THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE GIFT OF Gordon S. Wat kins library 0*lvr*y of California Riverside, Califomte REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM A Study in Socialist Reconstruction By LOUIS C. FRAINA Price, 75 Cents REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM A Study in Socialist Reconstruction B [LOUIS C/FRAINA) Authorized and Issued by the Central Executive Committee of the Socialist Propaganda League New York THE COMMUNIST PRESS Publishers Copyright, 1918 BY Louis C. FRAINA UN, ' / PREFACE WARS, says Marx, are the locomotives of history. The world war is acting as an accelerator of events and as a drastic revealer of purposes and capacity. War cleanses and re-creates as it dirties and destroys. [n the lightning-riven gulfs of the great catastrophe, Capitalism and the dominant moderate Socialism are ach appearing in their true character and propor- ions, each proven unfit to direct the destiny of the world. The world war signalized the collapse of the domin- nt Socialism ; but it also signalized the advent of the roletarian revolution in Russia, organized and irected by revolutionary Socialism. Having cast off the petty bourgeois fetters that hampered its action, Socialism appeared as the revolutionary force and maker of a new world that are its essential char- acteristics. Out of defeats Socialism and the proletar- iat emerge with new vigor and vision. The proletarian revolution in Russia marks the (// lentry of the proletariat into a new revolutionary pepoch. In this epoch the Social Revolution is no longer simply an aspiration, but a dynamic process of ii REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM 4 immediate revolutionary struggles. This is an historic ^development of decisive importance. It means the preparation of the proletariat for the final struggle against Capitalism and the necessity of an uncompro- mising policy in the activity of Socialism; it means, in short, the revolutionary reconstruction of Socialist policy and tactics, in accord with the imperative re- quirements of the new epoch. The collapse of the dominant moderate Socialism was not a collapse of fundamental Socialism ; it was a collapse simply of the contemporary historical expres- sion of Socialism, and Socialism itself provides all the materials for the criticism of this collapse and for the reconstruction of Socialism. The great task of Socialist reconstruction is pro- ceeding actively throughout the world. It is a task that will require the co-operation of all the revolution- ary elements of international Socialism. The com- plexity of forces and problems, the diversity of development, make co-operation mandatory. The old concepts of revolutionary Socialism will clash with the new, and the new with the old, until a syn- thesis emerges through the process of action and re- construction. And the process of reconstruction will be animated by the struggles of the proletariat, not by the academic formulation of theory upon theory: Socialism is dynamic and not academic. Theory becomes an instrument of life, and not life an in- strument of theory. PREFACE iii This book is a contribution to the task of recon- struction; its chief purpose is to provide a sugges- tive synthesis of Socialist reconstruction, and not an exhaustive analysis of all the problems involved. I wish to express the deep appreciation I feel to my good Comrade, S. J. Rutgers, my colleague for one year on The New International, who read the manu- script of this book, making many an acute criticism and suggestion. A member of the revolutionary So- cial Democratic Party of Holland, Comrade Rutgers' sojourn of two years in this country and his activity in the Socialist Propaganda League were a source of inspiration and ideas to the comrades associated with him. Louis C. FRAINA. New York City, November 6, 1918. First Anniversary of the Proletarian Revolution in Russia. BOURGEOIS revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, rush onward rapidly from success to success, their stage effects outbid one another, men and things seem to be set in flaming brilliants, ecstasy is the prevailing spirit; but they are short- lived, they reach their climax speedily, then society relapses into a long fit of nerv- ous reaction before it learns how to ap- propriate the fruits of its period of fever- ish excitement. Proletarian revolutions, on the contrary, such as those of the nine- teenth century, criticize themselves con- stantly; constantly interrupt themselves in their own course; come back to what seems to have been accomplished, in order to start anew; scorn with cruel thoroughness the half measures, weaknesses and mean- nesses of their first attempts; seem to throw down their adversary only in or- der to enable him to draw fresh strength from the earth, and again to rise up against them in more gigantic stature; constantly recoil in fear before the undefined mon- ster magnitude of their own objects until finally that situation is created which ren- ders all retreat impossible, and the con- ditions themselves cry out: "Hie Rhodus, hie salta!" Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. CONTENTS PACE PREFACE I I. SOCIALISM AND THE WAR 1 II. IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 11 III. CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 38 IV. THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 56 V. FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALISM 74 VI. SOCIALISM IN ACTION 1 83 VII. THE GREAT COLLAPSE 93 VIII. SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 119 IX. CLASS AND NATION 145 X. PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 162 XI. UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 179 XII. THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 204 SUPPLEMENTARY I. IMPERIALISM IN ACTION 226 II. CONCENTRATION AND LABOR _ 236 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM SOCIALISM AND THE WAR WAR, particularly a general world war, tests the capacity of all whom it affects. The world war is a war that has thrown into the crucible of change all ideas and institutions; and out of this molten mass is emerging a new order. This epochal character of the war is appreciated much more by the representatives of capital than by the representatives of the proletariat. Imperialism recognizes that all it cherishes is at stake ; it recognizes that its future depends upon its action in this war, and its capacity to adapt itself to the new conditions that are developing. The old slogans, the old policy of Capitalism are being adapted to circumstances as they arise; it is inflexible in its class attitude during the war, and flexible in its attitude toward new prob- lems, studying these problems, realizing that new con- ditions impose new measures. There is a ferment of ideas, a passionate activity, among the representatives of Imperialism, who appreciate the universal scope of the problems of the war. But, unfortunately, this 2 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM attitude does not generally prevail among the repre- sentatives of the proletariat. Socialism itself is not An tune with the new rhythm of things. Socialism, /Jon the whole, has during the war abandoned its class | attitude. Socialism has met a real and humiliating defeat; and instead of recognizing this defeat as a defeat, in the spirit of men and of rebels, the tendency is either to explain away the defeat or hail it as a great victory. Instead of an appreciation of new con- ditions and new problems, the dominant Socialism smugly adheres to its old slogans and policy, the old tactics that directed Socialism straight to disaster. The great problems of a new epoch are compressed in the petty formula of yester-year, perverted formulae, formulae that have become a corpse which exhales the poisonous stench of death. This attitude is particu larly apparent, largely dominant, in American Social- ism; the war is used for purposes of petty political advantages, and there is no appreciation, no attempt to appreciate, the revolutionizing importance of the war in its relation to Socialism. The world war is a revolutionary factor. The war is transforming the world economically, socially and politically. Its importance has a dual character its influence on immediate events, and the ultimate changes and reconstruction it imposes upon the So- cialist program and Socialist action. This process of transformation preceded the war and will continue after peace is concluded, the significance of the war SOCIALISM AND THE WAR 3 being the circumstance that it has brought these pre- ceding factors of transformation to a climax and powerfully accelerated their onward development. The war marks the definite, catastrophic end of an epoch of Capitalism. It is not the end of Capitalism, as the petit bourgeois Socialist fondly imagines, the petit bourgeois Socialist, who sees the end of Capital- ism in any and all things except the dynamic struggles of Socialism and the proletariat. The old competitive / Capitalism, the Capitalism of laissez-faire, of democ-j racy and liberal ideas, has emerged definitely into\ a new epoch, the epoch of Imperialism. This trans- j formation carries with it the alteration of old values and institutions, an alteration being accomplished by Capitalism, but not, as yet, by Socialism. Precisely as the nations at war are not battling for the mere division of territory or particular advan- tages, but for general power, so the transformation be- ing wrought by the war is not measured in particular facts or institutional changes, but in the general line of development of Capitalism, and of the revolution- ary proletariat: a new epoch, and a new alignment in the social struggle. War develops out of the class struggle, and the class stmggle^Hevelops in and through war. While bringing^witiritlhe collapse of Socialism as an organ< ized movement, the war has simultaneously demon strated, in a new way and emphatically, that the pro-* letariat holds the future of the world in the hollow. 4 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM \ of its hand. Class antagonisms have been sharpened, while officially and apparently they have been modi- fied through national unity; and Capitalism has shown /its utter incapacity to preserve and promote civiliza- l tion and progress. Moreover, the Russian Revolution I has projected upon the stage of history the new revolu- ( tionary class in action, the class of the revolutionary proletariat. The Socialist conception of the prole- tariat as a class that will engage in the revolutionary struggle against Capitalism, and overthrow Capital- ism, is no longer simply a theory, but a fact. Capi- talism is a-tremble with apprehension at the accom- plished fact of a proletarian revolution, and the dan- ger that lurks in the awakening consciousness of the international proletariat. Other factors than the Russian Revolution indi- cate the potential supremacy of the proletariat. The discussions of the war's military strategy emphasize the fact that the life of a nation, including its military power, lies in the work-shops. The mobilization of the strictly military forces depends upon the mobiliza- tion of industry and the whole civil population. The : greater the industrial power of a nation, the greater its military power. Nor does the strength of a nation consist of its wealth, but of its productive capacity, [which means in the industrial proletariat. H. L. Gantt, an efficiency expert and shrewd observer of things industrial, says: "Soon after the breaking out of the war it was recognized that the life of a nation SOCIALISM AND THE WAR 5 was to depend not upon the wealth it had stored up, but upon its productive capacity." Which is to say that wealth is simply a symbol, productive capacity the fact dominating all other facts. The war would have been over in short order if it depended upon the accumulated wealth of the belligerents; but it does not: it depends ultimately and in an economic sense upon the productive capacity of a nation, upon its industrial resources and the proletariat. Even a pure- ly financial transaction such as a loan is not a trans- action in wealth, but is based upon a nation's pro- ductivity, a lien upon the future labor of the work- ers. The proletariat is dominant, economically; all the wealth in the world would shrivel into nothing, and Capitalism collapse, should the proletariat use its economic dominance in its own class interests and against the ruling class. But while the war has proven the supremacy of the proletariat, and its latent revolutionary energy, the representatives of the proletariat during the war have been seduced by Imperialism. They have acquiesced in reaction, they have acted against the proletarian class. One of the most interesting and significant events of the war is the mobilizing of labor and Socialism consciously into the service of Imperialism. Gov- ernments have calculatingly and as a policy used labor and "Socialism" in their activity, used them to inculcate in the workers the ideology of "carry on!" REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM is, in a measure, indicates the power of the prole- /fletariat; but it equally indicates that the dominant /unionism and Socialism are betrayers of proletarian fi interests. This government mobilization of the dominant unionism and Socialism against the revolutionary pro- letariat was a decisive development of the war. In the oncoming reconstruction of Socialism, this devel- opment will be a determining factor. All through the war dominant Socialism acted against fundamental Socialism, betrayed the proletariat, entered the serv- ice of Imperialism. The proletarian revolution in Russia had to dispose of its own moderate Socialism before it could dispose of the bourgeoisie; and after the proletarian revolution became an accomplished fact, the counter-revolution against the Soviet Repub- lic was organized and directed by moderate Socialism. But not alone in Russia : in all other nations, moderate Socialism acted directly and aggressively against the proletarian revolution in Russia; intrigued against the Soviet Republic and the Bolsheviki. The proletarian revolution in Russia was a victory not only against Capitalism, but against moderate Socialism, and moderate Socialism, appreciating its coming disas- trous defeat, united with Imperialism against the Workmen's and Peasants' Republic, against the revo- lutionary proletariat. Its attitude toward revolution- ary Russia is the final, inescapable indictment of the infamous attitude of moderate Socialism during the SOCIALISM AND THE WAR 7 war. Prior to the Russian Revolution, moderate So- cialism might have justified its betrayal of trust; after, its attitude constitutes an indictment overwhelming in its force, terrible in its spirit, and inescapable in its proof. Socialism has been definitely split; a new and irrevocable formulation is necessary of fundamental Socialism. The defects and betrayals that have characterized the dominant Socialism during the war were equally existent before the war, if less apparent. The Inter- national did not collapse during the war; it collapsed before the war, the war simply registering and em- phasizing the collapse. There is no complete break between war and peace each is the expression of fundamental economic and political forces. The war marks a new epoch in Capitalism only in this sense, that it is the sharp, definite, catastrophic expression of forces operating in society during peace, and that precipitated war. Through war these forces are becoming dominant forces, where previously they were latent or only in process of development. The assumption, according- ly, that war marks a complete break with the preced- ing era is without a shred of historic