Violence and the Labor Movement Part 6

It is clear, therefore, that Marx saw, as early as 1850, little revolutionary promise in sectarian organizations, secret societies, and political conspiracies. The day was past for insurrections, and a real revolution could only arrive as a result of economic forces and cla.s.s antagonisms. And it is quite obvious that he was becoming more and more irritated by the sentimentalism and dress-parade revolutionism of the socialist sects. He looked upon their projects as childish and theatrical, that gave as little promise of changing the world's history as battles between tin soldiers on some nursery floor. He seemed no longer concerned with ideals, abstract rights, or "eternal verities."

Those who misunderstood him or were little a.s.sociated with him were horrified at what they thought was his cynical indifference to such glorious visions as liberty, fraternity, and equality. Like Darwin, Marx was always an earnest seeker of facts and forces. He was laying the foundations of a scientific socialism and dissecting the anatomy of capitalism in pursuit of the laws of social evolution. The gigantic intellectual labors of Marx from 1850 to 1870 are to-day receiving due attention, and, while one after another of the later economists has been forced reluctantly to acknowledge his genius, few now will take issue with Professor Albion W. Small when he says, "I confidently predict that in the ultimate judgment of history Marx will have a place in social science a.n.a.logous with that of Galileo in physical science."[19] In exile, and often desperate poverty, Marx worked out with infinite care the scientific basis of the generalization--first given to the world in the Communist Manifesto--that social and political inst.i.tutions are the product of economic forces. In all periods there have been antagonistic economic cla.s.ses whose relative power is determined by struggles between them. "Freedman and slave," he says, "patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstruction of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending cla.s.ses."[20] Here is a summary of that conflict which Professor Small declares "is to the social process what friction is to mechanics."[21] It may well be that "the fact of cla.s.s struggle is as axiomatic to-day as the fact of gravitation,"[22] yet, when Marx first elaborated his theory, it was not only a revolutionary doctrine among the socialist sects, but like Darwin's theory of evolution it was a.s.sailed from every angle by every school of economists. The important practical question that arises out of this scientific work, and which particularly concerns us here, is that this theory of the cla.s.s struggle forever destroyed the old ideas of revolution, sc.r.a.p-heaped conspiracies and insurrections, and laid the theoretical foundations for the modern working-cla.s.s movement.

Actually, it was utopian socialism that was destroyed by this new theory. It expressed itself in at least three diverse ways. There were groups of conspirators and revolutionists who believed that the world was on the eve of a great upheaval and that the people should prepare for the moment when suddenly they could seize the governments of Europe, destroy ancient inst.i.tutions, and establish a new social order. Another form of utopianism was the effort to persuade the capitalists themselves to abolish dividends, profits, rent, and interest, to turn the factories over to the workers, to become themselves toilers, and to share equally, one with another, the products of their joint labor. Still another form of utopian socialism was that of Owen, Fourier, and Cabet, who contemplated the establishment of ideal communities in which a new world should be built, where all should be free and equal, and where fraternity would be based upon a perfect economic communism. Some really n.o.ble spirits in France, England, and America had devoted time, love, energy, and wealth to this propaganda and in actual attempts to establish these utopias. But after '48 the upper cla.s.ses were despaired of. Their brutal reprisals, their suppression of every working-cla.s.s movement, their ferocious repression of the unions, of the press, and of the right of a.s.sembly--all these materially aided Marx's theory in disillusioning many of the philanthropic and tender-hearted utopians.

And from then on the hope of every sincere advocate of fundamental social changes rested on the working cla.s.s--on its organizations, its press, and its labors--for the establishment of the new order.

The most striking characteristic of the period which follows was the attempt of all the socialist and anarchist sects to inject their ideas into the rising labor movement. With the single exception of Robert Owen in England, the earlier socialists had ignored the working cla.s.ses. All their appeals were made to well-to-do men, and some of them even hoped that the monarchs of Europe might be induced to take the initiative. But Marx and Engels made their appeal chiefly to the working cla.s.s. The profound reaction which settled over Europe in the years following '48 ended all other dreams, and from this time on every proposal for a radical change in the organization of society was presented to the workers as the only cla.s.s that was really seeking, by reason of its economic subjection, basic alterations in the inst.i.tutions of property and the const.i.tution of the State. The working cla.s.ses of Germany, France, England, and other countries had already begun to form groups for the purpose of discussing political questions, and the ideas of Marx began to be propagated in all the centers of working-cla.s.s activity.

The blending of labor and socialism in most of the countries of Europe was not, however, a work of months, but of decades. The first great effort to accomplish that task occurred in 1864, when the International Working Men's a.s.sociation was launched in St. Martin's Hall in London.

