Socialism As It Is Part 16

"'Socialistic' ministers," says Rappoport, "have fallen below the level of progressive capitalistic governments. No 'Socialistic' minister has done near so much for democracy as honorable but narrow-minded democrats like Combes. 'Socialistic' ministers have before anything else sought the means of keeping themselves in office. In order to make people forget their past, they are compelled to give continuously new proofs of their zeal for the government."

In France, where strong radical, democratic, and "State Socialist"

parties already exist, ready to absorb those who put reform before Socialism, the likelihood that such desertions will lead to any serious division of the party seems small, especially since the Toulouse Congress, when a platform was adopted unanimously. Of course, the leading factor in this platform was Jaures, who stands as strongly for a policy of unity and conciliation within the party as he has for an almost uninterrupted conciliation and cooperation with the more or less radical forces outside of it.

If Jaures was able to get the French Party to adopt this unanimous program, it was because he is not the most extreme of reformists, and because he has. .h.i.therto placed party loyalty before everything. In the same way Bebel, voting on nearly every occasion with the revolutionists, is able to hold the German Party together because he is occasionally on the reformist side, as in a case to be mentioned below. Jaures looks forward, for instance, to a whole series of "successful general strikes intervening at regular intervals," and even to the final use of a great revolutionary general strike, whenever it looks as if the capitalists can be finally overthrown and the government taken into Socialist hands--though he certainly considers that the day for such a strike is still many years off. Nor does he hesitate to extend the hand of Socialist fellowship to the most revolutionary Socialists and labor unionists of his country, though he says to them, "The more revolutionary you are, the more you must try to bring into the united movement not only a minority, but the whole working cla.s.s." He says he is not against revolution, or the general strike, but that he is against "a caricature of the general strike and an abortive revolution."

It is only by actions, however, that men or parties may be judged, and though Jaures has occasionally been found with the revolutionists, in most cases he acts with their rivals and opponents, the reformists, and in fact is the most eminent Socialist reformer the world has produced.

No one will question that there are Socialists who are exclusively interested in reform at the present period, not because they are opposed to revolution, but because no greater movements are taking place at the present moment or likely to take place in the immediate future--and Jaures may be one of these. But it is very difficult, even impossible, to distinguish by any external signs, between such persons and those for whom the idea of anything beyond the reforms of "State Socialism" is a mere ideal, which concerns almost exclusively the next or some future generation. Many of those who were formerly Jaures's most intimate a.s.sociates, like the ministers Briand and Millerand, the recent ministers Augagneur and Viviani, and many others, have deserted the Party and are now proving to be its most dangerous opponents, while several other deputies, who are still members like Brousse, recently Mayor of Paris, are accused by a large part of the organization of taking a very similar position. Surely this shows that, even if Jaures himself could be trusted and allowed to advocate principles and tactics so agreeable to the rivals and enemies of Socialism, there are certainly few other persons who can be safely left in such a compromising position.

In view of these great betrayals on the part of Jaures's a.s.sociates, the mere fact that his own position towards the Party has usually been correct in the end--after the majority have shown him just how far he can go--and will doubtless remain technically correct, becomes of entirely secondary importance. He has openly and repeatedly encouraged and aided those individuals and parties which later became the chief obstacles in the way of Socialist advance, as other Socialists had predicted. The result is, not that the Socialist Party has ceased to grow, but that a large part of the enthusiasm for Socialism, largely created by the party, has gone to elect so-called "Independent Socialists" to the Chamber and to elevate to the control of the government men like Briand, who, it was agreed by Socialists and anti-Socialists alike, was the most formidable enemy the Socialists have had for many years.

The program unanimously adopted by the French at the Congress of Toulouse must be viewed in the light of this internal situation. "The Socialist Party, the party of the working cla.s.s and of the Social Revolution," it begins, "seeks the conquest of political power for the emanc.i.p.ation of the proletariat [working cla.s.s] by the destruction of the capitalist regime and the suppression of cla.s.ses." The goal of Socialism could not be more succinctly expressed than in these words: "The destruction of the capitalist regime and the suppression of cla.s.ses." Any party that lives up to this preamble in letter and spirit can scarcely stray from the Socialist road.

"It is the party which is most essentially, most actively reformist,"

continues another section, "the only one which can push its action on to total reform; the only one which can give full effect to each working cla.s.s demand; the only one which can make of each reform, of each victory, the starting point and basis of more extended demands and bolder conquests...." Here we have the plank on which Jaures undoubtedly laid the greatest weight, and it was supported unanimously partly because of the necessity of party unity. For this is as much as to say that no reform will ever be brought to a point that wholly satisfies the working people except through a working cla.s.s government.