truth. In other words, to understand adequately the politics and econ- omics of Capitalism during war, its development and tendencies in the peace era preceding must be borne in mind ; and to understand the conflict of policy in the Socialist movement during the war, we must appreci- 8 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM ate the fact that it is a continuation and a catastrophic expression of an identical conflict before the war. The form may change, the fundamental issues in dispute are identical, sharpened and emphasized by events. Socialist policy, whatever apparently startling changes it may show, is not at all a breaking with the immediate past; the break with the revolutionary pur- poses of Socialism was made years ago. Socialist policy during the war is a direct result of the policy of yesterday, and can be considered only in that light. Peace and war they are fundamentally identical, and each requires the same general course of revolu- tionary Socialist action. The really great changes produced by the war, as developments of a previous tendency at work in so- ciety, are economic and political, not military. Nor do these changes affect simply the temporary mobiliza- tion of labor, industry and government for purposes of war. Their scope is larger and more permanent. The changes are not simply technical, but social and political; they do not consist in temporary adjust- ments of institutions and power, but in a radical al- teration of their character. Moreover, the social- economic relations of classes are being revolutionized, and consequently their economic and political power, including the means of expression of their class in- terests. Prior to the war this alteration was being accomplished; it is being completed by the pressure of the war. SOCIALISM AND THE WAR 9 The dominant fact in this war is Imperialism. Im- perialism is the animating and unifying tendency of all events; and Imperialism is itself the cause and effect of the tremendous changes that are being wrought in the economic, social and political structure of Capitalism. The facts of contemporary political development are incomprehensible unless related to Imperialism. And it is a mistake of the first importance to consider Imperialism simply in relation to war. The interna- tional aspects of Imperialism the export of capital, the struggle for investment markets, raw materials and undeveloped territory, and war are not alone important; the decisive factor is the alteration of class relations and class power that Imperialism produces in each particular nation. The internal and interna-, tional aspects of Imperialism are one, develop and / supplement each other. To consider Imperialism in its international aspect alone is to misunderstand its nature and to cripple our power of fighting effectively against it and for Socialism. Not the least vital feature of Imperialism is its in- fluence on Socialism. If the social-economic and class relations of Capitalism are being altered by Im- perialism, it means that Socialism must necessarily undergo a tactical transformation and reconstruction in order to adapt itself to the new conditions. The war and Imperialism pose the problem: either Imperialism and war, or Socialism and the new order. 10 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM The war marks the violent efforts of Capitalism and Imperialism to break through the multiplying con- tradictions of a decaying class system. That is the general formulation of the problem. Specifically, and more important, the problem assumes this form: either the proletariat must repudiate moderate Social- ism and accept revolutionary Socialism, or Imperial- ism will become impregnable, and drag the whole world through a new series of wars irresistibly on toward the collapse of all civilization. II IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM Imperialism characterizes the new, the final stage of Capitalism. It characterizes, equally, the unity of all the forces of Capitalism into a new and more formidable instrument of conquest and spoliation, the final desperate maneuvre of Capitalism to prevent its utter disintegration and collapse. 1 Imperialism, ac- cordingly, is a fundamental manifestation of Capi-j talism, Capitalism at the climax of its development^ This fundamental character of Imperialism is the decisive factor in contemporary world-development. All forces and all tendencies, all aspirations of Capi- talism, are being merged into the new imperialistic epoch, now definitely established as the dominant ex- pression of Capitalism. This dominance is not a con- sequence of the war, but the war is a consequence of 1 hnTerialism is a specific historical stage of Capitalism. Iti peculiarities are threefold: Imperialism means (1) monopolistic Capitalism; (2) parasitic, or stagnai Capitalism; and (3) dying Capitalism. . . . ImperUlism, the most advanced staj of Capitalism in America and Europe, and later of Asia, became '""* Developed in the period from 1898 to 1914. The Spanish- American War (1898), the Anglo-Boer War (1900-1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and the economic crisis in Europe (1910), are the chief historical milestones of this new era of univers tory. N. Lenin, "Imperialism and the Socialist Schwm," Sbornik Sotiial-Demokrata, . December, 1916. 11 12 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM the dominance of Imperialism. As a major or minor factor, Imperialism controls the policy of states, and determines alignments in the social struggle. Eco- nomically and historically, the characteristics of Im- perialism justify its designation as a new stage of Capitalism, not an accidental or transitory manifes- tation. But this characterization of Imperialism is not gen- erally accepted. Among the liberals, and among the liberal-"Socialists," Imperialism is considered a temporary product of Capitalism, that may be dis- posed of upon the basis of Capitalism. The govern- ment Socialists in all belligerent nations, who repre- sent groups of the working class seduced by Imperial- ism, accept wholly the conception of modifying and ultimately disposing of the antagonisms of Imperial- ism upon the basis of Capitalism: their policy of so- cial-reformism is a policy that depends upon Impe- rialism, is a phase of social-Imperialism, and they wish to perpetuate the policy of social-Imperialism, while avoiding its horrors. Imperialism is conceived as being fundamentally alien to Capitalism, as the product of particular capitalist and militarist inter- ests, and not an expression of unified Capitalism. This conception constitutes a total misconception of the historical character of Imperialism; it is, more- over, an expression of petit bourgeois Socialism, which, because of its policy of reformism, must adapt itself to Capitalism and avoid the revolutionary strug- IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 13 gle. The characterization of Imperialism as a defin- ite stage of Capitalism goes to the heart of contem- porary problems, and of the revolutionary recon- struction of Socialism. Imperialism is the contemporary expression of the requirements of dominant Capitalism. Industrial monopoly, finance-capital, the whole process of capi- talist production as an historical category, all layers of the ruling class, the policy of social-reformism, are now dependent upon the adventures and conquests of Imperialism, financial, industrial, and military. The rapid development of Capitalism nationally has sim- ultaneously limited its base internationally; the broad- ening of economic opportunity of one nation circum- scribes the opportunity of a competing nation. While Capitalism is organized nationally and functions na- tionally, capitalist economy is becoming, is now de- pendent upon the facts of international production. Capitalism attempts to solve this contradiction through Imperialism, apparently successfully, but actually multiplying the contradictions of Capitalism. Com- peting Imperialism clashes with competing Imperial- ism; and the whole of Capitalism becomes absorbed in this clash, since the prosperity of a nation depends upon its Imperialism. Imperialism is the character- istic and unifying tendency of the final stage of Capi- talism. Out of competitive Capitalism develops monopol- istic Capitalism; and out of monopolistic Capitalism 14 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM develops Imperialism. The policy, the tendency, the ideologic-political forms of the imperialistic epoch differ in fundamentals from the epoch of competi- tive Capitalism. This alone characterizes Imperial- ism as a definite stage of Capitalism. Moreover, as the final stage of Capitalism, Imperialism imposes a stern obligation upon Socialism the obligation of Socialism adapting itself to the revolutionary re- quirements of the new epoch. II The economic power of motion in capitalistic so- ciety is the accumulation of capital through competi- tion, and the development of monopoly through the accumulation of capital. This process is dependent upon the production of sujjiLiis-A5Iue4>yJLhe workers. Capital yields profits, which are invested and in turn become capital. The accumulation of capital accele- rates industrial expansion, and this expansion reacts upon and accelerates the accumulation of capital and the development of monopoly. Historically, Capitalism comes into being through the expropriation of the peasantry from the soil, (by the brutal and infamous means of fire and sword,) the creation of a large body of proletarians which be- come the human raw material of industry, and the industrial development of the internal market. For a definite period, the requirements of the home mar- IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 15 ket are largely sufficient for the purposes of industrial expansion and accumulation. The principle of com- petition, of laissez faire, dominates the activity of Capitalism, as well as, largely, the relations of nations to each other. The development of the national economy absorbs the capital and the efforts of the entrepreneur; capital is permanently invested in means of production, in machinery, through which the internal market is developed and the nation be- comes industrialized. Trade between nations consists of the export and import of consumable goods. But capital accumulates, and is invested in more means of production; and the point is finally reached where the home market, the strictly national economy 2 , no longer serves the purposes of industrial expansion, no longer absorbs the masses of investment capital, and the new means of production which become the per- manent form of the investment of capital. The accumulation of capital, in one sense, de- pends upon the existence of low wages, which in itself 2. The development and exploitation of the home market mean a revolutionary struggle against Feudalism, the bourgeois revolution. At the earlier periods of capitalist society, when there was no class conscious proletariat, the bourgeoisie could afford to engage in this revolutionary struggle. But a nation that enters the orbit of capitalist production definitely during the imperialistic epoch pursue* a different course. In Russia, for example, the bourgeoisie was afraid to develop intensively its home market, as it meant a revolutionary struggle against Czarism; the bourgeoisie feared this struggle, because it might offer an opportunity to the proletariat and proletarian peasantry to assume power as has actually been the case. The Russian bourgeoisie, accordingly, dealt gingerly with the home market and sought means of exploitation and accumulation of capital through the control of undeveloped countries Imperialism. This imperialistic character of the Russian bourgeoisie explains many of the events in the Russian Revolution. Where in other countries Imperialism is the product of an over-developed Capitalism, in Russia, as in Japan, it is influenced by an under-developed Capitalism. "In Japan and in Russia," says Lenin, "the monopoly of military power, a measureless extent of territory, or an unusual opportunity to exploit native populations, partly complement and partly replace the monopoly of present-day finance-capital." 16 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM creates the contradictions inherent in the accumulation of capital and the capitalist economy. The prevailing low wages the extraction of surplus value implies the inability of a nation to consume all the products it produces. These surplus products are exported to other countries at a lower stage of industrial develop- ment; but thereupon these countries emerge definitely into the capitalist mode of production, become indus- trialized, and produce a mass of surplus products of their own. "When the newcomer within the family of capitalist nations turns from a customer of its older capitalistic brethren into their competitor, it does not do so in all fields of production. On the contrary, it continues to remain their customer for a long time to come. Only it does not buy from them any more textiles and other consumable goods as it used to, but machinery and means of production gen- erally. The competition of the newcomer in the pro- duction of consumable goods leads to a shifting of production in the older industrially more developed countries. These countries now produce, propor- tionately, more machinery and other artificial means of production and fewer consumable goods." 3 This development proceeds upon the basis of the accumulation of capital, which accumulates at a ter- rific pace. But this creates a mass of surplus capital, which is not absorbed by the development of the inter- nal economy, exactly as surplus products are not ab- 3. L. B. Boudin. Socialism and War. IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 17 sorbed. An impetus is provided this development by the appearance of monopoly, which unifies the industrial process of a nation, and aspires after world monopoly. Monopolistic Capitalism, having monop- olized the national economy, becomes international and tries to monopolize the investment markets and sources of raw material throughout the world. This again accelerates the accumulation of capital, the pro- duction of means of production, the necessity of de- veloping new industrial markets to absorb the accum- ulating mass of surplus capital and means of pro- duction. 