During the years from '47 to '64, Marx and Engels, with their little coterie in London and their correspondents in other countries, spent most of their time in study, reading, and writing, with little opportunity to partic.i.p.ate in the actual struggles of labor. Marx was at work on "Capital" and schooling, in his leisure hours, a few of the notable men who were later to become leaders of the working cla.s.s in Europe. It was a dull period, wearisome and vexatious enough to men who were boldly prophesying that industrial conditions would create a world-wide solidarity of labor. The first glimmer of hope came with the London International Exhibition of 1862, which brought together by chance groups of workingmen from various countries. The visit to London enabled them to observe the British trade unions, and they left deeply impressed by their strength. Furthermore, the Exhibition brought the English workers and those of other nationalities into touch with each other. How much this meant was shown in 1863. When the Polish uprising was being suppressed, the English workers sent to their French comrades a protest, in answer to which the Paris workmen sent a delegation to London. This gathering in sympathy with Poland laid the foundations for the International. Nearly every important revolutionary sect in Europe was represented: the German communists, the French Blanquists and Proudhonians, and the Italian Mazzinians; but the only delegates who represented powerful working-cla.s.s organizations were the English trade unionists. The other organizations, even as late as this, were still little more than coteries, of hero-worshiping tendencies, fast developing into sectarian organizations that seemed destined to divide hopelessly and forever the labor movement.

It was perhaps inevitable that the more closely the sects were brought together, the more clearly they should perceive their differences, although Marx had exercised every care to draft a policy that would allay strife. Mazzini and his followers could not long endure the policies of the International, and they soon withdrew. The Proudhonians never at any time sympathized with the program and methods adopted by the International. The German organizations were not able to affiliate, by reason of the political conditions in that country, although numerous individuals attended the congresses. Nearly all the Germans were supporters of the policies of Marx, while most of the leading trade unionists of England completely understood and sympathized with Marx's aim of uniting the various working-cla.s.s organizations of Europe into an international a.s.sociation. They all felt that such a movement was an historic and economic necessity and that the time for it had arrived.

They intended to set about that work and to knit together the innumerable little organizations then forming in all countries. They sought to inst.i.tute a meeting ground where the social and political program of the workers could be formulated, where their views could be clarified, and their purposes defined. It was not to be a secret organization, but entirely open and above board. It was not for conspiratory action, but for the building up of a great movement. It was not intended to encourage insurrection or to force ahead of time a revolution. In the opinion of Marx, as we know, a social revolution was thought to be inevitable, and the International was to bide its time, preparing for the day of its coming, in order to make that revolution as peaceable and as effective as possible.

The Preamble of the Provisional Rules of the International--entirely the work of Marx--expresses with sufficient clearness the position of the International. It was there declared: "That the emanc.i.p.ation of the working cla.s.ses must be conquered by the working cla.s.ses themselves; that the struggle for the emanc.i.p.ation of the working cla.s.ses means not a struggle for cla.s.s privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all cla.s.s rule;

"That the economic subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor, that is, the sources of life, lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence;

"That the economic emanc.i.p.ation of the working cla.s.ses is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means;

"That all efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from the want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country, and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working cla.s.ses of different countries;

"That the emanc.i.p.ation of labor is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries;

"That the present revival of the working cla.s.ses in the most industrial countries of Europe, while it raises a new hope, gives solemn warning against a relapse into the old errors and calls for the immediate combination of the still disconnected movements."[23]

In this brief declaration we find the essence of Marxian socialism: that the working cla.s.ses must themselves work out their own salvation; that their servitude is economic; and that all workers must join together in a political movement, national and international, in order to achieve their emanc.i.p.ation. Unfortunately, the Proudhonian anarchists were never able to comprehend the position of Marx, and in the first congress at Geneva, in 1866, the quarrels between the various elements gave Marx no little concern. He did not attend that congress, and he afterward wrote to his young friend, Dr. Kugelmann: "I was unable to go, and I did not wish to do so, but it was I who wrote the program of the London delegates. I limited it on purpose to points which admit of an immediate understanding and common action by the workingmen, and which give immediately strength and impetus to the needs of the cla.s.s struggle and to the organization of the workers as a cla.s.s. The Parisian gentlemen had their heads filled with the most empty Proudhonian phraseology. They chatter of science, and know nothing of it. They scorn all revolutionary action, that is to say, proceeding from the cla.s.s struggle itself, every social movement that is centralized and consequently obtainable by legislation through political means (as, for example, the legal shortening of the working day)."[24] These words indicate that Marx considered the chief work of the International to be the building up of a working-cla.s.s political movement to obtain laws favorable to labor.