But it cannot be denied that there are certain changes of very great importance to the working people, like those mentioned in previous chapters, which are at the same time even more valuable to the capitalists, and would be carried out to the end even if there were no Socialists in existence. If the revolutionary wing of the French Party once conceded to capitalism itself this possibility of bringing about certain reforms, they would be in a position effectively to oppose the reformist tactics of Jaures within the Party. By giving full credit to the semi-democratic and semi-capitalistic reform parties for certain measures, they would go as far as he does in the direction of conciliation and common sense in politics; by denying the possibility of the slightest cooperation with non-Socialists on other and _still more important questions_, they could constantly intensify the political conflict, and since Jaures is a perpetual compromiser, put him in the minority in every contested vote within the party. By attacking the capitalists blindly and on all occasions they have created the necessity of a conciliator--the role that Jaures so ably and effectively fills.

But, however friendly the Toulouse program may have seemed to Jaures's reform tactics, it is not on that account any less explicit in its indors.e.m.e.nt of revolutionary methods whenever the moment happens to be propitious. It states that the Socialist Party "continually reminds the proletariat [working cla.s.s] by its propaganda that they will find salvation and entire freedom only in a collectivist and communist regime"; that "it carries on this propaganda in all places in order to raise everywhere the spirit of demand and of combat," and that "the Socialists not only indorse the general strike for use in economic struggles, but also for the purpose of finally absorbing capitalism."

"Like all exploited cla.s.ses throughout history," it concludes, "the proletariat affirms its right to take recourse at certain moments to insurrectionary violence."

The Toulouse Congress showed, not the present position of the French Party or of the International, but the points on which Socialist revolutionists and reformers, everywhere else at sword's point, can agree. The reformers do not object to promising the revolutionaries that they shall have their own way in the relatively rare crises when revolutionary means are used or contemplated. The revolutionaries are willing to allow the reformers to claim all the credit for all reforms beneficial to the workers that happen to be enacted. Neither gives up their first principle, whether it be revolution or reform, but in the matter of secondary importance, reform or revolution, each side tolerates in the party an att.i.tude in diametrical opposition to its principles and the tactics it requires. Both do this doubtless in the belief that by this opportunism they will some day capture the whole party, and that a split may thus be avoided in the meanwhile.

Since the Toulouse Congress the divisions within the French Party have become much more acute. Briand's conduct in the great railway strike in 1911 is discussed below. Yet in spite of this experience of how much the government is ready to pay for railways and how little it is ready to do to their employees, Jaures's followers at the Party Congresses of 1911 and 1912 stood again for the policy of nationalization, and Guesde was impelled to warn the party that Briand's "State Socialism" was the gravest danger to the movement.

Briand's positive achievements are also defended by Jaures. The recent workingmen's pension law, unlike that of England, demands a direct contribution from the employees. Nevertheless, it contained some slight advantages, and of the seventy-five Socialist members of the Chamber of Deputies, only Guesde voted against it. Even when the Federation of Labor was conducting a campaign against registration to secure these "benefits," Jaures's organ, _L'Humanite_ took the other side. The working people, as usual, followed their unions. Less than 5 per cent registered; in Paris only 2.5 per cent, and in Brest 22 out of 10,000.

The experience with Millerand and Briand has made it impossible for Jaures to tie the French Party to "reformism." But reformism has brought it about that the Party is often split in its votes in the Chamber of Deputies. In the Party Congresses, however, Jaures is outvoted where a clear difference arises, an outcome he does his best to avoid. The Congress of 1911 (at St. Quentin) reaffirmed the international decision at Amsterdam which prevents the party going in for reform as a part of a non-Socialist administration. It declared that "Socialists elected to office are the representatives of a party of fundamental and absolute opposition to the whole of the capitalist cla.s.s, and to the State, its tool." And Vaillant said that since the Amsterdam Congress in 1904 the question of partic.i.p.ation in capitalist ministries had ceased to exist in France.

It is true that Jaures secured at this Congress, by a narrow majority, an indors.e.m.e.nt of his policy of accepting the government pension offer.