4 An impasse is reached capitalist produc- tion must break its national bonds and become inter- national; new spheres of economy must be secured for industrial development, to absorb surplus capital and means of production ; new sources of raw material must be conquered and monopolized, a new capital- ism must be "created" and monopolized by the older Capitalism in order to prevent its disintegration and collapse. It is a desperate situation, and Capitalism resorts to desperate means to avert impending col- lapse. The peaceful economic partition of the world 4. Monopoly appears in five principal forms: (1) cartells, syndicates and trusts: in these the concentration of production has reached the stage that creates monopolis- tic leagues of capitalists; (2) the monopoly position of the great banks: three, four or five gigantic banks dominate the entire economic life of America, France and Germany; (3) the conquest of the sources of raw materials by the trust and the financial oligarchy (finance-capital means monopolistic industrial capital united with banking capital) ; (4) the beginnings of the partition of the world (economic) by the international cartells: of such international cartells, controlling the whole world market, and doing it "amicably" (until war began to redistribute it), there are already more than one hundred; the export of capital, a phenomenon distinct from the export of goods under pro-monopolistic Capitalism, is closely allied with the economic and politico-territorial division of the world; (5) the territorial division of the world (colonial era) has been completed, N, Lenin, "Imperialism and the Socialist Schism," loc. cit. 18 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM proceeds feverishly; but each partition produces new appetities, and narrows the economic opportunity of competing capitalistic nations. Contradictions mul- tiply, antagonisms assume a more impelling and ir- reconcilable character; and the ultimate arbitrament of the issues in dispute becomes the arbitrament of the bayonet. Capitalism emerges definitely into a new phase of its existence, Imperialism: the climax of Capitalism, the final stage of its supremacy. This new stage of Capitalism completely alters the colonial policy of the great industrial nations. Com- mercial colonialism was a factor of the utmost im- portance in the development of Capitalism. The wealth filched from the colonies becomes an accele- rator of the accumulation of capital in the mother- country, contributes to the development of the internal industrial technology. At first the process is simply one of stealing gold, silver, and other precious articles from the natives, who are exterminated; but this pol- icy, persisted in, produces an industrial stagnation in the mother-country that brings about its ruin, as in Spain. The country is choked in its own ill-gotten wealth. It is only where this appropriation of wealth coincides with a normal development of industry, as in England, that it promotes Capitalism. This devel- opment produces an ever increasing mass of products, which are exported to the colonies. The ability of the natives to consume is artificially stimulated, and they are compelled to use products which their primi- IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 19 tive minds do not desire, and at the same time they are put to work to produce those special articles re- quired by the nation that rules them. The natives are "civilized" in order that they may yield profits. But the older colonies are incompatible with the capitalist mode of production, which pre-supposes the expropriation of the laborer. Laborers exported to the colonies become independent and refuse to sub- mit to the capitalist mode of production, preferring to till the soil which is abundant and secured without cost. The trade in goods of developing nations with each other constitutes a more efficient means of capitalist accumulation. Capitalism begins to con- sider colonies as unprofitable, and they are largely retained because of the bureaucracy of officials for whom they provide employment, and because of special opportunities for robbery given to a few mem- bers of the ruling caste. This period, however, passes away in the measure that the capitalist mode of pro- duction enters a new phase. The colonies establish an organized life; the import of products is supple- mented by the import of capital, and the colonies be- come active producing units by the import of means of production. The colonies are now active indus- trial producers, absorbing surplus capital; and the mother-country now fights to retain these colonies. It is precisely the nations with an old established colonial system, such as England, that first pass into the epoch of Imperialism; or a nation, such as the 20 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM United States, that has at its doors an undeveloped territory which plays the part of a colony. The col- onial system under Imperialism under-goes another change, and that is the practical cessation of immigra- tion to these domains. The natives are no longer ex- terminated to make room for the whites, but are ex- propriated from the soil and turned into wage-labor- ers, become the human raw material of industry, his- torically the basis of the capitalist mode of produc- tion. The migration of men to the colonies is sup- plemented by the migration of capital, of means of production; occupied territory is not to be colonized, but "developed" and exploited. The "pressure of population," by which some explain the phenomenon of Imerialism, is a myth; Germany, which has been striving to carve out a colonial empire, has no desire to export its people, but to export its capital and ma- chinery. France has been active in the struggle for territory, and France has no surplus population to export. Imperialism does not concern itself with colonies alone. It extends its scope to countries whiich can in no sense be colonial possessions, but which because of an inferior stage of industrial development, provide opportunity for the investment of capital and the in- troduction of a modern industrial technology. Pro- tectorates and "spheres of influence" become the new means of aggrandizing national capital; or if these are insufficient the country may be occupied, in order IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 21 to assure stability and normal development. France did not occupy Morocco in order to colonize it, but to assure French investors security and a monopoly of the profits that come from developments. The great industrial nations transform their colonial pos- sessions into producers and absorbers of surplus capi- tal; and reach out to develop any other part of the world, civilized and uncivilized, in which the invest- ment of capital will yield more than average profits. Not the least attractive feature of this policy for the capitalist is the existence of a mass of low-priced workers in an undeveloped territory low wages be- ing a particularly powerful accelerator of the accum- ulation of capital, other things being equal. Having revolutionized industry within its own na- tional borders, accordingly, Capitalism now revolu- tionizes industry within the borders of undeveloped nations, creates a new proletariat and a new Capital- ism which become the base upon which are erected new systems of empires, financial and military. Hith- erto, all that these undeveloped lands were required to do was to purchase the consumable products of the great industrial nations; but this is now insuffici- ent, and Capitalism begins to develop and exploit the new markets through the investment of capital and the introduction of machinery. It becomes no longer sufficient, for example, that Mexico sell the United States its agricultural products and raw ma- terials, and that it purchase the manufactured pro- 22 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM ducts of the United States. The Mexican home mar- ket must be developed ; it must absorb the surplus cap- ital of United States Capitalism, purchase its iron goods and means of production, which become domi- nantly the form of investment of accumulated capital. Then comes the period of the investment of American capital in Mexico, the building of railways, docks, and factories by American enterprise and American money. This is the export of capital, the animating factor in Imperialism. The domination and exploit- ation of undeveloped peoples becomes the character- istic of parasitic Capitalism. The climax of this development is a change in the economic policy of a nation, in the character of its politics. 5 The great fact of international economics during the past thirty years is the investment of British, French, German and American capital in the unde- veloped sections of the world, China, Egypt, Mexi- co, Central and South America, Africa, the Balkans 5. To the landed class .... broad acres and numerous serfs are the most natural expressions of wealth, it conquers and arms to acquire estates. With the development of manufactures and oversea trade, these cruder views are discarded. The landed class retains for a time its hereditary bias to think in terms of actual pos- session. But little by little the commercial standpoint modifies the attitude ven of the aristocracy. A trading community like Early Victorian England, which can still profitably employ all its capital in its mills and ships, becomes indifferent to the acquisition of territory, and even tends to regard the colonies previously ac- quired as a useless encumbrance. That was the normal state of mind of our com- mercial classes during the middle years of last century. They dealt in goods, and in order to sell goods abroad, it was not necessary either to colonize or to conquer. To this phase belongs' the typical foreign policy of Liberalism, with its watchwords of peace, non-intervention, and free trade. The third phase, the modern phase, begins when capital has accumulated in large fortunes, when the rate of interest at home begins to fall, and the discovery is made that investments abroad, in unsettled countries with populations more easily exploited than our own, offer swifter and bigger returns. It is the epoch of concession hunting, of coolie labor, of chartered companies, of railway construction, of loans to semi-civilized Powers, of the "open- ing up" of "dying empires." At this phase the export of capital has become to the ruling class- more important and more attractive than the export of goods. The Manchester school disappears, and even Liberals accept Imperialism. H. N. Brails- ford, The War of Steel and Gold. IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 23 and Asia Minor; a process of investment which rap- idly emerged into definite Imperialism. " But this purely economic fact goes hand in hand with a vital political fact the struggle for and ex- tension of political control over these undeveloped lands by the nations exporting capital. These nations do not simply compete in the export of capital, but a fierce rivalry arises to secure political control in the countries where capital is invested, a control that constitutes the mechanism of monopolistic Capi- talism. The reason for this is dual: 1. It does not matter so much to a capitalist whether a country has a stable government or not, as long as he is simply selling its people consumable products. Such a country may be convulsed by revo- lutions, disorder may reign, but it matters little if only the products are paid for, and that is the end of the transaction. As soon, however, as the foreign capi- talist invests money in the countrty, either as loans to the state or in "projects of development," its gov- ernment and social order become of the utmost im- portance. Revolutions, and a pre-capitalistic social order generally, disorganize industry, and the in- vested capital yields no profits; may, moreover, be- come a dead loss. The export of capital and its in- vestment immediately develops its ideology, a hor- ror of revolutions, the lamenting of disorders, a Cru- sader's enthusiasm for making over the country in the image of sacrosanct Capitalism, and the pious 24 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM desire that the people should live in "peace" and "prosperity," under the domination of a "superior race" if necessary. The capitalist, accordingly, brings pressure to bear on his own government to maintain order in the country where his money is invested, and the government becomes guarantor of his investments. Imperialistic governments unblushingly and un- ashamed develop into agencies to collect debts and promote investments; the army and navy become ad- juncts of the banks and of investment capital. It was the boast of imperial Rome that it protected its citi- zens wherever they might wander; it is the pride of imperialistic governments that the capital of their citizens is protected wherever it may be invested. These governments try to prevail upon a backward country to maintain order and the stability of indus- trial activity; this failing, a protectorate is established or the country bodily annexed. Peace and prosperity prevail for the investor! 2. Finance capital, which is the factor behind Imperialism, is essentially monopolistic, the nerve- center of monopolistic Capitalism. The investment markets of the world (and sources of raw material) are limited, and each national Capitalism seeks their control for itself and the exclusion of others. The finance and politics of Imperialism are indissolubly linked, and the political control of a backward coun- try is indispensable to the purposes of Imperialism. There ensues, accordingly, a struggle between nation- IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 25 al Capitalism not only for investment markets, but for their political control. This is the meaning of the Franco-German clash over Morocco; Anglo-Ger- man rivalry in Mesopotamia; the schemes of Japan for control in China; and the transformation of the Monroe Doctrine into an imperialistic instrument for establishing American capital in monopolistic con- trol of Central and South America. 6 The financial and the political facts, moreover, are linked together by the circumstances that it is not simply investments, but the development of a country which is the ulti- mate and necessary object of Imperialism. In the operations of Imperialism politics are in- separable from economics. The Bagdad Railway, by which German Imperialism sought to insure its control of the development and exploitation of Mesop- otamia and Asia Minor, was as much a matter of poli- 6. The early Imperialism of the United States, externally, was largely a reflex of the Monroe Doctrine. Originally promulgated as a bulwark of the new Republic, the Monroe Doctrine, as American Capitalism developed, was transformed into an imperialistic instrument, the definite impetus in this direction being given by Presi- dent Cleveland, and completed by President Roosevelt. American capital and enter- prises were established in Central America and the Carribbeans, the result being the creation of a de facto empire, based upon the financial control which ultimately leads to political domination. In his Mobile speech in 1913 President Wilson opposed granting oil concessions to non-American promoters by the weaker American states, as the granting of these concessions was a menace to the Monroe Doctrine, Here was formulated completely the imperialistic phase of the Monroe Doctrine, not in- tended to protect the political independence of the American continents against foreign aggression, but to aggrandize, financially, economically and politically, the Imperialism of the United States as against the other nations of the world. The rapacious expression of this doctrine is shown in the complete subjection of the Republics of Central America and the Carribbeans, completed and consolidated dur- ing the "liberal" administration of Woodrow Wilson. This administration tried to project a Pan-Americanism in the interest of American Imperialism, the chief purpose of which was to secure economic and governmental stability, as, in the words of Mr. Wilson, "revolution tears up the very roots of everything that makes life go steadily forward and the light grow from generation to generation." This "Pan- Americanism" is, in a measure, an off-shoot of the Monroe Doctrine; but it is a contradiction, for as long as the Monroe Doctrine prevails, which is a strictly na- tional doctrine, any attempt at Pan-Americanism is simply a scheme to promote the Imperialism of the United States. This Pan-Americanism and the Monroe Doc- trine are merging into the definite continental expression of American Imperialism. 