Socialism As It Is

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But the position of the politically ambitious among so-called "orthodox"
Socialists (I do not refer to personal or individual, but only to
partisan ambition) is often very similar at the bottom to that of the
"reformists"; while the latter contend that capitalism can grant few if
any reforms of any great benefit to the working people _without
Socialist aid_, some of the orthodox lay equal weight on Socialist
agitation for these same reforms, on the ground that they cannot be
accomplished by collaborating with capitalist reformers at all, but
_solely through the Socialist Party_.

"The revolutionary Marxists," says the French Socialist, Rappaport,
"test the gifts of capitalistic reform through its motives. And they
discover that these motives are not crystal clear. The reformistic
patchwork is meant to prop up and make firmer the rotten capitalistic
building. They test capitalistic reforms, moreover, by the means which
are necessary for their accomplishment. These means are either
altogether lacking or insufficient, and in any case they flow in
overwhelming proportion out of the pockets of the exploited
classes."[170]

We need not agree with Rappaport that capitalistic reforms bring no
possible benefit to labor, or that the capitalistic building is rotten
and about to fall to pieces. May it not be that it is strong and getting
stronger? May it not be that the control over the whole building, far
from passing into Socialist hands, is removed farther and farther from
their reach, so that the promise of obtaining, not reforms of more or
less importance, but a fair and satisfactory _share_ of progress
_without conquering capitalism_ is growing less?

Thus many orthodox and revolutionary Socialists even, to say nothing of
"reformists," become mere political partisans, make almost instinctive
efforts to credit all political progress to the Socialist Parties,
contradict their own revolutionary principles. All reforms that happen
to be of any benefit to labor, they claim, are due to the pressure of
the working classes within Parliaments or outside of them; which amounts
to conceding that the Socialists are already sharing in the power of
government or industry, a proposition that the revolutionaries always
most strenuously deny. For if Socialists are practically sharing in
government and industry to-day, the orthodox and revolutionists will
have difficulty in meeting the argument of the "reformists" that it is
only necessary to continue the present pressure in order to obtain more
and more, without any serious conflicts, until all Socialism is
gradually accomplished.

Kautsky makes much of the capitalists' present fear of the working
classes, though in his opinion this fear makes not only for
"concessions" but also for reactions, as in the world-wide revival of
imperialism. Foreign conquests, he believes, are the only alternative
the governing classes are able to offer to the glowing promises of the
Socialists. It is for this reason, he believes, that the capitalists are
relying more and more on imperialism, even though they know that the
conquest of colonies is no longer possible to the extent it was before,
and realize that the cost of maintaining armaments is rapidly becoming
greater than colonial profits. But this also is to underestimate the
resources of capitalism and its capacity for a certain form of progress.
If the capitalists are not to be forced to concessions, neither are they
to be forced, unless in a very great crisis, to reactionary measures
that in themselves bring no profit. The progressive "State Socialist"
program is, as a rule, a far more promising road to popularity from
their standpoint than is reactionary imperialism.

In Kautsky's view the bourgeoisie is driven by the fear of Socialism, in
a country like Germany to reaction, and in one like England to _attempt_
reform. In neither case will it actually proceed to reforms of any
considerable benefit to labor, apparently because Kautsky believes that
all such reforms would inevitably strengthen labor relatively to
capital, and will therefore not be allowed. Similarly, he feels that the
capitalists will refuse all concessions to political democracy (on the
same erroneous supposition, that they will inevitably aid labor more
than capital).

