Socialism As It Is

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"Those who repudiate political revolution as the principal means of
social transformation, or wish to confine the latter to such measures as
have been granted by the ruling class," says Kautsky, "are social
reformers, no matter how much their social ideas may antagonize existing
forms of society."

The Socialists' wholly practical grounds against "reformism" have been
stated by Liebknecht, in his "No Compromise." "This political
Socialism, which in fact is only philanthropic humanitarian radicalism,
has retarded the development of Socialism in France exceedingly," he
wrote in 1899, before Socialist politicians and "reformists" had come
into prominence in other countries than France. "It has diluted and
blurred principles and weakened the Socialist Party because it brought
into it troops upon which no reliance could be placed at the decisive
moment." If, in other words, Socialism is a movement of non-capitalists
against capitalists, nothing could be more fatal to it than a reputation
due chiefly to success in bringing about reforms about which there is
nothing distinctively Socialistic. For this kind of success could not
fail ultimately to swamp the movement with reformers who, like Professor
Clark, are not Socialists and never will be.

It must not be inferred from this that Socialists are indifferent to
reform. They are necessarily far more anxious about it than its
capitalist promoters. For while many "State Socialist" reforms are
profitable to capitalism and even strengthen temporarily its hold on
society, they are in the long run indispensable to Socialism. But this
does not mean that Socialism is compelled to turn aside any of its
energies from its great task of organizing and educating the workers, in
order to hasten these reforms. On the contrary, the larger and the more
revolutionary the Socialist army, the easier it will be for the
progressive capitalists to overcome the conservatives and reactionaries.
Long before this army has become large enough or aggressive enough to
menace capitalism and so to throw all capitalists together in a single
organization wholly devoted to defensive measures, there will be a long
period--already begun in Great Britain, France, and other
countries--when the growth of Socialism will make the progressive
capitalists supreme by giving them _the balance of power_. In order,
then, to hasten and aid the capitalistic form of progress, Socialists
need only see that their own growth is sufficiently rapid. As the
Socialists are always ready to support every measure of capitalist
reform, the capitalist progressives need only then secure enough
strength in Parliaments so that their votes added to those of the
Socialists would form a majority. As soon as progressive capitalism is
at all developed, reforms are thus automatically aided by the Socialist
vote, without the necessity of active Socialist participation--thus
leaving the Socialists free to attend to matters that depend wholly on
their own efforts; namely, the organization and education of the
non-capitalist masses for aggressive measures leading towards the
overthrow of capitalism.

Opposition to the policy of absorption in ordinary reform movements is
general in the international movement outside of Great Britain. Eugene
V. Debs, three times presidential candidate of the American Socialist
Party, is as totally opposed to "reformism" as are any of the Europeans.
"_The revolutionary character of our party and of our movement_," he
said in a personal letter to the present writer, which was published in
the Socialist press, "_must be preserved in all its integrity at all
cost, for if that be compromised we had better cease to exist_.... If
the trimmers had their way we should degenerate into bourgeois
reformers.... But they will not have their way." (Italics mine.)

No American Socialist has more ably summarized the dangers opportunism
brings to the movement than Professor George D. Herron in his pamphlet,
"From Revolution to Revolution," taken from a speech made as early as
1903. Later events, it will be noted, have strikingly verified his
predictions as to the growing popularity of the word "Socialism" with
nearly all political elements in this country.

"Great initiatives and revolutions," Herron says, "have always been
robbed of definition and issue when adopted by the class against
which the revolt was directed....

"Let Socialists take knowledge and warning. The possessing class is
getting ready to give the people a few more crumbs of what is
theirs.... If it comes to that, they are ready to give some things
_in the name of Socialism_.... The old political parties will be
adopting what they are pleased to call Socialistic planks in their
platforms; and the churches will be coming with the insipid
'Christian Socialism,' and their hypocrisy and brotherly love. We
shall soon see Mr. Hanna and Bishop Potter, Mr. Hearst and Dr.
Lyman Abbott, even Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Bryan, posing as
reasonable kinds of Socialists. You will find the name of Socialism
repeatedly taken in vain, and perhaps successfully. You will see
the Socialist movement bridled and saddled by capitalism, in the
hope of riding it to a new lease of capitalistic power....