26 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM tics, if not more so, as of finance; and it was this feature that produced the diplomatic clash between Germany and Great Britain, which prevented the rail- way being completed. Military conquest is a means of promoting Imperialism, and the operations of Im- perialism, through control of territory, railways, etc., are calculated to promote ultimate conquest. Hence the political character of Imperialism and the an- tagonisms it develops between states. The loans that have from time to time been granted to China by the Great Powers have been political transactions in which finance, as an immediate factor and purpose, played a secondary role; the loans were used to secure pol- itical or territorial concessions from China; and it was through the medium of these political loans that national sovereignty largely passed out of the hands of China into the control of these other nations. Nor were these loans granted by finance alone, but by finance acting in co-operation with its particular na- tional government. Finance promotes politics and politics promotes finance. The export of capital to an undeveloped country, whether it assumes the form of loans to the Chinese government or the building of the Bagdad Railway, does not end with the particular immediate transac- tion. This immediate transaction, it is true, absorbs a certain amount of surplus capital; but it is second- ary in importance to ultimate purposes, to the sub- sequent absorption of surplus capital. The Bagdad IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 27 Railway constituted a means by which the whole region of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor was to be developed industrially, a development absorbing new surplus capital and products; it was to act much as the great transcontinental railway systems of the United States, to open up new territory for indus- trial use and prepare the way for intensive develop- ment and exploitation. It was this subsequent de- velopment which was to justify the Bagdad Railway, the opening up of a new internal market, the devel- opment of a modern industrial technology in these capitalistically arid wastes, and consequently the ab- sorption of large masses of German capital and means of production. The political privileges wrung from China usually "concessions" and "spheres of in- fluence" were claims upon the natural and indus- trial development and exploitation, which would re- quire again the export of capital. It is this economic fact that produces the necessity of political control in an undeveloped country that is the objective of Im- perialism. Another animating cause of Imperialism, of minor or major importance according to the resources of a country, is the competition to secure raw materials, particularly iron, oil and coal. As a nation reaches the maturity of development of its internal market, it reaches the point where itst internal raw materials are either becoming exhausted or are insufficient for its industrial purposes. These raw materials must 28 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM be secured abroad, in undeveloped countries. Iron is the basis of the modern industrial technology, the constituent element in the production of means of production, and oil is becoming a prime factor in transportation, since the invention of the Diesel en- gine. A supply of the raw materials necessary for industry, constant and uninterrupted, is a matter of life and death to Capitalism. In the earlier Colon- ial era, colonies were prized in the measure that they possessed silver and gold ; in the iron age of imperial- istic Capitalism, iron ore, copper and other industrial metals are of utmost necessity, and their possession may make a nation rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The development of mines in undeveloped countries performs a two-fold function it absorbs surplus cap- ital, and provides the mother-country with the raw material of industry, which is largely converted into means of production for export to undeveloped coun- tries. China is simply bursting with iron ore and other metals, and Japan is hungry for their possession, as it has practically none within its own territory; the iron ore of Morocco 7 was the motive of the desire 7. The "trade" of Morocco, if by that word is meant the exchange of European manufactured goods against the raw produce of its agriculture, is at the best in- considerable .... What matters in Morocco is the wealth of its virgin mines .... A German firm, the Mannesmann Brothers, could indeed boast that it had obtained an exclusive concession to work all the mines of Morocco in return for money which it had lent to an embarrassed Sultan during its civil wars. That this was the real issue is proved by the terms which were more than once discussed between Paris and Berlin for the settlement of the dispute. A "detente," or provisional settle- ment of the dispute was concluded in 1910, which had only one clause that German finance would share with French finance in the various undertakings and companies which aimed at "opening up" Morocco by ports, railways, mines, and other public works. No effect was ever given to this undertaking, and German irritation at the delays of French diplomacy and French finance culminated in the dispatch of the gunboat Panther to Agadir as a prelude to further "conversations." H. N. Brails- ford, The War of Steel and Gold. IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 29 of Germany and France to secure control in that region; the inexhaustible oil wells of Mexico have for the past ten years been the source of a bitter struggle for their possession between American, Brit- ish and German capital. Bismarck seized Alsace- Lorraine for political, territorial and dynastic pur- poses; but to-day Germany refuses to relinquish these provinces because, other reasons aside, they are rich in iron ore, having in 1913 produced 21,136,265 metric tons .of iron ore as against 7,471,638 metric tons produced by the rest of Germany. This struggle for raw material, particularly iron ore, is, together with the export of capital, a distinguishing feature of Imperialism and a symptom of the fact that national Capitalism is now at the climax of its development. Imperialism is a process of expropriation the ex- propriation of a national Capitalism by its competi- tor. Imperialistic Capitalism may, by means of a particularly perfected monopoly, engage in competi- tion against a rival Capitalism within its own nation, and expropriate it in its own markets. Moreover, Im- perialism does not simply covet undeveloped territory, but may annex developed territory, providing it pos- sesses raw materials and the capacity to absorb capi- tal. Powerful industrial and financial interests in Germany urge the annexation of Northern France the metallurgical and manufacturing centre of France; and the annexation of Belguim. The first would strike a terrific blow at French Capitalism; 30 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM the second would expropriate a whole national Capi- talism and aggrandize German Capitalism. Detach- ing Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, on the other hand, would mean economic disaster unless Germany se- cured "compensation" by annexing the Baltic prov- inces of Russia, which are rich in raw materials. Monopoly the monopoly of a particular national Capitalism would be established in the conquered regions by means of the expropriation of nascent or dominant Capitalism; and, this monopoly organized, a new struggle would emerge for world monopoly and world power. HI Monopolistic Capitalism and Imperialism are necessarily belligerent. As the expropriation of one capitalist by another was a means for the accumula- tion of capital, so the destruction of capital and the expropriation of a competing Capitalism through war becomes a means for the perpetuation of Capitalism. In this desperate way is Capitalism maneuvring to prevent a decrepit system from tottering to its col- lapse. In the process of imperialistic competition, gov- ernments and their diplomacy and armed power be- come conscious and active agents in the promotion of the Imperialism of their particular capitalist class. In ways sinister and secret, open and unashamed, governments act as the panders of Imperialism, rap- IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 31 ing the peace of the world and the independence of peoples. This competition in the export of capital is finan- cial and political; and being political and promoted by governments, there arises a situation in which war becomes a perpetual menace. The ultimate economic fact develops an ideology and a justification, the "white man's burden," the "defense of small nations," the concept of a "superior race" invested with the mission of imposing its "kultur" upon the backward races, the aspiration of "making the world safe for democracy," and the "defense of the nation and its institutions." The activity of diplomacy and a re- course to war are justified through these ideologic concepts; but, in fact, it is the economic process of the export of capital and the expansion of industry, jointly with the necessity of crushing rivals by armed force and securing control of the exploitation of the undeveloped regions of the world, that act as the driving force of imperialistic diplomacy and war. Imperialism is a revolutionizing factor; it sets the world in turmoil industrially and politically. The ex- port of capital and the monopolization of the sources of raw materials, being an absolute necessity to an industrially highly-developed nation dominated by Capitalism, the interests of Imperialism become iden- tified with the interests of the nation, interpreted by the ruling class ; the government protects and advances these interests through diplomatic means; but a point 32 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM may be reached where none of the antagonists yield, when the forces of diplomacy no longer reach a tem- porary solution, and the interests in dispute are put to the arbitrament of the sword. Soldiers slay and destroy, where diplomats intrigued. The "armed peace" of Imperialism is the expres- sion of the quintessence of capitalist hypocrisy and rapacity. Each nation dreads war, may anxiously at- tempt to avert war, but all relentlessly and unavoid- ably pursue a policy that inevitably brings war. The "armed peace" is an expression of the status quo; but the status quo limits the scope of Imperialism, is itself considered an "aggression," and must be altered by means of war. The horrors of this "armed peace," its torturing uncertainty, dreads and burdens are such that war itself becomes a sort of relief. All Imperial- ism cloaks itself in the garb of a "civilizing mission," and all Imperialism produces a world catastrophe that drags civilization down to ruin. Imperialism is the brutal and final negation of all the ideal claims of capitalist hypocrisy, expressing the most rapacious projects in all history. Wars waged under the conditions of imperialistic Capitalism present features of new and epochal sig- nificance. They are no longer national wars waged by nations, but international wars waged between groups of nations for international imperialistic pur- poses ; they are wars waged not to preserve the nation but to break through the hampering limits of the na- IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 33 tion; they are wars which are determined, not ulti- mately but immediately, by the economics of produc- tive capacity, and which organize for military pur- poses the whole of the industrial technology; they are wars which are not simply waged by nations but by peoples, because of a partly actual and largely fictitious interest of all the people in the war, and the pervasive and compulsive ideology of Imperial- ism; and, finally, they are wars which require and project a rigid centralizing control of the process of industry by the government, the control of State Capi- talism, for their prosecution. And it is precisely this State Capitalism, the social characteristic and political expression of Imperialism, that is the dis- tinguishing feature of contemporary capitalist society. This circumstance alone indicates the universal, the fundamental character of Imperialism in relation to Capitalism. But it indicates, simultaneously, the desperate situation of Capitalism. Imperialism is the expression of a stagnant Capitalism, a Capitalism in process of disintegration and verging on collapse. "The fact that Imperialism means Capitalism in a parasitic or stagnant stage is apparent from the ten- dency to disintegration which is characteristic of all private ownership of the means of production. The distinction between republican and democratic and monarchist-reactionary imperialistic bourgeoisie is nullified by the fact that both are rotting away while apparently in full bloom (which by no means pre- 34 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM vents a striking rapidity of capitalist development in certain branches of industry, or in certain countries, or in certain periods.) In the second place, the decay of Capitalism is characterized by the creation of a huge rentier class, of capitalists who live by 'cutting coupons.' In the four advanced imperialist countries, England, North America, France and Germany, capi- tal, in the form of securities, amounts to 100 or 150 milliards of francs, which involves an annual in- come of from five to eight milliards per country. In the third place, the export of capital is Capitalism to the second power. In the fourth place, 'finance- capital aspires to domination, not to freedom.' Politi- cal reaction all along the line is peculiar to Imperial- ism: bribery, readiness to be purchased, the Panama case in all its forms. In the fifth place, the exploita- tion of the oppressed nations, indissolubly associated with a policy of annexations, and particularly the exploitation of colonies by a handful of 'great' pow- ers, is progressively transforming the 'civilized' world into a parasite on the backs of hundreds of millions of uncivilized people. The Roman prole- tarian lived at society's expense. But present-day society lives at the expense of its proletariat. This profound observation of Sismondi has been particu- larly emphasized by Marx. Imperialism has some- what changed the situation. The privileged layers of the proletariat of the imperialistic powers are living partly at the expense of the hundreds of millions of IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 35 uncivilized people. It is evident that Imperialism is dying Capitalism, preparatory to Socialism; that mo- nopoly, which is an outgrowth of Capitalism, is al- ready the agony of Capitalism, the beginning of the transition to Socialism. The tremendous socialization of labor, through Imperialism (which the bourgeois economic apologists call 'the interlocking process') has precisely the same significance. . . . On the one hand, the tendency of the bourgeoisie and of the op- portunists is to transform the richest of the privileged nations into 'permanent' parasites on the body of backward humanity, to 'rest on the laurels' of the exploitation of Negroes, East Indians, etc., holding them in subjection by using the magnificent destruc- tive powers of the newest military technique. On the other hand, the tendency of the masses, more op- pressed than ever, and burdened with all the torments of imperialistic wars, to cast off this yoke and over- throw the bourgeoisie. In the conflict between these two tendencies, the history of the workers' movement must really begin to move." 8 The more Imperialism expresses itself as stagnant 8. N. Lenin, "Imperialism and the Socialist Schism," loc. cit. Another pas- sage from this article will prove instructive: "Our definition of Imperialism puts us in opposition to Karl Kautsky, who refuses to accept Imperialism as 'a phase of Capitalism,' and defines Imperialism as the policy 'favored by' finance-capital, as the tendency of the 'industrial' countries to annex 'agrarian' countries. This definition of Kautsky's is theoretically all wrong. The peculiarity of Imperialism is the hegemony, precisely not of industrial, but of financial capital, the tendency to annex, not agrarian, but any countries at all. Kautsky tears the policy of Imperial ism from its economy, severs monopolism in economy from monopolism in policy in order to pave the way for his base bourgeois reformism of 'disarmament,' 'ultra Imperialism,' and other follies. This theoretical misrepresentation is completely cal culatod to obliterate the profound contradictions of Imperialism, and thus to pre pare the theory of 'unity' with the apologists of Imperialism, the outright social patriots and opportunists." 