Socialism As It Is Part 37

is still common in some Socialist quarters. Recently Kautsky wrote that the Socialist Party, besides occupying itself with the interests of the manual laborers, "must also concern itself with all social questions, but that _its att.i.tude on these questions is determined by the interests of the manual laborers_."

"The Socialist Party," he continued, "is forced by its cla.s.s position to expand its struggle against its own exploitation and oppression into a struggle against all forms of exploitation and oppression, to broaden its struggle for cla.s.s interests into a struggle for liberty and justice for all members of the community." According to this interpretation, the Socialist Party, starting out from the standpoint of the economic interests of the "manual laborers," comes to represent the interests of all cla.s.ses, except the capitalists. We may doubt as to whether the other non-capitalist cla.s.ses will take kindly to this subordination or "benevolent a.s.similation" by the manual workers.

Kautsky seems to have no question on this matter, however; for he considers that the abolition of the oppression and exploitation of the wage earners, _the cla.s.s at the bottom_, can only be effected by the abolition of all exploitation and oppression, and that therefore "all friends of universal liberty and justice, whatever cla.s.s they may spring from, are compelled to join the proletariat and to fight its cla.s.s struggles."[237] Even if this is true, these other cla.s.ses will demand that they should have an equal voice in carrying on this struggle in proportion to their numbers, and Socialist parties have usually (though not always) given them that equal voice.

The kernel of the working cla.s.s, "the layers of the industrial proletariat which have reached political self-consciousness," provides the chief supporters of the Socialist movement, according to Kautsky, although the latter is the representative "not alone of the industrial wage workers, but of all the working and exploited layers of the community, that is, the great majority of the total population, what one ordinarily calls 'the people.'" While Socialism is to represent all the producing and exploited cla.s.ses, the industrial proletariat is thus considered as the model to which the others must be shaped and as by some special right or virtue it is on all occasions to take the forefront in the movement. This position leads inevitably to a considerably qualified form of democracy.

"The backbone of the party will always be the fighting proletariat, whose qualities will determine its character, whose strength will determine its power," says Kautsky. "Bourgeois and peasants are highly welcome if they will attach themselves to us and march with us, but the proletariat will always show the way.

"But if not only wage earners but also small peasants and small capitalists, artisans, middle-men of all kinds, small officials, and so forth--in short, the whole so-called 'common people'--formed the ma.s.ses out of which Social Democracy recruits its adherents, we must not forget that these cla.s.ses, with the exception of the cla.s.s-conscious wage-earners, are also a recruiting ground for our opponents; their influence on these cla.s.ses has been and still is to-day the chief ground of their political power.

"To grant political rights to the people, therefore, by no means necessarily implies the protection of the interests of the proletariat or those of social evolution. Universal suffrage, as it is known, has nowhere brought about a Social Democratic majority, while it may give more reactionary majorities than a qualified suffrage under the same circ.u.mstances. It may put aside a liberal government only to put in its place a conservative or catholic one....

"Nevertheless the proletariat must demand democratic inst.i.tutions under all circ.u.mstances, for the same reasons that, once it has obtained political power, it can only use its own cla.s.s rule for the purpose of putting an end to all cla.s.s rule. It is the bottommost of the social cla.s.ses. It cannot gain political rights, at least not in its entirety, except if everybody gets them. Each of the other cla.s.ses may become privileged under certain circ.u.mstances, but not the proletariat. The Social Democracy, the party of the cla.s.s-conscious proletariat, is therefore the surest support of democratic efforts, much surer than the bourgeois democracy.

"But if the Social Democracy is also the most strenuous fighter for democracy, it cannot share the latter's illusions. It must always be conscious of the fact that every popular right which it wins is a weapon not only for itself, but also for its opponents; it must therefore under certain circ.u.mstances understand that democratic achievements are more useful at first to the enemy than to itself; but only at first. For in the long run the introduction of democratic inst.i.tutions in the State can only turn out to the profit of Social Democracy. They necessarily make its struggle easier, and lead it to victory. The militant proletariat has so much confidence in social evolution, so much confidence in itself, that it fears no struggle, not even with a superior power; it only wants a field of battle on which it can move freely. The democratic State offers such a field of battle; there the final decisive struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat can best be fought out."