But the orthodox followers of Guesde and the revolutionary disciples of Herve joined to secure its condemnation first by the Paris organization, and later by the National Council of the Party by the decisive vote of 87 to 51. This resolution which marks a great turning point in the French Party, is in part as follows:--

"The National Council declares that each time a labor question is to be decided, the Socialist Party should act in accord with the General Confederation of Labor."

As the Confederation has indorsed Socialism both as an end and as a means, few, if any, Socialist parties would object to this resolution.

But the Confederation is also revolutionary, and this policy, if adhered to, marks an end to the influence of the "reformism" of Jaures.

The precise objections to the government's insurance proposal are also significant. The National Council protested against the following features:--

(1) The compulsory contributions.

(2) The capitalization (of the fund).

(3) The ridiculous smallness of the pension.

(4) The age required to obtain the pension.

(5) The reestablishment of workingmen's certificates.

Among the working people there is no doubt that the first feature was the chief cause of unpopularity. But Socialists know that, through indirect taxes or the automatic fall in wages or rise in prices, the same object of charging the bill to the workers may be reached. The capitalization refers to the investment and management of the large fund required by a capitalist government, thereby increasing its power. The last point has to do with the tendency to restrict the workers' liberty in return for the benefits granted--a tendency more visible with the pensions of the railway employees which were almost avowedly granted to sweeten the bitter pill of a law directed against their organizations.

The same orthodox and revolutionary elements in the Party overthrew the Monis Ministry by refusing to vote for it with Jaures and his followers.

But this ministry, perhaps the most radical France has had, was in part a creation of Jaures, who had hailed it with delight in his organ, _L'Humanite_. The fact that it only lived for three months and was overthrown by Socialists was another crushing blow to Jaures. As it came simultaneously with his defeat in the National Council, it is highly improbable that the reformists will succeed soon, if ever, in regaining that majority in the movement which they held for a brief moment at the time of the St. Quentin Congress and during the first days of the Monis Ministry.

It is now in Belgium and Italy only that "reformism" is dominant and still threatens to fuse the Socialists with other parties. In the last election in Italy the Socialists generally fused with the Republicans and Radicals, while the Belgian Party has decided to allow the local political organizations to do this wherever they please in the elections of 1912.

In Belgium, Vandervelde, who has usually represented himself as an advocate of compromise between the two wings in international congresses, has now come out for a position more reformistic than that of Jaures and only exceeded by the British "Labourites." He was one of the movers of the Amsterdam resolution (see Chapter VII), which he now declares merely repeated the previous one of Paris (1900) which, he says, merely "forbids an individual Socialist to take a part in a capitalist government without the consent of the Party." On the contrary, this Amsterdam resolution, as Vaillant says, forbids Socialist Parties to allow their members to become members of capitalist ministries except under the most extraordinary and critical circ.u.mstances.[102]

We are not surprised after this to hear Vandervelde say that the Belgian Party has not decided whether it will take part in a future Liberal government or not, because, though the occasion for this might occur this year (1912), he considers it too far off in the future for present consideration--surely a strange position for a Party that pretends to be interested in a future society. We are also prepared to hear from him that Socialists might be ready to accept representation in such a ministry, not in proportion to their numerical strength, or even their votes, but in proportion to the number of seats an unequal election law gives them in Parliament. Whether, when the question actually presents itself, the Party will follow Vandervelde is more than questionable.

In Italy "reformism" has reached its furthermost limit. When last year (1911) Bissolati was offered a place in the Giolitti Ministry he hesitated for weeks and was openly urged by a number of other Socialist deputies to accept. After consultations with Giolitti and the king he finally refused, giving as a pretext that, as minister, he would be forced to give some outward obeisance to monarchy, but really because such an action would split the Socialist Party and perhaps, also, because he might not be able altogether to support Giolitti on the one ground of the military elements of his budget. Far from condemning Bissolati, the group of Socialist deputies pa.s.sed a resolution that expressed satisfaction with his conduct and even appointed him to speak in their name at the opening of the new Parliament. All the deputies save two then voted confidence in the new ministry and approbation of its program.

The opinion of the revolutionary majority of the international movement on this situation was reflected in the position of the revolutionaries of the two chief cities of the country, Milan and Rome. At the former city where they had a third of the delegates to the local Socialist committee they moved that the Socialist Party could neither authorize its deputies to represent it in a capitalist ministry or give that ministry its support, "except under conditions determined, not by Parliamentary artifices, but by the needs and mature political consciousness of the great ma.s.s of workers." At Rome two thirds of the Socialist delegates voted a resolution condemning the action of Bissolati as "the direct and logical consequence of the thought, program, and practical action of the reformist group," and reproved both the proposal of immediate partic.i.p.ation in a capitalist government and "the theoretical encouragement of such a possibility" as being opposed to all sound and consistent Socialist activity.