36 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM Capitalism, the more violent will become the strug- gles of Capitalism to avert its collapse. But a sys- tem that must resort to the methods of Imperialism is a system that inevitably strangles itself in its own contradictions. The contradictions of Imperialism are the contradictions of Capitalism, multiplied and aggravated by the corroding stagnation of an economy that historically has persisted beyond its necessity. A social system is often deceptive in its strength. The war, apparently, marks a strengthening of Capi- talism, a new expression of the omnipotence of Capi- talism: the state and Capitalism are supreme, con- trol all things with iron despotism. And yet, his- torically, the war is an expression of the weakness of Capitalism, of its stagnant condition, of the fact that the situation of Capitalism is so desperate as to invoke the use of the most desperate, dangerous means to preserve itself. Imperialism, equally, marks an apparent renewal of the might of Capitalism, a new means for the prolongation of its supremacy. These are facts; but it is a form of renewal and prolongation worse than the disease; that imply new and more desperate struggles, acuter antagonisms, and a multi- plication of the factors that produce Imperialism. A still more decrepit Capitalism, an unavoidable lim- iting of the opportunity for its preservation, these are the inevitable consequences of the tendency of Imperialism. Imperialism is the final stage of Capitalism: the IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM 37 two are interwoven, persist or collapse as one. The alternative is either the collapse of all civilization, or the coming of Socialism. Ill THE epoch of Imperialism expresses a readjust- ment in the concentration of capital and industry, and the radical alteration of class relations and the form of expression of class interests. The accumulation of capital produces the concen- tration of industry, and the concentration of industry accelerates the accumulation of capital. The develop- ment of technology requires larger and larger indus- trial units; the battle of competition, waged through the cheapening of commodities, places the small pro- ducer at a disadvantage and encourages concentrated industrial enterprises. A simple industry becomes complex: the steel industry not only manufactures steel, but by-products, and acquires mines and rail- ways. In this process of concentration, the smaller capitalists are either driven to the wall, compelled to unite their capitals, or forced into new lines of indus- trial endeavor, where the development of technology and the battle of competition again produce con- centration. The consequences of this activity are the 38 CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 39 decay of the industrial middle class and a develop- ment toward monoply. The process of concentration of industry is accom- panied by the centralization of capital. Normally, the centralization of capital is a consequence of concen- tration of industry; actually, it may be and often is its cause. Centralization 1 is financial, the unity of many small or large capitals used co-operatively and not competitively. Centralization may precede concen- tration of industry, accelerate concentration, and plays an important part in capitalist development. "The world would still be without railroads if it had been obliged to wait until accumulation should have enabled a few individual capitalists to undertake the construction of a railroad. Centralization, on the other hand, accomplished this by a turn of the hand through stock companies." 2 Centralization strips cap- ital of the fetters of its isolation and unites it into a formidable instrument of development and exploita- tation, reproducing many-fold the value of the totality of its individual components; through this unity, cen- tralization makes possible enterprises before which the individual capitals would shrink in terror or im- potence; it accelerates economic expansion, breaks new ground, and paves the way for systematic, inten- sive exploitation and development. Centralization 1. The word "centralization" throughout this discussion it used to indicate a financial category, the word "concentration" an industrial category, although in practice the two are not rigidly separable. 2. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter XXV, Section 2. 40 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM in the United States built great railway systems, the tentacles of which, so to say, smothered the barbaric isolation and virility of the great West, opening a new continent to the civilizing beneficence of capitalist industry, profit and religion. Centralization forged the tools which tapped the great natural resources, drawing the whole of our continent into the circle of capitalist exploitation; it gave impetus to new indus- tries and provided the means with which to build up new industries. If this process was accompanied by concentration of industry and economic efficiency, that was partial and incidental technically inevitable, but subjectively incidental. In the capitalist order of things, accordingly, cen- tralization performed a mighty work. Speculative centralization accomplished with almost lightning rapidly what planful, systematic effort would have by now barely started. The process of speculative centralization, however, becomes a fetter upon the systematic, co-ordinated concentration of industry; produces a large amount of waste, makes dominantly the speculative capitalist instead of the industrial cap- italist the arbiter of industry, and converts industry into an expression of finance instead of finance into an expression of industry. Necessary at an earlier epoch, centralization becomes a fetter upon the indus- trial process, and industry re-adjusts itself, standard- izes and specializes itself in accord with the integra- tion of production. The extensive or expansive ex- CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 41 ploitation of the epoch of centralization is succeeded by re-adjustment and intensive development. The ultimate aim of centralization is monopoly, and for a time monopoly prevails. But while competition pro- duces monopoly, monopoly produces competition on a higher plane and within narrower limits, between million-capitals. However, the attempt at the monop- olistic management of industry is seen as unwieldy, inefficient, wasteful, and as defeating its own pur- pose. There is a revolt 3 at the attempt of monopolistic finance to direct the technic of industry. Monopol- istic industry does not succeed in maintaining its ascendancy, but monopolistic finance becomes domi- nant. Financial capital does not direct the technic of industry, but it controls the industrial forces. The attempt at indiscriminate monopoly, moreover, acts as a fetter upon the concentration and integration of industry. Competition cannot be wiped out com- pletely through struggle and rivalry; this may be ac- complished through co-operation. Under these condi- tions, the typical industry of concentrated capital be- 3. Certain developments in railway history may illustrate this fact. The New Haven transportation system, under the control of President Mellon, adopted the policy of monopolizing New England's transportation system. Mellon sacrificed and lowered dividends and efficiency, acquired control of competing water lines, bought up trolley systems, grasped railroad lines far beyond the New Haven's field of operations, and paid exorbitant prices for virtually useless properties, all to develop a monopoly; a process that, as one financial paper put it, "can only be justified in the event of monopoly being established to an extent that will permit monopolistic rates to be charged." In 1913 the Mellen regime was overthrown, without a murmur from its dominating influence, the Morgan financial empire. E. H. Harriman tried in a measure the same process, and after his death the railway systems he had united split apart. But the animating instinct of these men was right: the railway systems had to be integrated; it could not, however, be accomplished through private initiative alone, but it is now being accomplished through the medium of state control, which, by guaranteeing dividends, may eliminate wasteful competition and manage the railways as an integral system, in accord with industrial requirements. 42 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM comes the steel industry, as in the United States. The Steel Trust did not attempt to crush all its rivals and secure a complete monopoly. This trust and the independents maintain friendly relations and co-operate, although, of course, the trust dominates, and all are still further dominated by finance-capital. The policy becomes general. It becomes general be- cause of the compulsion of industrial necessity; and it becomes general, moreover, because the develop- ment of the home market no longer allows indiscrim- inate competition, and because the unity of capitalist interests is necessary in the struggles of Imperialism for investment markets and new spheres of develop- ment. The accumulation of capital has up to this point proceeded, in a measure, through the expropria- tion of one capitalist by another within the nation; it now becomes dominantly a process of one national group of capitalists expropriating a rival group through control of industrial development in unde- veloped countries, and by successful competition in the other markets of the world. The unity of a na- tional Capitalism is indispensable under these con- ditions. Industrial concentration does not cease at this point; on the contrary, it is given a new impetus, as- sumes a new form and becomes more systematic and co-ordinated, more strictly industrial and technologi- cal in character. The energy of industry is freed to specialize and standardize its process and production, CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 43 increasing output and decreasing costs. It is precisely this specialization and standardization that make American Capitalism a most successful competitor in the markets of the world. Moreover, through the in- tegrating activity of State Capitalism, industry ac- quires a new and more complete form of concentra- tion, the control of the state imposing adaptation and unity, and regulating the relations of industry to in- dustry. The control of the state means the climax of industrial concentration, precisely as State Capitalism and Imperialism mean the climax of Capitalism it- self. This development proceeds under the sway of finance-capital: the whole of industry comes under the domination of monopolistic finance, and subservi- ent to its policy, including the state itself, openly and unashamed. The ventures of Imperialism are carried on through finance-capital; these ventures are indispensable to the life of capitalist industry at the climax of its development; and finance-capital, accordingly, becomes the dictator of the industrial forces of a nation. The monopoly and domination of finance-capital are not disputed, since the export of capital is now the nerve-center of capitalist production and expan- sion. The industrial capitalist becomes subservient to the financial capitalist because exports are necessary to him, and under the conditions of trade today the export of products must be financed by the export of capital. James A. Farrell, president of the United 44 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM States Steel Corporation, recently emphasized the ne- cessity of the export of capital, of foreign investments, as "a commercial preparedness measure," as the means of increasing trade and exports by financing the needs of the growing countries "which are America's best customers." Great Britain's $20,000,000,000 of foreign investments, according to Farrell, "retain and strengthen its hold on the neutral markets of the world." Through the development of technology and the increased productivity of labor, the mass of sur- plus products steadily accumulates; the industrial capitalist must dispose of these products through ex- port trade; the demand for these products must be stimulated through the development of the internal markets of undeveloped countries, which is accom- plished through investments and the export of means of production; and, accordingly, the export of prod- ucts becomes in large measure dependent upon the export of capital. This being the situation, capitalist industry rallies to Imperialism as necessary to its existence, prosperity and expansion. The investments which are the animating factor of Imperialism are, as stated previously, an industrial as much as a financial transaction. The capital invested in an undeveloped country is used to build railways, factories, docks, irrigation systems, to exploit mines, etc. ; all this requires steel, machinery and other prod- ucts, including skilled labor; and when American finance-capital, say, invests in Mexico to build rail- CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 45 ways, it is tacitly or openly agreed that the bulk of the necessary materials shall be purchased in the United States. This is the rule in all such enterprises. There is here a double profit, a profit on the invest- ment, directly, which goes to finance-capital; and a profit on the export of materials, indirectly, which goes to the industrial capitalist. This is a circumstance which converts Imperialism, essentially a mechanism of finance-capital, into the concern of all capitalist groups, the export of capital being the purveyor, stab- ilizer and guarantor of profit generally; 4 and this re- sults in a unity of capitalist interests that is a dis- tinguishing feature of the era of Imperialism. The domination of finance-capital is assured because it becomes the typical expression of Capitalism. In this process, the industrial middle-class, the 4. The organization of the American International Corporation was the sign and symbol of awakening to the opportunity of seizing world power, backed up by a vigorous propaganda for mightier armaments. This International Corporation represents the great interests of finance-capital, and of such powerful economic units as the steel industry. Its purpose is to seek out investment markets, exploit and control them. It is a definite expression of the new era in American trade an era of systematic export of products organized by the export of capital. Its capitalization of $50,000,000 is purely nominal, a mere bagatelle in comparison with the millons upon millons controlled by its sponsors. It is around the activity of this corpo- ration, in China, in Chile, anywhere an opportunity offers, that American Imperialism is organizng itself. . . . What are the economic facts . . . that lie at the roots of our developing Imperialism? The credit balance of American foreign trade from the outbreak of the war to January 31, 1917, represents a huge total of $5,574,000,000. . . . The statistics are not significant because of what they express in foreign trade alone. Trade in itself is not a cause of belligerency between nations today. . . . The outstanding fact is that America, from a debtor nation, /nix become a credtor nation. Two years ago American Capitalism owed the world more than two billion dollars; today the world owes America nearly three billion dollars. Where this country previously imported masses of capital, today it is exporting capital, and is developing the power to export it in still larger masses. The loans to the belligerent governments, paying good interest, represent a financial reserve for the future. And these loans are steadily increasing at present they amount to more than $2,500,000,000. . . . The export of American capital to Mexico, and to Central and South America generally, has been the factor in the development of Imperialism in this country, with its menace to peace and freedom at home and abroad. How much more menacing will this Imperialism become when the export of capital assumes larger dimensions! Louis C. Fraina, "The War and America," in Tie Class Struggle, May-June, 1917. 