For example, the British Liberals have abolished the veto of the House
of Lords, but only to increase the power of other capitalists against
landowners, while the Conservatives have proposed the Referendum, but
only to protect the Lords. From 1884 to 1911 neither Party had
introduced any measure to democratize the House of Commons and so to
increase the representation of labor. Kautsky reminds us of the plural
voting, unequal electoral districts, and absence of primary and
secondary elections. This he believes is evidence that the capitalists
fear to extend political democracy farther. They even fear the purely
economic reforms that are being enacted, he claims, and at every
concession made to labor desert the Liberals to join the Conservatives.
Land reform, taxation reform, the eight-hour day, are being carried out,
however. But when it comes to such matters as an extended suffrage, the
capitalists will balk. His conclusion is that if economic reforms are to
continue, if, for example, the unemployed are to be set to work by the
government, or if political reforms are to be resumed, the Labourites
have to free themselves from the tutelage of the Liberal Party. And if
they do this, they can play so effectively on capitalist fears as to
force an extension of the suffrage and even change the British
Parliament into a "tool for the dictatorship of the working class." As
in Germany, all political advance of value to labor must be obtained
through playing on capitalist fears--only in England the process may be
more gradual and results easier to obtain.

"Every extension of the suffrage to the working class must be fought for
to-day," says Kautsky, "and it is only thanks to the _fear_ of the
working class that it is not abolished where it exists." By a strange
coincidence Kautsky renewed the prediction that the capitalistic Radical
government of England would never extend the ballot except when forced
by Labor only a few days before Prime Minister Asquith officially,
without any special pressure from Labor, pledged it to equal and
universal (manhood) suffrage. The passage follows:--

"In England the suffrage is still limited to-day, and capitalistic
Radicalism, in spite of its fine phrases, has no idea of enlarging
it. The poorest part of the population is excluded from the ballot.
In all Great Britain (in 1906) only 16.64 per cent possessed,
against 22 per cent in Germany. If England had the German Reichstag
suffrage law, 9,600,000 would be enfranchised, instead of
7,300,000, _i.e._ 2,300,000 more."[171]

Kautsky's view that capitalists cannot bend a more or less democratic
government to their purposes and therefore will not institute such a
government, unless forced to do so, is undoubtedly based on German
conditions. He contends that the hope of the German bourgeois lies not
in democracy nor even in the Reichstag, but in the strength of Prussia,
which spells Absolutism and Militarism. He admits in one passage that
conditions may be different in the United States, England, and British
colonies, and under certain circumstances in France, but for the peoples
of eastern Europe advanced measures of democracy such as direct
legislation belong to "the future State," while no reforms of importance
to the workers are to be secured to-day except through the menace of
revolution. It would be perfectly consistent with this, doubtlessly
correct, view of present German conditions, if Kautsky said that after
Germany has overthrown Absolutism and Militarism, progressive capitalism
may be expected to conquer reactionary capitalism in Germany as
elsewhere, and to use direct legislation and other democratic measures
for the purpose of increasing profits, with certain secondary,
incidental and lesser (but by no means unimportant) benefits to labor.
But this he refuses to do. He readily admits that Germany is backward
politically, but as she is advanced economically he apparently allows
his view of other countries to-day and of the Germany of the future to
be guided by the fact that the large capitalists now in control in that
country (with military and landlord aid) oppose even that degree of
democracy and those labor reforms which, as I have shown, would result
in an increased product for the capitalist class as a whole (though not
of all capitalists). For he pictures the reactionary capitalists in
continuous control in the future both in Germany and other countries,
and the smaller capitalists as important between these and the masses of
wage earners. The example of other countries (equally developed
economically and more advanced than Germany politically) suggests, on
the contrary, a growing unity of large and small capital through the
action of the state--and as a result the more or less progressive policy
I have outlined. (See Part I.)

But Kautsky's view is that of a very large number of Socialists,
especially in Germany and neighboring countries, is having an enormous
influence, and deserves careful consideration. The proletariat, he says,
is not afraid of the most extreme revolutionary efforts and sacrifices
to win equal suffrage where, as in Germany, it is withheld. "And every
attempt to take away or limit the German laborer's right of voting for
the Reichstag would call forth the danger of a fearful catastrophe to
the Empire."[172] It is here and elsewhere suggested, on the basis of
German experience, that this struggle over the ballot is a struggle
between Capital and Labor. The German Reichstag suffrage was made equal
by Bismarck in 1870 for purely capitalistic reasons, and the number of
voters in England was doubled as late as 1884, and the suffrage is now
to be made universal through similar motives. Yet the present domination
of the German Liberals and those of neighboring countries by a
reactionary bureaucratic, military, and landlord class, persuades
Kautsky that genuine capitalistic Liberalism everywhere is at an end.