The reader might understand this somewhat vacillating position on the whole to favor democracy, but only a few pages further on Kautsky explains his reasons for opposing the initiative and referendum, and we see that when the point of action arrives, his democratic idealism is abandoned:--

"In our opinion it follows from the preceding that the initiative and referendum do _not_ belong to those democratic inst.i.tutions which must be furthered by the proletariat in the interest of its own struggle for emanc.i.p.ation everywhere and under all circ.u.mstances. The referendum and initiative are inst.i.tutions which may be very useful under certain circ.u.mstances if one does not overvalue these uses, but under other circ.u.mstances may cause great harm. The introduction of the initiative and referendum is, therefore, not to be striven for everywhere and under all circ.u.mstances, but only in those places where certain conditions are fulfilled.

"Among these conditions precedent we reckon, above all, the preponderance of the city population over that of the country--a condition which at the present moment has only been reached in England. A further condition precedent is a highly developed political party life which has taken hold of the great ma.s.ses of the population, so that the tendency of direct legislation to break up parties and to bridge over party opposition are no more to be feared.

"But the weightiest condition precedent is the lack of an overwhelmingly centralized governmental power, standing independently against the people's representatives."[238] (My italics.)

The first condition mentioned I have discussed in the previous chapter; the second indicates that Kautsky, speaking for many German Socialists, for the present at least, puts party above democracy.

The industrial proletariat is supposed to have the mission of saving society. Even when it is not politically "self-conscious," or educated to see the great role it must play in the present and future transformation of society, it is supposed that it is _compelled_ ultimately "by the logic of events" to fill this role and attempt the destruction of capitalism and the socialization of capital. This prediction may _ultimately_ prove true, but time is the most vital element in any calculation, and Kautsky himself acknowledges that the industrial proletariat "had existed a long time before giving any indication of its independence," and that during all this long period "no militant proletariat was in existence."

The chief practical reason for relying so strongly on the industrial wage earners as stated by Bebel and other Socialists is undoubtedly that "the proletariat increases more and more until it forms the overwhelming majority of the nation." No doubt, in proportion as this tendency exists, the importance of gathering certain parts of the middle cla.s.s into the movement becomes less and less, and the statement quoted, if strongly insisted upon, even suggests a readiness to attempt to get along entirely without these elements. The figures of the Census indicate that in this country, at least, we are some time from the point when the proletariat will const.i.tute even a bare majority, and that it is not likely to form an overwhelming majority for decades to come. But the European view is common here also.

The moderate Vandervelde also says that the Socialist program has been "formulated by or for the workingmen of large-scale industry."[239] This may be true, but we are not as much interested to know who formulated the program of the movement as to understand its present aim. Its aim, it is generally agreed, is to organize into a single movement all anti-capitalistic elements, all those who want to abolish capitalism, those exploited cla.s.ses that are not too crushed to revolt, those whose chief means of support is socially useful labor and not the ownership of capital or possession of some privileged position or office. In this movement it is generally conceded by Socialists that the workingmen of industry play the central part. But they are neither its sole origin nor is their welfare its sole aim.

The best known of the Socialist critics of Marxism, Edward Bernstein, shares with some of Marx's most loyal disciples in this excessive idealization of the industrial working cla.s.s. Indeed, he says, with more truth than he realizes, that in proportion as revolutionary Marxism is relegated to the background it is necessary to affirm more sharply the cla.s.s character of the Party. That is to say, if a Socialist Party abandons the principles of Socialism, then the only way it can be distinguished from other movements is by the fact that it embraces other elements of the population, that it is a cla.s.s movement. But Socialism is something more than this, it is a cla.s.s movement of a certain definite character, composed of cla.s.ses that are naturally selected and united, owing to certain definite characteristics.