46 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM small and middle-sized producer, disappears as an independent factor. Turned into an anachronism through the concentration of industry, the small pro- ducer fights desperately against the process; but con- centration becomes steadily ascendant. The indus- trial middle class may use its electoral strength, in conjunction with workers whom it has cajoled, to strike at concentrated industry by means of legislative action. But, gradually, the fight ends. It ends not only because concentrated capital is supreme, but because the new era of Imperialism cannot tolerate this division of energy within the capitalist class. A compromise is struck the remnants of the industrial middle class, together with the producers in between the middle class and big industry, are allowed to exist and to participate in the profits of Imperialism, in return for which this class ceases its struggles for in- dependence. It straggles along dependent upon finance-capital, its miserable petty bourgeois soul bought and paid for by the master. And under these conditions, the remnants of the industrial petite bourgeoise become a repulsively reactionary factor, more imperialistic than imperialistic finance itself, where formerly pluming itself in the colors of free- dom, democracy, and even revolution! This com- promise is equally struck between trust and indepen- dent competitors concerns of million-capital, which are not part of the industrial middle class, but which previously acted against big capital through competi- CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 47 tion; a situation, moreover, which is in itself partly determined by the circumstance that there are certain historical limits to industrial concentration and the expropriation of one capitalist by another under the technological, social and political conditions of Capi- talism. Harmony, as much as is possible in a sys- tem where dog eats dog, prevails, and all seek recom- pense for the concessions of compromise in the fabu- lous profits of Imperialism. But now a factor emerges of prime social import- ance the creation of a new middle class. The dif- ferences between the old and the new middle class may be summarized, the old was industrial, an own- ing class, the new is social, an income class; the old was independent, the new dependent; the old was determined by the conditions of its existence in a struggle against the concentration of industry, the new is the product of concentrated industry and its obedi- ent vassal. The upper layer of this new middle class consists of individuals owning shares in concentrated industry. It is not an industrial factor, having been expropriated from direct control of industry, and its financial interests in trusts and corporations are not of a character to insure domination. The lower layer consists of managers, superintendents, engineers, technicians, and professional men of specialized training for industrial pursuits. These various ele- ments are wholly dependent upon concentrated cap- ital and its imperialistic manifestations, the upper 48 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM layer, because of its dividends; the lower, because it occupies a privileged status in industry, and because a feature of Imperialism is the export of technical skill to undeveloped countries to manage and super- intend the industries created there by the investment of capital. This new middle class is thoroughly re- actionary, although it develops a peculiar type of "liberal ideas." An adjunct of this new middle class, and trying to force itself within its ranks, is a certain category of ordinary skilled labor. In the development of the internal market of an undeveloped country, skilled labor is necessary, and this skilled labor, clearly, cannot be secured in the country being developed. There occurs, accordingly, the export of a mass of skilled workers clerks, stenographers, mechanics, etc. all of whom are dependent directly upon Im- perialism and become its prophets in more or less conscious degree. The character of strength and danger inherent in Imperialism flows from precisely this circumstance, that it seduces hitherto liberal and oppositional ele- ments, organizes them into the social and psychologi- cal army of Imperialism. By means of innumerable visible and invisible threads of interest and depend- ency, finance-capital bends to its will and purpose the whole of capitalist society. It reigns supreme. Im- perialism accomplishes that which never prevailed hitherto, the complete domination of capitalist autoc- CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 49 racy in its most revolting form; and it manages, more- over, at least temporarily, to scatter the opposition to chaff, except the potential opposition of the revolu- tionary industrial proletariat. Imperialism accomplishes another determining thing: it brings the "labor movement" into its service. At this stage, Imperialism becomes specially inter- ested in the psychology and action of the working class. In the struggles of Imperialism, a national Capitalism must present a united front. The unity of capitalist interests becomes imperative, as any mate- rial division of energy through unbridled rivalry of interests weakens the economic, political and military power of the nation. The unity of the various layers of the capitalist class has been secured partly through compromise, largely through their subordination to and dependence upon monopolistic finance-capital. But this unity is incomplete unless it includes the workers. Industrial regularity and efficiency are indis- pensable in the international competition of Imperial- ism, equally during peace and war, and a discontented class of workers becomes exceedingly unpleasant and perhaps dangerous. Monopolistic finance-capital se- cures support for its imperialistic adventures among the other layers of the capitalist class by a "distribu- tion" of the profits of Imperialism; and this policy is extended to groups of skilled labor, their support be- ing secured by means of higher wages, steady employ- ment, better hours and conditions of work generally, 50 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM and legislative measures conferring status upon skilled labor. The tendency is to create a homogeneity of interests, which is largely, if temporarily, success- ful. Skilled labor, sensing its importance and oppor- tunity, makes the attempt through its unions to secure even larger concessions, and establish for itself a place in the governing system of the nation. It re- jects the general class struggle against Capitalism, and acts as a caste the psychology and action of which are determined by the aspiration to absorb itself in the ruling system of things. The general process creates a reactionary mass whose interests are promoted by the more intense exploitation of the proletariat of average, unskilled labor, the overwhelming mass of the workers, and by imperialistic adventures. The governmental form of expression of this devel- opment is State Capitalism. 5 The unity of class and group interests must be and is maintained and con- served by the authority of the state. The end of eco- nomic individualism is symbolized by governmental control of industry and conditions of labor; the state, moreover, acts directly to intensify the concentration upon me wnoie 01 muusiry ana re-organize tnrougn stale uapi forces of a nation. The change is tremendous and fundamental. CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 51 of industry and "regulate" the revolts of labor. The industrial units in the nation under State Cap- italism are no longer allowed to proceed without being co-ordinated to the general process of national indus- try and its international interests. Representative in- stitutions become more and more incapable of coping with the new and vast industrial requirements ; parlia- mentary government virtually breaks down; and gov- ernmental power becomes centralized in the control of administrative autocrats. The state becomes an actual factor in industry through control, regulation and direction. This represents, moreover, a new form of State Capitalism. The older and the newer State Capitalism differ in this, that while the two may merge into each other, the first is pre-imperialistic and con- sists simply in government ownership of certain in- dustries, while the newer State Capitalism is imperial- istic, may not actually own any industry, but exercises drastic and despotic control over the general indus- trial process. The older State Capitalism was an expression of competitive Capitalism, an expression largely of a weakening industrial middle class that conceived gov- ernment ownership as a means of destroying the trusts and certain of its industrial oppressors; while imper- ialistic State Capitalism is essentially an expression of industrial collectivism, finance-capital and Imper- ialism, in short, of Capitalism at the climax of its development. It is not necessary, it is even undesir- 52 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM able, that imperialistic State Capitalism should have any actual government ownership of industry; it is sufficient that it co-ordinate, concentrate and control the process of industry, and express the unity of cap- italist interests, compelling this unity by state force if necessary. Imperialism and State Capitalism, 6 ac- cordingly, represent a new epoch in Capitalism, and a radical alteration in the relations of classes and in the form of expression of their class interests. A vital fact of State Capitalism is that skilled labor becomes a part of the governing system. The unions which comprise the aristocracy of labor gradually acquire an influence in State Capitalism, a concession that is offered them as a bribe, and which they accept, 6. The State Capitalism of Germany is a merging of the old and new, and ig consequently not typical of imperialistic State Capitalism, being burdened with many of the evils of government ownership and operation. The countries adopting State Capitalism are aware of these evils, and try to avoid them. At a meeting of the Liverpool Section of the British Chemical Society, reported in The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, November 15, 1917, Mr. A. T. Smith lamented the "in- vasion of the official" incident to rigid State Capitalism: " . . . . time is largely occupied in attempting to comply with the wishes of these various new departments. It may be that this condition of affairs is inseparable from the control of manufac- turers by a central department or departments in London, but I venture to suggest that rites and ordinances have been multiplied to an unnecessary degree. . . . Centralization is all very well in its way, but I venture to suggest that too much centralization in a trade like ours is worse than useless." In the discussion, a speaker emphasized the problem, and declared it was interesting to read in a report of the German Iron and Steel Institute a condemnation of the methods of "organization" in the industry the writer complaining of a "superabundance of government departments." The United States has not had the older forms of State Capitalism, consequently its imperialistic State Capitalism avoids its evils it establishes government control of industry, but not operation or ownership. The state controls, concentrates and co-ordinates, but operation remains with private capitalist initiative. The New York Tribune, in its issue of December 28, 1917, editorializing on the government's assumption of railroad control, aptly posed the problem: "If the government will stop there [state control] and leave the operation of the railroads in the hands of operating men, the effectiveness of the transportation machine will be increased. If, having taken control of the railroads out of the hands of the owners, it will hand them back to the operating people and say, 'There they are; take them and run them as one system, without thought of dividends and interest payments, using every mile of track and locomotive in common, only to get the freight moved" if it will say that, the thing is done. The railroads will have been 'unified.' That is essential." Imperialistic State Capitalism bends the state directly to its purposes; state control of industry is indirectly control of the state by industry. CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 53 at least temporarily, uniting their forces with Imper- ialism. Skilled labor having been seduced, the pro- letariat of average, unskilled labor becomes the revo- lutionary force. The covert and overt clash between skilled and unskilled labor, which even hitherto has been a prime factor, now assumes a more definite and violent aspect. The two groups engage in an open, bitter struggle, as in order to secure and retain its privileges skilled labor completely abandons and be- trays the unskilled; indeed, it is part of the tacit agree- ment implied in Laborism becoming a part of State Capitalism that it shall use its influence to maintain unskilled labor in subjection. During a war this func- tion of Laborism becomes particularly necessary. In January, 1918, while the workers were engaging in revolutionary strikes and demonstrations in Germany, the unions of skilled labor acted in favor of the gov- ernment. The great western strikes in this country, in the spring and summer of 1917, were an expression of unskilled labor, a spontaneous revolt acting through mass action equally against the employers and the "regular" unions. The bureaucracy of the American Federation of Labor acted against these strikes and generally betrayed them. The strikes coalesced around the Industrial Workers of the World, and the A. F. of L. actively engaged in the fight against the I. W. W. "Accumulation of capital," says Marx, "is increase of the proletariat." Imperialism increases the prole- 54 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM tariat by bringing new regions and its human raw ma- terial within the circle of capitalist exploitation. This new proletariat, naturally, is expropriated and be- comes the starting point of a new capitalist accumu- lation; it is, moreover, a proletariat of average, un- skilled labor, the required skilled labor being largely, if not exclusively, imported. There occurs a repetition of the struggle between skilled and unskilled, with this difference, that the struggle is at the same time intensified and obscured by national and racial preju- dice. The conditions of this newly-created proletariat are as abominable as in the initial period of the indus- trial revolution in England. Children are mercilessly driven and flogged if they lag; men and women are worked from 14 to 20 hours a day, generally seven days a week; wages are frightfully low; fraud is gen- eral, and when the workers rebel they usually demand the day's wage in advance; and a sort of peonage is imposed that is vile and degrading. The untutored mind of these people must indeed consider the bless- ings of civilization as peculiar! The profits on in- vestments are, naturally, very high. Capital recoups itself for the concessions made to skilled labor by an intensified national and international exploitation of the unskilled. This creates a class of average labor that is truly international in its misery and exploita- tion, and which develops the material conditions and ideology for international revolution. Upon the misery and exploitation of unskilled CLASS DIVISIONS UNDER IMPERIALISM 55 labor, the overwhelming mass of the industrial pro- letariat, the new bloc of general reactionary interests thrives and becomes prosperous. But unskilled labor awakens to a consciousness of its misery and its strength. The revolts of the unskilled become more numerous and more general. It becomes the immedi- ate and potential revolutionary force against Capital- ism, and through its action the bloc of reactionary interests is broken. It is through the interests and action of the proletariat of average, unskilled labor, the dominant form of labor in modern industry, that the Social Revolution will come. IV THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY THE conditions of Imperialism and State Capital- ism generate a reactionary trend, nationally and inter- nationally. The reactionary and brutalizing charac- ter of Imperialism does not consist simply in the fact that it produces war and crushes the independence of peoples. Imperialism strikes equally at independ- ence and democracy within the nation, at the paltry democracy of Capitalism: it means the end of the era of bourgeois democracy. 