The "reformists," led by Turati, were of the opinion merely that the time was not yet ripe for the action Bissolati had contemplated. But the grounds given in the resolution proposed by Turati on this occasion show that it was not on principle that he went even this far. He declared that "in the present condition of the organization and the present state of mind of the Party" a partic.i.p.ation in the government which was "not imposed by a real popular movement, would profoundly weaken Socialist action, aggravating the already existing lack of harmony between purely parliamentary action and the development of the political consciousness and the capacity for victory on the part of the great ma.s.s of the workers."[103] In other words, as in France, the working people, especially those in the unions, will not tolerate a further advance in the reformist direction, but Turati and Bissolati, like Jaures and Vandervelde are striving to compromise, just as far as they will be allowed to do so. There is thus always a possibility of splits and desertions in these countries, but none that the party will abandon the revolutionary path.

The tactics of the Italian "reformists" were immensely clarified at the Congress of Modena (October, 1911). For the question of supporting a non-Socialist ministry and of partic.i.p.ating in it was made still more acute by the government's war against Tripoli, while the Bissolati case above mentioned was also for the first time before a national Party Congress. Nearly all Socialists had opposed the war, as had also many non-Socialists--but after war was declared, the majority of the Socialist members of Parliament voted against the general twenty-four hours' strike that was finally declared as a demonstration against it.

This majority had finally decided to support the strike only after it was declared by a _unanimous_ vote of the executive of the Federation of Labor, and then its chief anxiety had been lest the strike go too far.

The revolutionary minority in the parliamentary group, however, which had consisted of only two at the time of the Bissolati affair, was now increased to half a dozen of the thirty-odd members, while the revolutionary opposition to "reformism" in the Modena Congress, as a result of these two issues, rose to more than 40 per cent of the delegates.

At this Congress the reformists were divided into three groups, represented by Bissolati, Turati, and Modigliani. All agreed that it was necessary not only to vote for certain reforms--to this the revolutionists are agreed--but also at certain times to vote for the whole budget and to support the administration. Modigliani, however, declared (against Bissolati) that no Socialist could _ever_ become a member of a capitalist ministry; Turati, that while this principle held true at the present stage of the movement, he would not bind himself as to the future; while Bissolati was unwilling to make any pledge on this question. As Bissolati did not propose, however, that the Socialists should take part in the present ministry _at the present moment_, this question was not an immediate issue. What had to be decided was whether, in order to hasten and facilitate the introduction of universal suffrage and other social reforms, the government is to be supported at the present moment--when it is waging a war of colonial conquest to which all Socialists are opposed.

The resolution finally adopted by the Congress was drawn up by Turati and others who represented the views of the majority of reformists.

While purely negative, it was quite clear, and the fact that it was finally accepted both by Bissolati and by Modigliani is highly significant. It concluded that "the Socialist group in Parliament ought not any longer to support the government _systematically_ with their votes." It did not declare for any systematic _opposition_ to the administration, even at the time when it is waging this war. It did not even forbid occasional support, and it left full discretion in the hands of the same parliamentary group whose policy I have been recording.

As a consequence the Italian Party at this juncture intentionally tolerated two contradictory policies. Turati declared: "We are in opposition unless in some exceptional case, in which some situation of extreme gravity might present itself." Rigola, who was one of the three spokesmen appointed for the less conservative reformists (with Turati and Modigliani) said: "We have been ministerialists for ten years, but little or nothing has been done for the proletariat. Some laws have been approved, but it is doubtful if they are due to us rather than to the exigencies of progress itself." In other words, Turati and Rigola thought there could be occasions for supporting capitalist ministries, though the present was not such an occasion; while the latter practically confessed that the policy had always been a failure in Italy. But in the face of all criticism Bissolati announced that he refused absolutely _to pa.s.s over to the opposition to the ministry of Giolitti_. Turati and his followers, now in control of the Party, might tolerate this position; the large and growing revolutionary minority would not. This could only mean that Socialist group in the Italian Parliament, like that of France, and even of Germany, would divide its votes on many vital matters, or at least that the minority would abstain from voting. Which could only mean that on many questions of the highest importance there was no longer one Socialist Party, but two.[104]