Yet in 1910 the German Radicals succeeded, after many years of vain
effort, in forming out of their three parties a united organization, the
Progressive Peoples Party (_Fortschrittliche Volkspartei_). The program
adopted included almost every progressive reform, and, acting in
accordance with its principles, this Party quite as frequently
cooeperates with the Socialists on its left as with the National Liberals
immediately on its right. The whole recent history of the more advanced
countries, including even Italy, would indicate that the small
capitalist element, which largely composes this party, will obtain the
balance of power and either through the new party or through the
Socialist "reformists" (the latter either in or out of the parent
organization)--or through both together--will before many years bring
about the extension of the suffrage in Prussia (though not its
equalization), the equalization of the Reichstag electoral districts,
and the reduction of the tariff that supports the agrarian landlords and
large capitalists, put a halt to some of the excesses of military
extravagance (though not to militarism), institute a government
responsible to the Reichstag, provide government employment for the
unemployed, and later take up the other industrial and labor reforms of
capitalist collectivism as inaugurated in other countries, together with
a large part also of the radical democratic program. There is no reason
for supposing that the evolution of capitalism is or will be basically
different in Germany from that of other countries. (See Chapter VII.)

Though he regards Socialism as the sole impelling force for reforms of
benefit to labor, Kautsky definitely acknowledges that no reforms that
are immediately practicable can be regarded as the _exclusive_ property
of the Socialist Party:--

"But this is certain," he says, "there is scarcely a single
practical demand for present-day legislation, that is peculiar to
any particular party. Even the Social Democracy scarcely shows one
such demand. That through which it differentiates itself from
other parties is the totality of its practical demands and the
goals towards which it points. The eight-hour law, for example, is
no revolutionary demand....

"What holds together political parties, especially when like the
Social Democrats they have great historic tasks to accomplish, are
their final goals; not their momentary demands, not their views as
to the attitude to be assumed on all the separate questions that
come before the party.

"Differences of opinion are always present within the Party and
sometimes reach a threatening height. But they will be the less
likely to break up the Party, the livelier the consciousness in its
members of the great goals towards which they strive in common, the
more powerful the enthusiasm for these goals, so that demands and
interests of the moment are behind them in importance."[173]

The only way to differentiate the Socialists from other parties, the
only thing Socialists have in common with one another is, according to
this view, not agreement as to practical action, but certain ideals or
goals. Socialists may want the same things as non-Socialists, and reject
the things desired by other Socialists, and their actions may follow
their desires, but all is well, and harmony may reign as long as their
hearts and minds are filled with a Socialist ideal. But if a goal thus
has no _necessary_ connection with immediate problems or actions, is it
necessarily anything more than a sentiment or an abstraction?

Kautsky's toleration of reform activities thus has an opposite origin to
that of the "reformist" Socialists. _He_ tolerates concentration on
capitalistic measures by factions within the Socialist Party, on the
ground that such measures are altogether of secondary importance; _they_
insist on these reforms as the most valuable activities Socialists can
undertake at the present time.

Kautsky and his associates will often tolerate activities that serve
only to weaken the movement, provided verbal recognition is given to the
Socialist ideal. This has led to profound contradictions in the German
movement. At the Leipzig Congress, for example (1909), the reformists
voted unanimously for the reaffirmation of the revolutionary "Dresden
resolution" of 1903, with the explanation that they regarded it in the
very opposite sense from what its words plainly stated. They had fought
this resolution at the time it was passed, and condemned it since, and
had continued the actions against which it was directed. But their vote
in favor of it and explanation that they refused to give it any
practical bearing had to be accepted at Leipzig without a murmur. Such
is the result of preaching loyalty to phrases, goals, or ideals rather
than in action. The reformists can often, though not always, escape
responsibility for their acts by claiming loyalty to the goal--often, no
doubt, in all sincerity; for goals, ideals, doctrines, and sentiments,
like the human conscience, are generally highly flexible and subtle
things.