1 The democracy of the bourgeoisie, historically, consists of political freedom and the recognition of the rights of the individual, the ideology of the era of free competition, of laissez-faire. In this democracy, freedom of action is a cardinal social principal. That government is considered best which governs least. Bourgeois democracy is, on the one hand, a reaction against the hierarchical rigidity of Feudalism, and on 1. The place of the democratic ideal of equality lias been usurped by an oligarchical ideal of domination. But if that ideal seemingly comprise* the whole nation in foreign politics, in home politics it changes into an emphasizing of capitalist authority over the working class. The growing power of the workers strengthens at the same time the desire of capital to increase further the power of the state as a security against proletarian demands. Thus the ideology of Imperialism arises and conquers the old liberal ideals. K. Hilferding, Das Finanikapital. 56 THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 57 the other, an expression of the economic individualism of free competition which is the distinguishing feature of Capitalism in its pre-imperialistic stages, the democracy of the individual, independent production and exchange of commodities. But as industry con- centrates and annihilates free competition, the ideol- ology of democracy and of individual independence is displaced by the ideology of domination. The fact may be disguised by prattle about the interests of the collectivity and social control; it is, nevertheless, a re- action against bourgeois democracy. In this reaction against democracy, industrial facts are the compulsive force. The larger and more inte- grated the industrial units become, the more necessary is the subordination of the individual to the technolo- gical process. There is a lessening of the individual- ity of the worker in industry; the technological de- velopment progressively renders individual skill and independence less necessary, except in the case of a privileged group of skilled technicians and managers. An essential characteristic of concentrated industry is that it multiplies the mass of average, unskilled work- ers, and deadens their individuality and intelligence in so far as the technical process is concerned. Labor, in the measure that it is specialized and standardized, be- comes mechanical. This circumstance develops con- tempt in the upper class, and a growing disregard of the "rights" of these workers. The general reaction- ary tendency in education and the campaign for tech- 58 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM nical education in the public schools are, largely, a more or less conscious appreciation of the fact that a general and increasing intelligence is no longer neces- sary in the mass of labor; mechanical aptitude for a particular kind of work takes its place. In its earlier period, the factory system required and developed the general intelligence of the workers : out of this fact arose compulsory education; today, the factory sys- tem negates intelligence in the mass of workers. Moreover, as industry develops, internationalizes itself and Imperialism arises, the democracy of laissez-faire is considered as interfering with indus- trial efficiency and the mobilization of national power, and is incontinently discarded. Democracy, to the bourgeoisie, was a means to an end: the overthrow of Feudalism and the development of the supremacy of Capitalism. Arrived at maturity of development, Capitalism liberates itself from the ideology of de- mocracy in the measure that it realizes autocracy may more effectively promote its interests. The state, ac- cordingly, acquires new and widening powers; the ideology of free competition, that that government is best which governs least, is substituted by the concept that that government is best which governs most, which controls the forces of society rigidly and autocratical- ly in the interest, of course, of dominant Capitalism! But this tranformation in the state is not comprised simply in the widening of its functions, but in a rad- ical alteration of its procedure. Parallel with the THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 59 acquisition of new industrial functions, the state ac- quires a new procedure, the procedure of absolutism, and becomes an autocracy cloaked in the cloak of democratic forms. The Roman Republic was still democratic in appearance for decades after it had become autocratic in actuality. Capitalism today subordinates everything to the success of its imperialistic adventures. Autocracy, not the autocracy of a Czaristic Russia, but the autoc- racy of an industrially organized, imperialistic Ger- many, is much more speedy and efficient in action than democracy, and, moreover, more tractable to the in- terests of a ruling caste. Government having engaged itself to promote finance-capital in its imperialistic projects, it becomes increasingly un-democratic. In the struggles of Imperialism, the resort to force is the ultimate deciding factor. A strong government is in- dispensable which means an autocratically central- ized government, a mighty militarism, and the intens- ive subordination of the general will to the require- ments of the ruling class. The spirit of militarism becomes the animating spirit of the state, in its politi- cal and industrial action. There is this vital similar- ity between militarism and State Capitalism, that each depends upon a coerced sense of discipline, a moral and physical regimentation of the masses. The actual procedure of government becomes autocratic where formerly it was oligarchic. The power of the state is centralized in its administrative, and not its legisla- 60 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM tive, department. The Chief Executive of a nation, whether President, Prime Minister or Emperor, be- comes vested with the functions of dictator. The Strong Man policy dominates throughout society, 2 and particularly toward the activity of the industrial pro- letariat, the subjection of which becomes increasingly indispensable. This autocratic tendency is strengthened by the pro- Consul system of government that an imperialistic nation imposes upon its over-seas possessions and "protectorates." The pro-Consul rules with an iron hand, exclusively in the interests of the ruling class of his own government; democracy, decency, honesty, all are complacently discarded, and a moral and physical reign of terror instituted to maintain "undeveloped" peoples in subjugation. A brutal and brutalizing mercenary soldiery becomes the guardian of the holy sanctuary of capitalist civilization and profits, par- ticularly profits. The Strong Man policy is necessary in these imperialistic possessions, and it reacts and stimulates a similar policy at home. Imperialism is international and its policy of repression is interna- tional. The rights of the individual, particularly the mythical rights of the workers, become a fetter upon the sway and development of capital, and are 2. This development it particularly strong and typical in the United States. Its peculiar form of government, and the fact that the Constitution does not specify which department of the government shall assume new functions as they develop- the "twilight /one," which leaves it to circumstances to decide whether the legisla- ture or the executive shall absorb new powers has lodged more and more authority in the Presidency, in the measure that the development of industry imposed new functions upon the government that the Constitution did not provide for. The President has become virtual dictator. THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 61 crushed. Efficiency, in the imperialistic sense, indus- trial and political, is the measure by which all things are tested. The reactionary trend becomes general and all-pervasive. All layers of the ruling class acquiesce in this reaction, the petite bourgeoisie, 3 and the new middle class. The bureaucratic system which is an expres- sion of this reactionary trend in government draws its material largely from these groups. The export of bureaucrats to foreign possessions becomes an import- ant source of employment and revenue for members of the middle class, and they sing hosannas to the new imperialistic dispensation. The opportunity of mak- ing a career is enlarged for the sons of the petite bourgeoisie through the military and civil service in colonial territory. In various ways, financial, indus- trial, social and political, the middle and the lower layers of the ruling class are seduced by the policy of Imperialism, become its most reactionary and brutal adherents. 3. The source of the ideology of democracy, with all its traditions and illusions, is the petite bourgeoisie. In the second half of the nineteenth century, it suffered a complete internal transformation, but was by no means eliminated from political life. At the very moment that the development of capitalist technique was inexorably undermining its functions, the general suffrage right and universal military service were still giving to the petite bourgeoisie, thanks to its numerical strength, an appearance of political importance. Big capital, in so far as it did not completely wipe out this class, subordinated it to its own ends by means of the application of the credit system. All that remained for the political representatives of Big Capital to do was to subjugate the petite bourgeoisie, in the political arena, to their purposes, by opening a fictitious credit to the declared theories and prejudices of this class. It is for this reason that, in the decade preceding the war, we witnessed side by side with the gigantic efforts of a reacionary-imperialistic policy, a deceptive flowering of bourgeois democracy with its accompanying reformism and pacifism Capital was making use of the petite bourgeoisie for the prosecution of capital's imperialistic purposes by exploiting the ideologic prejudices of the petite bourgeoisie. Leon Trotzky, "Pacifism in the Service of Imperialism," in The Class Struggle, November-December, 1917. 62 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM The development of Capitalism, jointly with the widening of collegiate educational opportunity, has created an intellectual proletariat, workers of the brain. National Capitalism, for a time, absorbs these "intellectuals." But a stage arrives when there is a real over-production of this class of workers. Tem- porarily, their imagination is intrigued by liberal social movements, and, occasionally, by Socialism. But inevitably, if gradually, their petty bourgeois souls scent the flesh-pots of Imperialism, and they become its prophets. These "workers of the brain," the surplus which is not absorbed internally, are ex- ported to colonial possessions and "spheres of influ- ence," where the growing industrial and social devel- opment provides opportunity for their services. As the production of these intellectuals increases, turned out by our institutions of learning as a factory turns out hats and shoes, and largely standardized, new fields must be conquered to absorb this particular com- modity, and they proclaim the mission of their "super- ior race" to spread the blessings of civilization, and incidentally of the factory system and the intellect- uals, among the backward races. In every imperialistic country, it is precisely these "workers of the brain" who manufacture and carry into the ranks of the workers the ideology and the en- thusiasm of Imperialism. These intellectuals, which the older Socialism expected would become a mighty ally of the proletarian revolution, are a corrupt and THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 63 corrupting social force. They constitute an insidi- ously dangerous force, moreover, as they disguise the sordid schemes of Imperialism in the beauty of science, civilization, and progress generally. These intellectuals, like the plague, are a contamination everywhere; but they are particularly numerous and group-conscious in Germany, where they constitute the intellectual army of Imperialism. In Bismarck's Erbe, Prof. Hans Delbrueck frankly states the needs of this class: "What must give our colonies their specific character is the upper layer, the thousands of graduates of our higher and intermediate educa- tional institutions which are being constantly pro- duced by our fine school-system, for whose talents there is, however, no suitable employment at home. . . . These we must send into the world as engi- neers, merchants, planters, physicians, superintend- ents, officers, to rule the great masses of the inferior races, as the English are doing in India. Such a colonial-Germany will not only rise to the posi- tion of World Power, but will, at the same time, solve our most difficult social problem the finding of suit- able employment for the rising sons of the people, the surplus of intelligence which finds no proper field of activity at home." The "intellectuals" of Germany were intense and brutal adherents of the war; while the socially different intelligentsia of Rus- sia was an active counter-revolutionary force in the proletarian revolution. 