"But Socialism, like liberty or truth, is something you cannot have
a part of; you must have the whole or you will have nothing; you
can only gain or lose the whole, you cannot gain or lose a part.
You may have municipal ownerships, nationalized transportation,
initiative and referendum, civil service reforms and many other
capitalist concessions, and be all the farther away from Social
Democracy.... You may have any kind and number of reforms you
please, any kind and number of revolutions or revivals you please,
any kind and number of new ways of doing good you please, it will
not matter to capitalism, so long as it remains at the root of
things, the result of all your plans and pains will be gathered
into the Capitalist granary." (The italics are mine.)

Yet no Socialist dreams that the presence in the movement of
semi-Socialist or non-Socialist elements, which is both the cause and
the effect of reformism and compromise, is a mere accident, or that
there is any device by which they may either be kept out or
eliminated--until the time is ripe. The presence of opportunists and
reformists in all Socialist parties is as much an inevitable result at a
certain stage of social evolution as the appearance of Socialism itself.
The time will come when these "Mitlauefer," as the Germans call them,
will either become wholly Socialist or will desert the movement, as has
so often happened, to become a part of the rising tide of "State
Socialism," but that day has not yet arrived.

The division of the organization at a certain stage into two wings is
held by the able Austrian Socialist, Otto Bauer, to be a universal and
necessary process in its development. The first stage is one where all
party members are agreed, since it is then merely a question of the
propaganda of general and revolutionary _ideas_. The second stage (the
present one) arises when the party has already obtained a modest measure
of power which can be either _cashed in_ and utilized for immediate and
material gains or saved up and held for obtaining more power, or for
both objects in degrees varying according as one or the other is
considered more important. Bauer shows that these two policies of
accumulating power and of spending it arise necessarily out of the
social composition of the party at its present stage and the general
social environment in which it finds itself.

At the third stage, he says, when the proletariat has come to form the
overwhelming majority of the population, their campaign for the conquest
of political power appears to the possessing classes for the first time
as a threatening danger. The capitalist parties then unite closely
together against the Social Democracy; what once separated them now
appears small in comparison to the danger which threatens their profits,
their rents, and their monopolistic incomes. So there arises again at
this higher stage of capitalist domination, as was the case at its
beginning, "a Social Democracy in battle _against all the possessing
classes, against the whole power of the organized state_." (Italics
mine.)[186] When the third stage arrives, these reformists who do not
intend to leave the revolutionary movement, begin to get ready to follow
it. Already the most prominent reformist Socialists outside of England
_claim_ that their position is revolutionary. This is true of the
best-known German reformist, Bernstein; it is true of Jaures; and it is
also true of Berger in this country. Bernstein argues in his book,
"Evolutionary Socialism," that constitutional legislation is best
adapted to positive social-political work, "to the creation of permanent
economic arrangements." But he also says that "the revolutionary way
does quicker work as far as it deals with removal of obstacles which a
privileged minority places in the path of social progress." As for
choosing between the revolutionary and non-revolutionary methods, he
admits that revolutionary tactics can be abandoned only when the
non-propertied majority of a nation has become firmly established in
power; that is, when political democracy is so deeply rooted and
advanced that it can be applied successfully to questions of property;
"when a nation has attained a position where the rights of the
propertied minority have ceased to be a serious obstacle of social
progress." Certainly no nation could claim to be in such a position
to-day, unless it were, possibly, Australia, though there the empire of
unoccupied land gives to every citizen possibilities at least of
acquiring property, and relieves the pressure of the class struggle
until the country is settled. This view of Bernstein's, let it be noted,
is a far different one from that prevailing in England--as expressed,
for example, in an organ of the Independent Labour Party, where it is
said that "fortunately 'revolution' in this country has ceased to be
anything more than an affected phrase." Certainly there are few modern
countries where the "propertied minority," of which Bernstein speaks,
constitutes a more serious obstacle to progress than it does in England.