Kautsky's policy of ideal revolutionism, combined with practical
toleration of activities given over exclusively to non-Socialist reform,
which is so widespread in the German movement under the form of a too
rigid separation between theory on the one hand and tactics on the
other, agrees at another point with the policy of the reformists. The
latter, as I have mentioned, seek to justify their absorption in reforms
that the capitalists also favor, by claiming that they determine their
attitude to a reform by its relation to a larger program, whereas the
capitalists do not. Kautsky similarly differentiates the Socialists by
the totality of their demands; the individual reform, being, as he
concedes, usually if not always supported by other parties also. Yet it
is difficult to see how a program composed wholly of non-Socialist
elements could in any combination become distinctly Socialist. A
Socialist program of _immediate_ demands may be peculiar to some
Socialist political group at a given moment, but usually it contains no
features that would prevent a purely capitalist party taking it up
spontaneously, in the interest of capitalism.

What is it that drives Kautsky into the position that I have described?
To this question we can find a definite answer, and it leads us into the
center of the seeming mysteries of Socialist policy. The preservation of
the Socialist Party organization, with its heterogeneous constituent
elements, is held to be all-important; and this party organization
cannot be kept intact, and _all_ its present supporters retained,
without a program of practical reforms that may be secured with a little
effort from capitalist governments. In order to claim this program as
distinctively theirs, Socialists must differentiate it in some way from
other reform programs. As there is no practical difference, they must
insist that the ideal is not the same, that Socialists are using the
reforms for different purposes, that only part of their program is like
that of any one capitalist party, while in other parts it resembles
those of other capitalist parties, etc.

That "party necessity" can drive even radical and influential Socialists
into such a position may seem incredible. But when it is understood that
loyalty to party also conflicts with loyalty to principle in many cases
even to the point of driving many otherwise revolutionary Socialists to
the very opposite extreme, _i.e._ to fighting _against_ progressive
capitalist reforms purely for party reasons, this willingness to allow
the Socialist organization to claim such reforms as in some sense its
own, will appear as the lesser deviation from principle.

For example, Kautsky opposes direct legislation--with the proviso that
_perhaps_ it may have _a certain value_ in English-speaking countries
and _under some circumstances_ in France. His arguments in spite of this
proviso are directed almost wholly against it, on the ground that direct
legislation would take many reforms out of the hands of the Party, would
cause them to be discussed independently of one another instead of bound
together as if they were inseparable parts of a program and would weaken
the Party in direct proportion as its use was extended.[174]

Yet Kautsky himself contends, in the same work in which this passage
occurs, that Socialists favor all measures of democracy, even when the
movement at first loses by their introduction. In a word he holds that
the function of promoting immediately practicable political reforms is
so important to the Party, and the Party with its present organization,
membership and activities, is so important to the movement, that even
the most fundamental principle may, on occasion, be disregarded.
Democracy is admitted to be a principle so inviolable that it is to be
upheld generally even when the Party temporarily loses by it. Yet
because direct legislation might rob the Socialists of all opportunity
for claiming the credit for non-Socialist reforms, because it would put
to a direct vote a program composed wholly of elements held in common
with other parties, and differing only in its combination of these
elements, because the Party tactics would have to be completely
transformed and the Party temporarily weakened by being forced to limit
itself entirely to revolutionary efforts, Kautsky turns against this
keystone of democratic reform.