"The social democracy," says Bernstein, "can become the people's party, but only in the sense that the workingmen form the _essential_ kernel around which are grouped social elements having identical interests....

Of all the social cla.s.ses opposed to the capitalist cla.s.s, the working cla.s.s _alone_ represents an invincible factor of social progress," and social democracy "addresses itself princ.i.p.ally to the workers." (My italics.)

Perhaps the most orthodox Socialist organ in America, and the ablest representative in this country of the international aspects of the movement (the _New Yorker Volkszeitung)_, insists that "the Socialist movement consists in the fusion of the Socialist doctrine with the labor movement and in nothing else," and says that students and even doctors have little importance for the Party. The less orthodox but more revolutionary _Western Clarion_, the Socialist organ of British Columbia, where the Socialists form the chief opposition party in the legislature, a.s.serts boldly, "We have no leaning towards democracy; all we want is a short supply of working-cla.s.s autocracy."

Some of the ultra-revolutionists have gone so far in their hostility to all social cla.s.ses that do not work with their hands, that they have completed the circle and flown into the arms of the narrowest and least progressive of trade unionists--the very element against which they had first reacted. The Western Socialist, Thomas Sladden, throwing into one single group all the labor organizations from the most revolutionary to the most conservative, such as the railway brotherhoods, says that all "are in reality part of the great Socialist movement," and claims that whenever "labor" goes into politics, this also is a step towards Socialism, though Socialist principles are totally abandoned. Mayor McCarthy of San Francisco, for instance, satisfied his requirements.

"McCarthy declares himself a friend of capital," says Sladden, but, he asks defiantly, "Does any sane capitalist believe him?" Here we see one of the most revolutionary agitators becoming more and more "radical"

until he has completed the circle and come back, not only to "labor right or wrong," but even to "labor working in harmony with capital."

"The skilled workingman," he says, "is not a proletarian. He has an interest to conserve, he has that additional skill for which he receives compensation in addition to his ordinary labor power."

Mr. Sladden adds that the _real_ proletarian is "uncultured and uncouth in appearance," that he has "no manners and little education," and that his religion is "the religion of hate." Of course this is a mere caricature of the att.i.tude of the majority of Socialists.

Some of the partisans of revolutionary unionism in this country are little less extreme. The late Louis d.u.c.h.ez, for example, reminds us that Marx spoke of the proletariat as "the lowest stratum of our present society," those "who have nothing to lose but their chains," and that he said that "along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital who usurp and monopolize all the advantages of this process of transformation, grows the ma.s.s of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this, too, grows the revolt of the working cla.s.s." It is true that Marx said these things and said them with emphasis. But he did not wish to make any rigid or dogmatic definition of "the proletariat" and much that he has said pointed to an entirely different conception than would be gained from these quotations.

In speaking of "the lowest stratum of society" Marx was thinking, not of a community divided into numerous strata, but chiefly of three cla.s.ses, the large capitalists, the workers, and the middle cla.s.s. It was the lowest of these three, and not the lowest of their many subdivisions, that he had in mind. From the first the whole Socialist movement has recognized the almost complete hopelessness, as an aid to Socialism, of the lowest stratum in the narrow sense, of what is called the "lumpen proletariat," the bulk of the army of beggars and toughs. Mr. d.u.c.h.ez undoubtedly would have accepted this point, for he wishes to say that the Socialist movement must be advanced by the organization of unions not among this cla.s.s, but among the next lowest, economically speaking, the great ma.s.s of unskilled workers. This argument, also, that the unskilled have a better strategic position than the skilled on account of their solidarity and unity is surely a doubtful one. European Socialists, as a rule, have reached the opposite conclusion, namely, that it is the comparatively skilled workers, like those of the railways, who possess the only real possibility of leading in a general strike movement (see Chapters V and VI).