Furthermore, he was of the opinion that such work was of a revolutionary nature.

The clearest statement, perhaps, of Marx's idea of the revolutionary character of political activity is to be found in the address which he prepared at the request of the public meeting that launched the International. He traces there briefly the conditions of the working cla.s.s in England. After depicting the misery of the ma.s.ses, he hastily reviews the growth of the labor movement that ended with the Chartist agitation. Although from 1848 to 1864 was a period when the English working cla.s.s seemed, he says, "thoroughly reconciled to a state of political nullity,"[25] nevertheless two encouraging developments had taken place. One was the victory won by the working cla.s.ses in carrying the Ten Hours Bill. It was "not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle cla.s.s succ.u.mbed to the political economy of the working cla.s.s."[26] The other victory was the growth of the cooperative movement. "The value of these great social experiments cannot be overrated," he says. "By deed, instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in accord with the behests of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a cla.s.s of masters employing a cla.s.s of hands."[27] Arguing that cooperative labor should be developed to national dimensions and be fostered by State funds, he urges working-cla.s.s political action as the means to achieve this end. "To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working cla.s.ses."[28] This is the conclusion of Marx concerning revolutionary methods; and it is clear that his conception of "revolutionary action" differed not only from that of the Proudhonians and Mazzinians, but also from that of "the bourgeois democrats, the revolution-makers,"[29] who "extemporized revolutions."[30]

At the end of Marx's letter to Kugelmann, he tells of the beginning already made by the International in London in actual political work.

"The movement for electoral reform here," he writes, "which our General Council (_quorum magna pars_) created and launched, has a.s.sumed dimensions that have kept on growing until now they are irresistible."[31] The General Council threw itself unreservedly into this agitation. An electoral reform conference was held in February, 1867, attended by two hundred delegates from all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Later, gigantic ma.s.s meetings were held throughout the country to bring pressure upon the Government. Frederic Harrison and Professor E. S. Beesly, well known for their sympathy with labor, were appealing to the working cla.s.ses to throw their energies into the fight. "Nothing will compel the ruling cla.s.ses," wrote Harrison in 1867, "to recognize the rights of the working cla.s.ses and to pay attention to their just demands until the workers have obtained political power."[32] Professor Beesly, the intimate friend of Marx, was urging the unions to enter politics as an independent force, on the ground that the difference between the Tories and the Liberals was only the difference between the upper and nether millstones. In all this agitation Marx saw, of course, the working out of his own ideas for the upbuilding of a great independent political organization of the working cla.s.s. All the energies of the General Council of the International were, therefore, devoted to the political struggle of the British workers. However, in all this campaign, emphasis was placed upon the central idea of the a.s.sociation--that political power was wanted, in order, peaceably and legally, to remedy economic wrongs. The wretched condition of the workers in the industrial towns and the even greater misery of the Irish peasants and English farm laborers were the bases of all agitation. While occupied at this time chiefly with the economic and political struggles in Britain, the General Council was also keeping a sharp eye on similar conditions in Europe and America. When Lincoln was chosen President for the second time, a warm address of congratulation was sent to the American people, expressing joy that the sworn enemy of slavery had been again chosen to represent them. More than once the International communicated with Lincoln, and perhaps no words more perfectly express the ideal of the labor movement than those that Lincoln once wrote to a body of workingmen: "_The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds._"[33]

To unite thus the workers of all lands and to organize them into great political parties were the chief aims of Marx in the International. And in 1869 it seemed that this might actually be accomplished in a few years. In France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, and other countries the International was making rapid headway. Nearly all the most important labor bodies of Europe were actually affiliated, or at least friendly, to the new movement. At all the meetings held there was enthusiasm, and the future of the International seemed very promising indeed. It was recognized as the vehicle for expressing the views of labor throughout Europe. It had formulated its principles and tactics, and had already made a creditable beginning in the gigantic task before it of systematically carrying on its agitation, education, and organization. Marx's energies were being taxed to the utmost. Nearly all the immense executive work of the International fell on him, and nearly every move made was engineered by him. Yet at that very time he was on the point of publishing the first volume of "Capital," the result of gigantic researches into industrial history and economic theory. This great work was intended to be, in its literal sense, the Bible of the working cla.s.s, as indeed it has since become. Certainly, Jaures' tribute to Marx is well deserved and fairly sums up the work accomplished by him in the period 1847-1869. "To Marx belongs the merit," he says, " ... of having drawn together and unified the labor movement and the socialist idea. In the first third of the nineteenth century labor struggled and fought against the crushing power of capital; but it was not conscious itself toward what end it was straining; it did not know that the true objective of its effort was the common ownership of property. And, on the other hand, socialism did not know that the labor movement was the living form in which its spirit was embodied, the concrete practical force of which it stood in need. Marx was the most clearly convinced and the most powerful among those who put an end to the empiricism of the labor movement and the utopianism of the socialist thought, and this should always be remembered to his credit. By a crowning application of the Hegelian method, he united the Idea and the Fact, thought and history. He enriched the practical movement by the idea, and to the theory he added practice; he brought the socialist thought into proletarian life, and proletarian life into socialist thought. From that time on socialism and the proletariat became inseparable."[34]

