The chief possibility for a difference of
opinion among most practical persons, whether Socialists or not, must
come from the questions: How soon? By what means?

Evidently such a social revolution is to be achieved only by stages.
What are these stages? Many are tempted to give the easy answer, "More
and more collectivism and more and more democracy." But progress in
political democracy, if it came first, might be accompanied by an
artificial revival of small-scale capitalism, and a new majority made up
largely of contented farmer capitalists might put Socialism farther off
than it is to-day. Similarly, if installments of collectivism came
first, they might lead us in the direction of the Prussia of to-day. And
finally, even a combination of democracy and collectivism, up to a
certain point, might produce a majority composed in part of small
capitalists and favored government employees. Collectivist democracy
completed or far advanced would insure the coming of Socialism. But a
policy that merely gave us _more_ collectivism plus _more_ democracy,
might carry us equally well either towards Socialism or in the opposite
direction. The ultimate goal of present society does not give us a
ready-made plan of action by a mathematical process of dividing its
attainment into so many mechanical stages.