FOOTNOTES:

[234] H. G. Wells, "This Misery of Boots," p. 34.

[235] Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man under Socialism", (brochure).

[236] Bernard Shaw's series in the _New Age_ (1908).

[237] Karl Kautsky, the _New York Call_, Nov. 14, 1909.

[238] Karl Kautsky, "Parlamentarismus und Demokratie," pp. 124, 125, 138.

[239] emile Vandervelde, "Le Socialisme Agraire," p. 236.

CHAPTER IV

SOCIALISM AND THE LABOR UNIONS

One of the grounds on which it is proposed by some Socialists to give manual labor a special and preferred place in the movement is that it is supposed to be the only numerically important non-capitalist element that is at all well organized or even organizable. Let us see, then, to what degree labor is organized and what are the characteristics of this organization.

First, the labor unions represent manual wage earners almost exclusively--not by intention, but as a matter of fact. They include only an infinitesimal proportion of small employers, self-employing artisans, or salaried employees.

Second, the unions by no means include all the manual wage earners, and only in a few industries do they include a majority. Those organized are, as a rule, the more developed and prosperous, the skilled or comparatively skilled workers.

Third, their method of action is primarily that of the strike and boycott--economic and not political. They demand certain legislation and in several cases have put political parties in the field; they exert a political pressure in favor of government employees. But their chief purpose, even when they do these things, is to develop an organization that can strike and boycott effectively; and to secure only such political and civil rights as are needed for this purpose.

The unions are primarily economic, and the Socialist Party is primarily political--both, to have any national power, must embrace a considerable proportion of the same industrial wage-earning cla.s.s. It is evident that conflict between the two organizations is unnecessary and we find, indeed, that it arises only in exceptional cases. Many Socialists, however, look upon the unions primarily as an economic means, more or less important, of advancing political Socialism--while many unionists regard the Socialist parties primarily as political instruments for furthering the economic action of the unions.

There are several groups of Socialists, on the other hand, who ascribe to the economic action of the unions a part in attaining Socialism as important or more important than that they ascribe to the political action of the party. These include, first, all those for whom Socialism is to be brought about almost exclusively by wage earners, whether by political or by economic action; second, those who do not believe the capitalists will allow the ballot to be used for anti-capitalistic purposes; third, those who believe that, in spite of all that capitalists and capitalistic governments can do, strikes and boycotts cannot be circ.u.mvented and in the end are irresistible.

Other Socialists, agreeing that economic action, and therefore labor unions, both of the existing kind and of that more revolutionary type now in the process of formation, are indispensable, still look upon the Socialist Party as the chief instrument of Socialism. As these include nearly all Party members who are not unionists as well as a considerable part of the unionists, they are perhaps a majority--internationally.

As the correct relationship between Party and unions, Mr. Debs has indorsed the opinion of Professor Herron, who, he said, "sees the trend of development and arrives at conclusions that are sound and commend themselves to the thoughtful consideration of all trade unionists and Socialists." Professor Herron says that the Socialist is needed to educate the unionists to see their wider interests:--

"He is not to do this by seeking to commit trade-union bodies to the principles of Socialism. Resolutions or commitments of this sort accomplish little good. Nor is he to do it by taking a servile att.i.tude towards organized labor nor by meddling with the details or the machinery of the trade unions. It is better to leave the trade unions to their distinctive work, as the workers' defense against the encroachments of capitalism, as the economic development of the worker against the economic development of the capitalist, giving unqualified support and sympathy to the struggles of the organized worker to sustain himself in his economic sphere. But let the Socialist also build up the character and harmony and strength of the Socialist movement as a political force, that it shall command the respect and confidence of the worker, irrespective of his trade or his union obligations. It is urgent that we so keep in mind the difference between the two developments that neither shall cripple the other."[240]

Here is a statement of the relation of the two movements that corresponds closely to the most mature and widespread Socialist opinion and to the decisions of the International Socialist Congresses.