Jaures's position is quite similar to that of Bernstein. He declared in
a recent French Congress that he was both a revolutionist and a
reformer. He indorses the idea of the general strike, but urges that it
should not be used until the work of education and propaganda has made
the time ready, "until a very large and strong organization is ready to
back up the strikers," and until a large section of public opinion is
prepared to recognize the legitimacy of their object. He says he expects
the time to arrive when "the reforms in the interest of the whole
working class which have been promised will have been systematically
refused," and then "the general strike will be the only resource left";
and finally cries, "Never in the name of the working people will we give
up the right of insurrection." This position is verbally correct from
the Socialist standpoint, and it shows the power of the revolutionary
idea in France, when even Jaures is forced to respect it. But any
capitalist politician might safely use the same expressions--so long, at
least, as revolution is still far away.

So also Mr. Berger has written in the _Social Democratic Herald_ of
Milwaukee that "all the ballot can do is to strengthen the power of
resistance of the laboring people."

"We whom the western ultra class-conscious proletarians ... are
wont to call 'opportunists,'" writes Berger, "we know right well
that the social question can no more be solved by street riots and
insurrections than by bombs and dynamite.

"Yet, by the ballot _alone_, it will never be solved.

"Up to this time men have always solved great questions by _blood_
and _iron_." Berger says he is not given to reciting revolutionary
phrases, but asserts that the plutocrats are taking the country in
the direction of "a violent and bloody revolution."

"Therefore," he says, "each of the 500,000 Socialist voters, and of
the two million workingmen who instinctively incline our way,
should, besides doing much reading and still more thinking, also
have a good rifle and the necessary rounds of ammunition in his
home and be prepared to back up his ballot with his bullets if
necessary.... Now, I deny that dealing with a blind and greedy
plutocratic class as we are dealing in this country, the outcome
can ever be peaceable, or that any reasonable change can ever be
brought about by the ballot in the end.

"I predict that a large part of the capitalist class will be wiped
out for much smaller things ... most of the plutocratic class,
together with the politicians, will have to disappear as completely
as the feudal lords and their retinue disappeared during the French
revolution.

"That cannot be done by the ballot, or _only_ by the ballot.

"The ballot cannot count for much in a pinch."[187] (My italics.)

And in another number Mr. Berger writes:--

"As long as we are in the minority we, of course, have _no right to
force_ our opinion _upon an unwilling majority_.... Yet we do not
deny that _after we have convinced the majority of the people_, we
are going to use force if the minority should hesitate."[188] (My
italics.)

Few will question the revolutionary nature of this language. But such
expressions have always been common at critical moments, even among
non-Socialists. We have only to recall the "bloody-bridles" speech of a
former populist governor of Colorado, or the advice of the _New York
Evening Journal_ that every citizen ought to provide against future
contingencies by keeping a rifle in his home. Revolutionary language has
no necessary relation to Socialism.

Mr. Berger, moreover, has also used the threat of revolution, not as a
progressive but as a reactionary force, not in the sense of Marx, who
believed that a revolution, when the times were ripe and the Socialists
ready, would bring incalculably more good than evil, but in the sense of
the capitalists, for whom it is the most terrible of all possibilities.
It is common for conservative statesmen to use precisely the same threat
to secure necessary capitalist reforms.

"Some day there will be a volcanic eruption," said Berger in his first
speech in Congress; "a fearful retribution will be enacted on the
capitalist class as a class, and the innocent will suffer with the
guilty. Such a revolution would throw humanity back into semi-barbarism
and cause even a temporary retrogression of civilization."

Such is the language used against revolutions by conservatives or
reactionaries. Never has it been so applied by a Marx or an Engels, a
Liebknecht, a Kautsky or a Bebel. Without underestimating the enormous
cost of revolutions, the most eminent Socialists reckon them as nothing
compared with the probable gains, or the far greater costs of continuing
present conditions. The assertion of manhood that is involved in every
great revolution from below in itself implies, in the Socialist view,
not retrogression, but a stupendous advance; and any reversion to
semi-barbarism that may take place in the course of the revolution is
likely, in their opinion, to be far more than compensated in other
directions, even during the revolutionary period (to say nothing of
ultimate results).