FOOTNOTES:

[Q] The dramatic story of his life is wonderfully told in _L'Enferme_ by Gustave Geffroy. (Paris, 1904.)

[R] In the authority cited below this appears as "the minority," but I notice that in Jaures' "Studies in Socialism," p. 44, it appears as "the majority."

CHAPTER VIII

THE BATTLE BETWEEN MARX AND BAKOUNIN

At the moment when the future of the International seemed most promising and the political ideas of Marx were actually taking root in nearly all countries, an application was received by the General Council in London to admit the Alliance of Social Democracy. This, we will remember, was the organization that Bakounin had formed in 1868 and was the popular section of that remarkable secret hierarchy which he had endeavored to establish in 1864. The General Council declined to admit the Alliance, on grounds which proved later to be well founded, namely, that schisms would undoubtedly be encouraged if the International should permit an organization with an entirely different program and policies to join it in a body. Nevertheless, the General Council declared that the members of the Alliance could affiliate themselves as individuals with the various national sections. After considerable debate, Bakounin and his followers decided to abandon the Alliance and to join the International.

Whether the Alliance was in fact abolished is still open to question, but in any case Bakounin appeared in the International toward the end of the sixties, to challenge all the theories of Marx and to offer, in their stead, his own philosophy of universal revolution. Anarchism as the end and terrorism as the means were thus injected into the organization at its most formative period, when the laboring cla.s.ses of all Europe had just begun to write their program, evolve their principles, and define their tactics. With great force and magnetism, Bakounin undertook his war upon the General Council, and those who recall the period will realize that nothing could have more nearly expressed the occasional spirit of the ma.s.ses--the very spirit that Marx and Engels were endeavoring to change--than exactly the methods proposed by Bakounin.

Whether it were better to move gradually and peacefully along what seemed a never-ending road to emanc.i.p.ation or to begin the revolution at once by insurrection and civil war--this was in reality the question which, from that moment on, agitated the International. It had always troubled more or less the earlier organizations of labor, and now, aided by Bakounin's eloquence and fiery revolutionism, it became the great bone of contention throughout Europe. The struggles in the International between those who became known later as the anarchists and the socialists remind one of certain Greek stories, in which the outstanding figures seem to impersonate mighty forces, and it is not impossible that one day they may serve as material for a social epic. We all know to-day the interminable study that engages the theologians in their attempts to describe the battles and schisms in the early Christian Church. And there can be no doubt that, if socialism fulfills the purpose which its advocates have in mind, these early struggles in its history will become the object of endless research and commentary. The calumnies, the feuds, the misunderstandings, the clashing of doctrines, the antagonism of the ruling spirits, the plots and conspiracies, the victories and defeats--all these various phases of this war to the death between socialists and anarchists--will in that case present to history the most vital struggle of this age. But, whatever may be the outcome of the socialist movement, it is hardly too much to say that to both anarchists and socialists these struggles seemed, at the time they were taking place, of supreme importance to the destinies of humanity.

The contending t.i.tans of this war were, of course, Karl Marx and Michael Bakounin. It is hardly necessary to go into the personal feud that played so conspicuous a part in the struggle between them. Perhaps no one at this late day can prove what Marx and his friends themselves were unable to prove--although they never ceased repeating the allegations--that Bakounin was a spy of the Russian Government, that his life had been thrice spared through the influence of that Government, that he was treacherous and dishonest, and that his sole purpose was to disrupt and destroy the International Working Men's a.s.sociation. Nor is it necessary to consider the charges made against Marx--some of them time has already taken care of--that he was domineering, malicious, and ambitious, that his spirit was actuated by intrigue, and that, when he conceived a dislike for anyone, he was merciless and conscienceless in his warfare on that one. Incompatibility of temperament and of personality played its part in the battles between these two, but, even had there been no mutual dislike, the differences between their principles and tactics would have necessitated a battle _a outrance_.