Turati himself wrote of the Modena Congress:--

"Only two tendencies were to be seen in the discussion and the voting; _two parties in their bases and principles_: the Socialist Party as a party of the working people, a cla.s.s party, a party of political, economic, and social reorganization, and on the other side a bourgeois radical party as a completion of, and perhaps also as a center of new life force for, the sleeping and half moribund bourgeois democratic radicalism."[105] That is, the "reformist" Turati denied that there is anything Socialistic about Bissolati's "ultra-reformist" faction. To this Bissolati answered that compromise and the political collaboration of the working people with other cla.s.ses, was not to be reserved, as Turati had said, for accidental and extraordinary cases, but was "the very essence of the reformist method."[106] The revolutionaries, of course, agree with Bissolati that, if the Socialists hold that their prime function is to work for reforms favored by a large part of the capitalists, compromises and the habit of fighting with the capitalists instead of against them are inevitable.

Turati now began to approach the revolutionaries, said that they had given up their dogmatism, immoderation, and justification of violence, and that he only differed from them now on questions of "more or less."

The revolutionaries, however, have made no overtures to Turati, and Turati's overtures to the revolutionaries have so far been rejected.

Turati's "reformism" seems to be less opportunistic than it was, but as long as he insists, as he does to-day, that it is only conditions that have changed and not his reformist tactics, that the revolutionaries are moving towards the reformists, the relation of the two factions is likely to remain as embittered as ever. Only if the revolutionaries continue to grow more powerful, until Turati is obliged still further to moderate his "reformist" principles and to abandon some of his tactics permanently, instead of saying, as he does now, that he lays them aside only temporarily, will there be any real unity in the Italian Socialist Party.

Within a few weeks after the Modena Congress, Turati had already initiated a movement in this direction when he persuaded the executive committee of the Party, after a bitter conflict, and by a majority of one (12 to 13), to enter definitely into opposition to the government, which in the meanwhile had given a new cause for offense by delaying on a military pretext the convocation of the Chamber of Deputies.[107]

Among the opportunist and ultra "reformists" who were still anxious to take no definite action, were such well-known men as Bissolati, Podrecca, Calda, and Ciotti. Bissolati deplored all agitation in criticism of the war except a demand for the convocation of the Chamber.

Turati and others who had at last decided to go over definitely to the opposition, did so on entirely non-Socialist and capitalist grounds such as the expense of the war, the unprofitable nature of Tripoli as a colony, the aid the war gave to clericals and other reactionaries (elements opposed also by progressive capitalists), and the interference it caused with other reforms (favored also by progressive capitalists).

Turati, indeed, was frank enough to say that he had Lloyd George's successful opposition to the Boer War as a model, and called the attention of his a.s.sociates to the fact that Lloyd George became Minister (it will be remembered that Turati is not on the whole opposed to Socialists also becoming ministers--even in a capitalist cabinet).

Even now it was only the revolutionary Musatti who pointed out the true Socialist moral of the situation, that failure of the non-Socialist democrats to stand by their principles and to oppose the war, ought to lead the party to separate from them, not only temporarily, but permanently, and to make impossible forever either the partic.i.p.ation of the Socialists in any capitalist administration or even the support of such an administration in the Chamber of Deputies.

It was only when Bissolati secured a majority of the Socialist deputies, and this majority decided to _compel_ the minority to accept Bissolati's neutral tactics as to the war and his readiness actively to support the war government at every point where that government was in need of support, that Turati rebelled and demanded that his minority, which announced itself as willing as a unit to obey the decisions of the Party Congress, should be recognized as its official representative in the Chamber. Turati's position was the same as before, but Bissolati's greater popularity among the voters, _including non-Socialists_, gave the latter control of the Parliamentary group, and forced the former to a declaration of war. The effect was to throw Turati and his followers into the arms of the revolutionaries, where they form a minority.

And thus the situation becomes similar to that in France. The reformist "leaders," Jaures and Turati, do all that is possible to lead the Socialist Parties of the two countries in the opposite direction from that in which these organizations are going. But though these "leaders"

are turned in the direction of cla.s.s conciliation, they are constantly being dragged backwards in the direction of cla.s.s war. Unconsciously they are doing all they can to r.e.t.a.r.d Socialism--short of leaving the movement. But as long as they consent to go with Socialism when they are unable to make Socialism go with them, their ability to r.e.t.a.r.d the movement is strictly limited.