Revolutionary phrases and scares are of course abhorred by capitalistic
parties, and considered dangerous, unless there is some very strong
occasion for reverting to their use. But such occasions are becoming
more and more frequent. Conservative capitalists are more and more
grateful for any outbreak that alarms or burdens the neutral classes and
serves as a useful pretext for that repression or reaction which their
interests require. Progressive capitalists, on the other hand, use the
very same disturbances to urge reforms they desire, on the ground that
such measures are necessary to avoid "revolution." The disturbance may
be as far as possible from revolutionary at bottom. It is only necessary
that it should be sufficiently novel and disagreeable to attract
attention and cause impatience and irritation among those who have to
pay for it. Like the British strikes of 1911, it may not cost the
capitalist class as a whole one-hundredth part of one per cent of its
income. And it might be possible to repress, within a short time and at
no greater expense, a movement many times more menacing. Provided it
serves to put the supporters of capitalism on their feet, whatever they
do as a result, whether in the way of repression or of reform, will be
but to carry out long-cherished plans for advancing their own interests,
plans that would have been the same even though there had been no shadow
of a "revolutionary" movement on the horizon. The only difference is
that such pseudo-revolutionary or semi-revolutionary disturbances serve
as stimuli to put the more inert of the capitalist forces in motion,
and, until the disturbances become truly menacing, strengthen the
capitalist position.

The use of revolutionary phrases does not then, of itself, demonstrate
an approach to the revolutionary position, though we may assume, on
other grounds, that the majority of the reformist Socialists, who take a
revolutionary position as regards certain _future_ contingencies, are in
earnest. But this indicates nothing as to the character of their
Socialism to-day. The important question is, how far their revolutionary
philosophy goes when directed, not at a hypothetical future situation
but to questions of the present moment.

In all the leading countries of the world, except Great Britain, the
majority of Socialists expect a revolutionary crisis in the future,
because they recognize, with that able student of the movement,
Professor Sombart, that "history knows of no case where a class has
freely given up the rights which it regarded as belonging to
itself."[189] This does not mean that Socialists suppose that all
progress must await a revolutionary period. Engels insisted that he and
his associates were profiting more by lawful than by unlawful and
revolutionary action. It means that Socialists do not believe that the
capitalists will allow such action to remain lawful long enough
materially to increase the income of the working class and its economic
and political power as compared with their own.

Jaures's position as to present politics is based on the very opposite
view. "You will have to lead millions of men to the borders of an
impassable gulf," he says to the revolutionists, "but the gulf will not
be easier for the millions of men to pass over than it was for a hundred
thousand. What we wish is to try to diminish the width of the gulf which
separates the exploited in present-day society from their situation in
the new society."[190] The revolutionaries assert, on the contrary, that
nothing Socialists can do at the present time can moderate the class
war, or lessen the power of capitalism to maintain and increase the
distance between itself and the masses. In direct disagreement with
Jaures, they say that when a sufficient numerical majority has been
acquired, especially in this day when the masses are educated, it will
be able to overcome any obstacle whatever, even what Jaures calls the
impassable gulf--whether in the meanwhile that gulf will have become
narrower or wider than it is to-day, and they believe that the day of
this triumph would be delayed rather than brought nearer if the workers
were to divert their energies from revolutionary propaganda and
organization, to political trading in the interest of reforms that bring
no greater gains to the workers than to their exploiters. The
revolutionary majority believes that the best that can be done at
present is for the workers to train and organize themselves, and always
to devise and study and prepare the means by which capitalism can be
most successfully and economically assaulted when sufficient numbers are
once aroused for successful revolt.