For twenty years before the birth of the International, Marx and Bakounin had crossed and recrossed each other's circle. They had always quarreled. There was a mutual fascination, due perhaps to an innate antagonism, that brought them again and again together at critical periods. At times there seemed a chance of reconciliation, but they no more touched each other than immediately there flared forth the old animosity. When Bakounin left Russia in 1843, he met Proudhon and Marx in Paris. At that period the doctrines of all three were germinating.

Bakounin had already written, "The desire for destruction is at the same time a creative desire."[1] Proudhon had begun to formulate the principles of anarchism, and Marx the principles of socialism. "He was much more advanced than I was," wrote Bakounin of Marx at this period.

"I knew nothing then of political economy, I was not yet freed from metaphysical abstraction, and my socialism was only instinctive.... It was precisely at this epoch that he elaborated the first fundamentals of his present system. We saw each other rather often, for I respected him deeply for his science and for his pa.s.sionate and serious devotion, although always mingled with personal vanity, to the cause of the proletariat, and I sought with eagerness his conversation, which was always instructive and witty--when it was not inspired with mean hatred, which, too often, alas, was the case. Never, however, was there frank intimacy between us. Our temperaments did not allow that. He called me a sentimental idealist, and he was right; I called him a vain man, perfidious and artful, and I was right also."[2] This mutual dislike and even distrust subsisted to the end.

Certain events in 1848 widened the gulf between them. At the news of the outbreak of the revolution in Paris, hundreds of the restless spirits hurried there to take a hand in the situation. And after the proclamation of the Republic they began to consider various projects of carrying the revolution into their own countries. Plans were being discussed for organizing legions to invade foreign countries, and a number of the German communists entered heartily into the plan of Herwegh, the erratic German poet--"the iron lark"--who led a band of revolutionists into Baden. "We arose vehemently against these attempts to play at revolution," says Engels, speaking for himself and Marx. "In the state of fermentation which then existed in Germany, to carry into our country an invasion which was destined to import the revolution by force, was to injure the revolution in Germany, to consolidate the governments, and ... to deliver the legions over defenseless to the German troops."[3] Wilhelm Liebknecht, then twenty-two years of age, who was in favor of Herwegh's project, wrote afterward of Marx's opposition.

Marx "understood that the plan of organizing 'foreign legions' for the purpose of carrying the revolution into other countries emanated from the French bourgeois-republicans, and that the 'movement' had been artificially inspired with the twofold intention of getting rid of troublesome elements and of carrying off the foreign laborers whose compet.i.tion made itself doubly felt during this grave business crisis."[4]

Undeterred by Marx, Herwegh marshaled his "legions" and entered Baden, to be utterly crushed, exactly as Marx had foreseen. A quarrel then arose between Marx and Bakounin over Herwegh's project. Far from changing Marx's mind, however, it made him suspect Bakounin as perhaps in the pay of the reactionaries. In any case, he made no effort to prevent the _Neue Rheinische Zeitung_ from printing shortly after the following: "Yesterday it was a.s.serted that George Sand was in possession of papers which seriously compromised the Russian who has been banished from here, _Michael Bakounin_, and represented him as an instrument or an _agent of Russia_, newly enrolled, to whom is attributed the leading part in the recent arrest of the unfortunate Poles. George Sand has shown these papers to some of her friends."[5] Marx later printed Bakounin's answer to these charges--which were, in fact, groundless--and in his letters to the New York _Tribune_ (1852) even commended Bakounin for his services in the Dresden uprising of 1849.[6] Nevertheless, there is no doubt that to the end Marx believed Bakounin to be a tool of the enemy. These quarrels are important only as they are prophetic in thus early disclosing the gulf between Marx and Bakounin in their conception of revolutionary activity. Although profoundly revolutionary, Marx was also rigidly rational. He had no patience, and not an iota of mercy, for those who lost their heads and attempted to lead the workers into violent outbreaks that could result only in a ma.s.sacre. On this point he would make no concessions, and anyone who attempted such suicidal madness was in Marx's mind either an imbecile or a paid _agent provocateur_. The failure of Herwegh's project forced Bakounin to admit later that Marx had been right. Yet, as we know, with Bakounin's advancing years the pa.s.sion for insurrections became with him almost a mania.