"There is indeed no legislation without compromises," he writes; "the
great masses who are not experienced political leaders, must be much
easier confused and misled than the political leaders. If compromise in
voting on bills were really corrupting, then it would work much more
harm through direct popular legislation than through legislation by
Parliament, ... for that would mean nothing less than to drive the cause
of corruption from Parliament, out among the people."

"Direct legislation," he continues, "has the tendency to divert
attention from general principles and to concentrate it on concrete
questions."[175] But if the Socialists cannot educate the masses to know
what they want concretely, how much less will they understand general
principles? If they cannot judge such concrete and separate questions,
how will they control Socialist officials who, as it is now, so often
build their programs and decide their tactics for them? There is no
mechanical substitute for self-government within Socialist organizations
or elsewhere. Direct legislation will do much to destroy all artificial
situations and place society on the solid basis of the knowledge or
ignorance, the division or organization, the weakness or strength of
character of the masses. The present situation, however useful for
well-intentioned Socialist "leaders," is even better adapted to the
machinations of capitalist politicians. And because it militates against
the politically powerful small capitalists as well as against the
non-capitalists, it is doomed to an early end.

Kautsky, in a word, actually fears that the present capitalist society
will carry out, one by one, its own reforms. For the same reason that he
denies the ability or willingness of capitalism to make any considerable
improvements in the material conditions of labor, except as compelled by
the superior force (or the fear of the superior force) of Socialism, he
would, if possible, prevent the capitalists from introducing certain
democratic improvements that would facilitate reforms independently of
the Socialist Party. However, the economic and political evolution of
capitalism will doubtless continue to take its course, and through
improved democratic methods all Socialist arguments based on the
impossibility of any large measure of working-class progress under
capitalism, and all efforts to credit what is being done to the advance
of Socialism, will be seen to have been futile. The contention between
Socialists and capitalists will then be reduced to its essential
elements:--

Is progress under capitalism as great as it might be under Socialism?

Is capitalist progress making toward Socialism by improving the position
of the non-capitalists _when compared with that of the capitalists_, or
is it having the opposite effect?

Even the "syndicalists," little interested as they are in reform, seem
to fear, as Kautsky does, that so long as considerable changes for the
better are possible, progress towards Socialism, which in their case
also implies revolution, is impossible. I have shown that Lagardelle
denies that Labor and Capital have any interest whatever in common.
Similarly, a less partisan writer, Paul Louis, author of the leading
work on French unionism ("Histoire du Movement Syndicate en France"),
while he notes every evil of the coming State Socialism, yet ignores its
beneficent features, and bases his whole defense of revolutionary labor
unionism on the proposition that important reforms, even if aided by
friendly Socialist cooeperation or hostile Socialist threats, can no
longer be brought about under capitalism:--

"The Parliamentary method was suited by its principle to the reform
era. Direct action corresponds to the syndicalist era. Nothing is
more simple.

"As long as organized labor believes in the possibility of amending
present society by a series of measures built up one upon the
other, it makes use of the means that the present system offers it.
It proceeds through intervening elected persons. It imagines that
from a theoretical discussion there will arise such ameliorations
that its vassalage will be gradually abolished."

The belief here appears that a steady, continuous, and marked
improvement in the position of the working class would necessarily lead
to its overtaking automatically the rapidly increasing power of
capitalism. If this were so, it would indeed be true, as Louis contends,
that no revolutionary movement could begin, except when all beneficial
labor reforms and other working-class progress had ended.

I shall quote (Part III, Chapter V) a passage where Louis indicates that
syndicalism, like Socialism itself, is directed in the most fundamental
way against all existing governments. He takes the further step of
saying that existing governments can do nothing whatever for the benefit
of labor, and that their _sole_ function is that of repression:--

"The State, which has taken for its mission--and no other could be
conceived--the defense of existing society, could not allow its
power of command to be attacked. The social hierarchy which itself
rests upon the economic subordination of one class to another, will
be maintained only so long as the governmental power shatters every
assault victoriously, represses every initiative, punishes without
mercy all innovators and all factious persons....