When revolutionary Socialism is not pure speculation, it takes the form
of the present-day "class struggle" against capitalism. The view that
existing society can be _gradually_ transformed into a social democratic
one, Kautsky believes to be merely an inheritance of the past, of a
period "when it was generally believed that further development would
take place exclusively on the _economic_ field, without the necessity of
any kind of change in the relative distribution of _political_
institutions." (Italics mine.)[191]

"Neither a railroad [that is, its administration] nor a ministry can be
changed gradually, but only at a single stroke," says Kautsky, to
illustrate the sort of a change Socialists expect. The need of such a
complete change does not decrease on account of any reforms that are
introduced before such a change takes place. "There are some
politicians," he says, "who assert that only _despotic_ class rule
necessitates revolution; that revolution is rendered superfluous by
_democracy_. It is claimed that we have to-day sufficient democracy in
all civilized countries to make possible a peaceable revolutionless
development." (My italics.) As means by which these politicians hope to
achieve such a revolutionless development, Kautsky mentions the gradual
increase of the power of the trade unions, the penetration of Socialists
into local governments, and finally the growing power of Socialist
minorities in parliaments where they are supposed to be gaining
increasing influence, pushing through one reform after another,
restricting the power of the capitalists by labor legislation and
extending the functions of the government. "So by the exercise of
democratic rights upon existing grounds, the capitalist society is
[according to these opportunists] gradually and without any shock
growing into Socialism."[192]

"This idyl becomes true," Kautsky says, "only if we grant that but one
side of the opposed forces [the proletariat] is growing and increasing
in strength, while the other side [the capitalists] remains immovably
fixed to the same spot." But he believes that the very contrary is the
case, that the capitalists are gaining in strength all the time, and
that the advance of the working class merely goads the capitalists on
"_to develop new powers and to discover and apply new methods of
resistance and repression_."[193]

Kautsky says that the present form of democracy, though it is to the
Socialist movement what light and air are to the organism, hinders in no
way the development of capitalism, the organization and economic powers
of which improve and increase faster than those of the working people.
"To be sure, the unions are growing," say Kautsky, "but simultaneously
and faster grows the concentration of capital and its organization into
gigantic monopolies. To be sure, the Socialist press is growing, but
simultaneously grows the partyless and characterless press that poisons
and unnerves even wider circles of people. To be sure, wages are rising,
but still faster rise the accumulations of profits. Certainly the
number of Socialist representatives in Parliament grows, but still more
rapidly sinks the significance and efficiency of this institution, while
at the same time parliamentary majorities, like the government, fall
into ever greater dependence on the powers of high finance." (Possibly
events of the past year or two mark the beginning of the waning of the
powers of monopolists, and of the partial transfer of those powers to a
capitalistic middle class; but exploitation of _the working class_
continues under such new masters no less vigorously than before.)

A recent discussion between Kautsky and the reformist leader,
Maurenbrecher, brought out some of these points very sharply.[194]
Maurenbrecher said, "In Parliament we wish to do practical work, to
secure funds for social reforms--so that step by step we may go on
toward the transformation of our class government." Kautsky replied that
while the revolutionaries wish also to do practical work in Parliament,
they can "see beyond"; and he says of Maurenbrecher's view: "This would
all be very fine, if we were alone in the world, if we could arrange our
fields of battle and our tactics to suit our taste. But we have to do
with opponents who venture everything to prevent the triumph of the
proletariat. Comrade Maurenbrecher will acknowledge, I suppose, that the
victory of the proletariat will mean the end of capitalist exploitation.
Does he expect the exploiters to look on good-naturedly while we take
one position after another and make ready for their expropriation? If
so, he lives under a mighty illusion. Imagine for a moment that our
parliamentary activity were to assume forms which threatened the
supremacy of the capitalists. What would happen? The capitalists would
try to put an end to parliamentary forms of government. In particular
they would rather do away with the universal, direct, and secret ballot
than quietly capitulate to the proletariat." As Premier von Buelow
declared while in office that he would not hesitate to take the measure
that Kautsky anticipates, we have every reason to believe that this very
_coup d'etat_ is still contemplated in Germany--and we have equally good
reason to believe that if the Socialists were about to obtain a majority
in the governments of France, Great Britain, or the United States, the
capitalist class, yet in control, would be ready to abolish, not only
universal suffrage and various constitutional rights, but any and all
rights of the people that stood in the way of the maintenance of
capitalistic rule. Declarations of Briand and Roosevelt quoted in later
chapters (Part III, Chapters VI and VII) are illustrations of what might
be expected.