If this quarrel between Bakounin and Marx casts a light upon the causes of their antagonism, a still greater illumination is shed by the differences between them which arose in 1849. Bakounin, in that year, had written a brochure in which he developed a program for the union of the revolutionary Slavs and for the destruction of the three monarchies, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. He advocated pan-Slavism, and believed that the Slavic people could once more be united and then federated into a great new nation. When Marx saw the volume, he wrote in the _Neue Rheinische Zeitung_ (February 14, 1849), "Aside from the Poles, the Russians, and perhaps even the Slavs of Turkey, no Slavic people has a future, for the simple reason that there are lacking in all the other Slavs the primary conditions--historical, geographical, political, and industrial--of independence and vitality."[7] This cold-blooded statement infuriated Bakounin. He absolutely refused to look at the facts. Possessed of a pa.s.sion for liberty, he wanted all nations, all peoples--civilized, semi-civilized, or savage--to be entirely free. What had historical, geographical, political, or industrial conditions to do with the matter? All this is typical of Bakounin's revolutionary sentimentalism. He clashed again with Marx on very similar grounds when the latter insisted that only in the more advanced countries is there a possibility of a social revolution. Modern capitalist production, according to Marx, must attain a certain degree of development before it is possible for the working cla.s.s to hope to carry out any really revolutionary project. Bakounin takes issue with him here. He declares his own aim to be "the complete and real emanc.i.p.ation of all the proletariat, not only of some countries, but of all nations, civilized and non-civilized."[8] In these declarations the differences between Marx and Bakounin stand forth vividly. Marx at no time states what he wishes. He expresses no sentiment, but confines himself to a cold statement of the facts as he sees them. Bakounin, the dreamer, the sentimentalist, and the revolution-maker, wants the whole world free.

Whether or not Marx wants the same thing is not the question. He rigidly confines himself to what he believes is possible. He says certain conditions must exist before a people can be free and independent. Among them are included historical, geographical, political, and industrial conditions. Marx further states that, before the working-cla.s.s revolution can be successful, certain economic conditions must exist.

Marx is not stating here conclusions which are necessarily agreeable to him. He states only the results of his study of history, based on his a.n.a.lysis of past events. In the one case we find the idealist seeking to set the world violently right; in the other case we find the historian and the scientist--influenced no doubt, as all men must be, by certain hopes, yet totally regardless of personal desire--stating the antecedent conditions which must exist previous to the birth of a new historic or economic period.

In speaking of the antagonism between Marx and Bakounin in this earlier period, I do not mean to convey the impression that it was the cause of the dissensions that arose later. The slightest knowledge of Bakounin's philosophy and methods is enough to make one realize that neither the International nor any considerable section of the labor or socialist movements had anything in common with those ideas. Certainly the thought and policies of Marx were directly opposed to everything from first to last that Bakounin stood for. Nothing could be more grotesque than the idea that Marxism and Bakouninism could be blended, or indeed exist together, in any semblance of harmony. Every thought, policy, and method of the two clashed furiously. It would be impossible to conceive of two other minds that were on so many points such worlds apart. Both Bakounin and Marx instinctively felt this essential antagonism, yet the former wrote Marx, in December, 1868, when he was preparing to enter the International, a.s.suring him that he had had a change of heart and that "my country, now, _c'est l'Internationale_, of which you are one of the princ.i.p.al founders. You see then, dear friend, that I am your disciple and I am proud to be it."[9] He then signs himself affectionately, "Your devoted M. Bakounin."[10]

With an olive branch such as that arrived the new "disciple" of Marx.

He then set to work without a moment's delay to capture the International congress which was to be held at Basel, September, 1869.

And it was there that the first battle occurred. From the very moment that the congress opened it was clear that on every important question there was to be a division. Most unexpectedly, the first struggle arose over a question that seemed not at all fundamental at the time, but which, as the later history of socialism shows, was really basic. The father of direct legislation, Rittinghausen, was a delegate to the congress from Germany. He begged the congress for an opportunity to present his ideas, and he won the support, quite naturally, of the Marxian elements. In his preliminary statement to the congress he said: "You are going to occupy yourselves at length with the great social reforms that you think necessary in order to put an end to the deplorable situation of the labor world. Is it then less necessary for you to occupy yourselves with methods of execution by which you may accomplish these reforms? I hear many among you say that you wish to attain your end by _revolution_. Well, comrades, revolution, as a matter of fact, accomplishes nothing. If you are not able to formulate, after the revolution, by legislation, your legitimate demands, the revolution will perish miserably like that of 1848. You will be the prey of the most violent reaction and you will be forced anew to suffer years of oppression and disgrace.

"What, then, are the means of execution that democracy will have to employ in order to realize its ideas? Legislation by an individual functions only to the advantage of that individual and his family.

Legislation by a group of capitalists, called representatives, serves only the interests of this cla.s.s. It is only by taking their interests into their own hands, by direct legislation, that the people can ...

establish the reign of social justice. I insist, then, that you put on the program of this congress the question of direct legislation by the people."[11]

The forces led by Bakounin and Professor Hins, of Belgium, opposed any consideration of this question. The latter, in elaborating the remarks of Bakounin, declared: "They wish, they say, to accomplish, by representation or direct legislation, the transformation of the present governments, the work of our enemies, the bourgeois. They wish, in order to do this, to enter into these governments, and, by persuasion, by numbers, and by new laws, to establish a new State. Comrades, do not follow this line of march, for we would perish in following it in Belgium or in France as elsewhere. Rather let us leave these governments to rot away and not prop them up with our morality. This is the reason: the International is and must be a State within States. Let these States march on as they like, even to the point where our State is the strongest. Then, on their ruins, we will place ours, all prepared, all made ready, such as it exists in each section."[12] The result of this debate was that the father of direct legislation was not allowed time to present his views, and it is significant that this first clash of the congress resulted in a victory for the anarchists, despite all that could be done by Liebknecht and the other socialists.

The chief question on the program was the consideration of the right of inheritance. This was the main economic change desired by the Alliance.

For years Bakounin had advocated the abolition of the right of inheritance as the most revolutionary of his economic demands. "The right of inheritance," declared Bakounin, "after having been the natural consequence of the violent appropriation of natural and social wealth, became later the basis of the political state and of the legal family.... It is necessary, therefore, to vote the abolition of the right of inheritance."[13] It was left to George Eccarius, delegate of the a.s.sociation of Tailors of London, to present to that congress the views of Marx and the General Council. The report of the General Council was, of course, prepared in advance, but Bakounin's views were well known, and it was intended as a crushing rejoinder. "_Inheritance_," it declared, "does not _create_ that power of transferring the produce of one man's labor into another man's pocket--it only relates to the change in the individuals who yield (_sic_) that power. Like all other civil legislation, the laws of inheritance are not the _cause_, but the _effect_, the _juridical consequence_ of the _existing economical organization of society_, based upon private property in the means of production, that is to say, in land, raw material, machinery, etc. In the same way the right of inheritance in the slave is not the cause of slavery, but, on the contrary, slavery is the cause of inheritance in slaves.... To proclaim the abolition of the _right of inheritance_ as the _starting point_ of the social revolution would only tend to lead the working cla.s.s away from the true point of attack against present society. It would be as absurd a thing as to abolish the laws of contract between buyer and seller, while continuing the present state of exchange of commodities. It would be a thing false in theory and reactionary in practice."[14] Despite the opposition of the Marxians at the congress, the proposition of Bakounin received thirty-two votes as against twenty-three given to the proposition of the General Council. As thirteen of the delegates abstained from voting, Bakounin's resolution did not obtain an absolute majority, and the question was thus left undecided.

Another important discussion at the congress was on landed property.

Some of the delegates were opposed to the collective ownership of land, believing that it should be divided into small sections and left to the peasants to cultivate. Others advocated a kind of communism, in which a.s.sociations of agriculturists were to work the soil. Still others believed that the State should own the land and lease it to individuals.

Indeed, almost every phase of the question was touched, including the means of obtaining the land from the present owners and of distributing it among the peasants or of owning it collectively while allowing them the right to cultivate it for their profit. On this subject, again, Eccarius presented the views of Marx. To Bakounin, who expressed his terror of the State, no matter of what character, Eccarius said "that his relations with the French have doubtless communicated to him this conception (for it appears that the French workingmen can never think of the State without seeing a Napoleon appear, accompanied by a flock of cannon), and he replied that the State can be reformed by the coming of the working cla.s.s into power. All great transformations have been inaugurated by a change in the form of landed property. The allodial system was replaced by the feudal system, the feudal system by modern private ownership, and the social transformation to which the new state of things tends will be inaugurated by the abolition of individual property in land. As to compensations, that will depend on the circ.u.mstances. If the transformation is made peacefully, the present owners will be indemnified.... If the owners of slaves had yielded when Lincoln was elected, they would have received a compensation for their slaves. Their resistance led to the abolition of slavery without compensation...."[15] The congress, after debating the question at length, contented itself with voting the general proposition that "society has the right to abolish private property in land and to make land the property of the community."[16]

The last important question considered by the congress was that dealing with trade unions. The debate aroused little interest, although Liebknecht opened the discussion. He pointed out the great extension of trade-union organization in England, Germany, and America, and he tried to impress upon the congress the necessity for vastly extending this form of solidarity. And, indeed, it seems to have been generally admitted that trade-union organization was necessary. No practical proposals were, however, made for actually developing such organizations. The interesting part of the discussion came upon the function of trade unionism in future society. The socialists were little concerned as to what might happen to the trade unions in future society, but Professor Hins outlined at that congress the program of the modern syndicalists. It is, therefore, especially interesting to read what Professor Hins said as early as 1869: "Societies _de resistance_ (trade unions) will subsist after the suppression of wages, not in name, but in deed. They will then be the organization of labor, ... operating a vast distribution of labor from one end of the world to the other. They will replace the ancient political systems: in place of a confused and heterogeneous representation, there will be the representation of labor.

"They will be at the same time agents of decentralization, for the centers will differ according to the industries which will form, in some manner, each one a separate State, and will prevent forever the return to the ancient form of centralized State, which will not, however, prevent another form of government for local purposes. As is evident, if we are reproached for being indifferent to every form of government, it is ... because we detest them all in the same way, and because we believe that it is only on their ruins that a society conforming to the principles of justice can be established."[S][17]

The congress at Basel was the turning point in the brief history of the International. Although the Marxists were reluctant to admit it, the Bakouninists had won a complete victory on every important issue. Some of the decisions future congresses might remedy, but in refusing even to discuss the question of direct legislation many of the delegates clearly showed their determination to have nothing to do with politics or with any movement aiming at the conquest of political power. In all the discussions the anarchist tendencies of the congress were unmistakable, and the immense gulf between the Marxists and the Bakouninists was laid bare. The very foundation principles upon which the International was based had been overturned. Political action was to be abandoned, while the discussion on trade unions introduced for the first time in the International the idea of a purely economic struggle and a conception of future society in which groups of producers, and not the State or the community, should own the tools of production. This syndicalist conception of socialism was not new. Developed for the first time by Robert Owen in 1833, it had led the working cla.s.ses into the most violent and bitter strikes, that ended in disaster for all partic.i.p.ants. Born again in 1869, it was destined to lie dormant for thirty years, then to be taken up once more--this time with immense enthusiasm--by the French trade unions.

Needless to say, the decisive victory of the Bakouninists at Basel was excessively annoying and humiliating to Marx. He did not attend in person, but it was evident before the congress that he fully expected that his forces would, on that occasion, destroy root and branch the economic and political fallacies of Bakounin. He rather welcomed the discussion of the differences between the program of the Alliance and that of the International, in order that Eccarius, Liebknecht, and others might demolish, once and for all, the reactionary proposals of Bakounin. To Marx, much of the program of the Alliance seemed a remnant of eighteenth-century philosophy, while the rest was pure utopianism, consisting of unsound and impractical reforms, mixed with atheism and schoolboy declamation. Altogether, the policies and projects of Bakounin seemed so vulnerable that the General Council evidently felt that little preparation was necessary in order to defeat them. They seemed to have forgotten, for the moment, that Bakounin was an old and experienced conspirator. In any case, he had left no stone unturned to obtain control of the congress. Week by week, previous to the congress, _l'Egalite_, the organ of the Swiss federation, had published articles by Bakounin which, while professedly explaining the principles of the International, were in reality attacking them; and most insidiously Bakounin's own program was presented as the traditional position of the organization. Liberty, fraternity, and equality were, of course, called into service. The treason of certain working-cla.s.s politicians was pointed out as the natural and inevitable result of political action, while to those who had given little thought to economic theory the abolition of inheritances seemed the final word. Nor did Bakounin limit his efforts to his pen. All sections of the Alliance undertook to see that friends of Bakounin were sent as delegates to the congress, and it was charged that credentials were obtained in various underhanded ways.

However that may have been, the "practical," "cold-blooded" Marx was completely outwitted by his "sentimental" and "visionary" antagonist.

Instead of a great victory, therefore, the Marxists left the congress of Basel utterly dejected, and Eccarius is reported to have said, "Marx will be terribly annoyed."[18]

That Marx was annoyed is to put it with extraordinary moderation, and from that moment the fight on Bakouninism, anarchism, and terrorism developed to a white heat. Immediately after the adjournment of the congress, Moritz Hess, a close friend of Marx and a delegate to the congress, published in the _Reveil_ of Paris what he called "the secret history" of the congress, in which he declared that "between the collectivists of the International and the Russian communists [meaning the Bakouninists] there was all the difference which exists between civilization and barbarism, between liberty and despotism, between citizens condemning every form of violence and slaves addicted to the use of brutal force."[19] Even this gives but a faint idea of the bitterness of the controversy. Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Hess, Outine, the General Council in London, and every newspaper under the control of the Marxists began to a.s.sail Bakounin and his circle. They no longer confined themselves to a denunciation of the "utopian and bourgeois"