64 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM Incidentally, it is interesting to observe that a phase of these developments is an intellectual reac- tion. Pragmatism becomes the philosophy of "lib- eral" Imperialism, and Bergsonism the philosophy of State Capitalism. The one tests all things by the test of practice, of social efficiency, degraded by the miserable bourgeois soul into the degrading utilitar- ian philosophy of "results" ; the other expresses, in a philosophy in which reactionary and liberal ideas jostle each other, fusing into a system essentially of reaction, that unity of divergent class interests which characterizes the epoch of State Capitalism, camou- flaging itself in the colors of radical and intellectual democracy. The philosopher enters the service of the imperialist. In matters that directly concern Imperialism and State Capitalism, philosophy is reactionary; in other matters, and where necessary to deceive, it is radically liberal. It is this latter circumstance which produces the deception that the new era intellectually is pro- gressive. The developments in science and philoso- phy of a progressive character, which are inevitable, are degraded to the purposes of the ruling class. Even in its progressive aspects the new philosophy serves reactionary purposes: the progressive concept that the child's mental development is furthered by the use of the hands and of tools becomes transformed into a means of turning out good, average industrial opera- tives; the radical hypothesis, that the pragmatic test THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 65 is the ultimate test of philosophy and of practice, be- comes transformed into the doctrine that what is, is right, that results are the supreme consideration, and the creation of a new social god, the totem-god of Efficiency. It is this circumstance that explains the contradiction of a "liberal" social thinker promoting and justifying a brutal and brutalizing State Capital- ism. Socially, within limits that are rigidly definite and that promote the interests of Capital, Imperialism and State Capitalism may be progressive; politically, economically and internationally, Imperialism and State Capitalism are compellingly reactionary. Radical and liberal social movements merge and develop into a new "progressivism." This progres- sivism is an ally of Imperialism, promotes and is itself promoted by Imperialism. The liberal ideas and social reform program of progressivism proceed within limits which not only do not hamper Imperial- ism, but directly promote its growth and ascendancy. The liberal Lloyd-George becomes the director and dictator of the war of an Imperialism that formerly considered him its worst enemy. The characteristics of this new progressivism are typical in the United States, where they have acquired definite expression. 4 The various progressive movements of the decaying 4. Under the conditions of Imperialism, progressivism and a liberal ideology become the great means of developing and maintaining the war spirit of a people. The majority Socialism of Germany gives a brutal war a popular and democratic sanction; the imperialistic bourgeoisie of France pursues its sinister purposes through a "people's ministry" consisting of radicals and "Socialists"; the conservative Asquith gives way to the radical Lloyd-George, who seduces labor with liberal slogans, while the Labor Party, through its color of "labor" and its progressivism promotes the war and becomes the last bulwark of defence of British Imperialism. 66 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM middle class meet defeat after defeat, and then dis- aster. The social alignment changes. Where the old progressivism coalesced around the Democratic Party, historically the party of the small bourgeoisie, the new progressivism develops within the Republican Party, historically the party of Big Capital and Im- perialism. The enunciation of the "New National- ism" by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 marked an epoch in American politics. It was a clear and consistent formulation of the requirements of the new era of concentrated industry and collectivistic Capitalism. It called for the extension of the functions of the Federal government, regulation equally of capital and labor, the Strong Man policy of administrative cen- tralization of the powers of the state, and the neces- sity of co-ordinating and unifying all the forces of the capitalist class through the national administrative control of industry, in all essentials, imperialistic State Capitalism. The "New Nationalism" included a series of social reforms and progressive measures typical of the social and political requirements of Imperialism. During the war, Roosevelt enunciated a ,new doctrine, the "Larger Americanism," which, basing itself upon the program of the "New National- ism," developed and promoted an aggressive foreign policy as a necessary means of promoting the inter- national imperialistic interests of the United States. This progressivism is rampantly militaristic and im- perialistic: at the three major party conventions in THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 67 1916, the convention of the Progressive Party was most decidedly militaristic and aggressive, bitterly criticizing the "pacific" policy of President Wilson. This progressivism barters away its ideals and inde- pendence for a share in the spoils of Imperialism. 5 The reaction against democracy has been a charac- teristic feature of the United States for the past fifty years. The Civil War and its aftermath of industrial expansion marked the doom of the older democracy. The dictatorship of the Federal government during the administration of Lincoln persisted into the adminis- tration of Grant, and in latent or open form became thereafter a feature of the American government. The corruption in politics, and the miserable petty stature of the men elected to Congress, developed popular contempt of the national legislature, and correspondingly strengthened the powers of the Presi- dency. The actual functions of government were as- sumed by the executive, while the legislature dickered for partisan political advantages and waged royal fights over the "pork barrel." President Roosevelt brutally and contemptuously terrorized Congress. President Wilson made Congress subservient to his will in all things. The despotism of the judiciary 5. The reformist policy in the most diverse countries aims at an approach toward the progressive and reform-favoring part of the bourgeoisie and in exchange therefor is ready to take part in the administration, to vote budgets, and approve of colonial projects. . . . Twenty years ago in Germany the liberals and the Catholic Centre party were opponents of militarism and the colonial policy; but since the elections of 1907 all opposition of these petty bourgeois circles against policies of violence -and force has disappeared. Anton Pannekoek, "Imperialism and Social Democracy," in the International Socialst Review, October, 1914. 68 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM emphasized the despotism of the Presidency. The centralization and autocracy of industry expressed itself in the centralization and autocracy of govern- ment. By a process of terrorism and ingenious fraud the right to the franchise was extensively limited. Democracy was trampled upon mercilessly, particu- larly during strikes. In government, as in industry, autocracy is domi- nant. All this proceeds simultaneously with the intro- duction of a sham democracy operating through a variety of schemes that temporarily deceives the masses. But only temporarily: the mailed fit too often smashes through this sham democracy and ex- poses the sinister autocracy and brutality that direct the nation. The death of democracy, of bourgeois democracy, and the intensified struggle against the oncoming pro- letarian democracy of communist Socialism, are the necessary products of Imperialism and State Capital- ism. Why is this particularly characteristic of the United States? There are three typically imperialis- tic nations, each emphasizing a particular phase of the new era. Great Britain, which typifies Imperialism as developed upon the basis of an old established colonial dominion; Germany, typifying the nation trying to establish its Imperialism by systematic ag- gression and rapine among a world of imperialistic rivals; and the United States, typifying the nation within whose borders Imperialism has most actively THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 69 established itself, drastically developing the internal conditions of Imperialism. The Imperialism of Great Britain and Germany is most highly developed in its international aspects; that of the United States in its national aspects. Considering the circumstance that the altering of class relations and institutions gener- ally is the vital feature of Imperialism, the United States shows the typical features of an imperialistic nation. Its reaction against democracy and its imper- ialistic forms generally are, accordingly, particularly marked and typical in expression. The early democracy of America, the ideology of Jeffersonian democracy, was the expression of the in- terests and commodity relations of the small farmers, traders and pioneers. The active flux of life among the people, the free lands out West which irresistibly attracted settlers and its resulting expansion, devel- oped the conditions of social equality and political democracy. These conditions provided the necessary basis for the development of Capitalism, culminating in the great struggle of the Civil War between the sys- tem of capital and the system of slavery. In the Civil War the early democracy was immediately victorious, but the conditions produced by its victory swiftly brought its own defeat. The petty bourgeois ideology of democracy of the small traders and independent farmers was crushed under the onward tread of in- dustrial concentration. The expansion westward was no longer independently agrarian, but industrial; it 70 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM did not produce the conditions of an agrarian democ- racy, but of an industrial autocracy. The free lands not yet occupied were seized by Capital. The early democracy persisted ideologically and expressed itself in a series of revolts of the farmers and the middle class, but all to no avail: the domination of Capital was unshaken. And this reaction against democracy was emphasized by the appearance of Imperialism; for Imperialism in the United States appears as early as the close of the Civil War, and the construction of the great trans-continental railway systems. The construction of the Bagdad railway, clearly, was an imperialistic enterprise; it is not so clear that the construction of the trans-continental railway sys- tems of this country was equally an imperialistic enterprise. But it becomes clear when one considers that the purpose of the Bagdad railway was to develop and exploit undeveloped regions; and that was pre- cisely the purpose of the great American railways. The building of a railway in an undeveloped country, generally, is financed in a measure by the government and valuable concessions of lands and mines are se- cured; and the identical procedure was pursued in this country. The new West played the role of colonies and undeveloped regions, the industrialized East the role of the developed country exporting capital and engaging in financial schemes of development. True enough, there was no mass of unskilled labor in these new regions, as in China and Turkey; but this labor THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 71 was provided in the shape of immigrants, who were treated with the same brutality as "inferior races" in an undeveloped country. This "internal" Imperialism was in a measure actively promoted by the export of European capital to the United States. The concentration of industry, based upon this new industrial expansion, proceeded more rapidly and on a larger scale than in any other country, and acceler- ated the rise of an external American Imperialism, which adventured in Central America and the Carrib- beans, and waged an imperialistic war for the "libera- tion" of Cuba, and the annexation of the Philip- pines! The typical conditions of Imperialism devel- oped: the centralization of authority in the national government; intensive brutality toward labor; the appearance of the new forms of progressivism and State Capitalism; the decay of democracy; the alter- ing of class groupings and relations, and the definite cleavage between skilled and unskilled labor, the unions of the aristocracy of labor abandoning the general class struggle and intriguing to become a part of the ruling system of things. Under these conditions, the attitude of the state toward labor becomes one compounded of cajolery and brutality, and particularly brutality toward the unskilled. In no country in the world, except in a colony, is unskilled labor treated as brutally as in this country. Strikes are crushed ruthlessly by armed force, and even more ruthlessly by the terrorism and 72 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM tyranny of the courts: strikers are refused the right to picket, are often denied the right of assemblage, their press is suppressed and their representatives thrown into jail, the injunction becomes a Cossack's knout to lash the strikers into subjection. The great industrial revolts of recent years, Coeur d'Alene, McKees Rocks, Lawrence, Paterson, Ludlow, the Mesaba Range all these are historic mile-posts in the development of the ruthless policy of suppression adopted by imperialistic State Capitalism against the industrial proletariat of unskilled labor. The sham democracy of Imperialism is the domin- ant democracy. The brutality of Imperialism is gen- eral. Formerly the carrier of democracy, the nation has become the carrier of Imperialism and reaction. All social groups, except the industrial proletariat of unskilled labor, have become reactionary, are in a status where their interests are promoted by Imperial- ism, and are counter-revolutionary. The industrial proletariat is determined by its class interests in a struggle against Imperialism and the ruling system of things. Non-proletarian groups can no longer be utilized in the struggle against dominant Capitalism: they are now an integral part of this Capitalism; the proletariat alone can carry on the struggle, independ- ently and through revolutionary Socialism. The strug- gle for the revival of the old bourgeois democracy can- not in any way become a part of our activity; this activity is determined by the struggle for the new, the THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY 73 fundamental proletarian democracy of communist Socialism. V FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALISM THE class struggle is the dynamic, unifying synthe- sis_of Socialist tEebry and practice. History is a his- tory ofclassj^uggles. A particular class is the car- rier of a particular social system; this class is over- thrown by a rising class representing a new social system. Society develops in accord with economic conditions; these conditions develop a ruling and a subject class, consequently economic, political and moral antagonisms; the dynamic expression of these antagonisms is their unity in the class struggle. The issues involved in the rivalry of interests is decided by the struggle of class against class, which is not a struggle for particular mercenary interests, but the struggle of social system against social system, the mechanics of social development. The economic de- velopment of capitalist society has produced the sub- ject class of the proletariat, providing the material conditions of waging the class struggle for the over- throw of Capitalism, and the proletariat is the carrier of this class struggle. 74 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALISM 75 The proletariat, in the Marxian sense, consists of average or unskilled labor, the form of labor typical of modern Capitalism; 1 it alone is clasg^as it alone represents the dominant factor in industry and is the carrier of the new social system of communist Socialism ;_all other classes or social groups are reactionary, decay, disappear, or become absorbed in the general reactionary mass of ruling class interests, in the measure that the process of Big Capital. The antagonisms of interest between labor and capital assume a more general character, and develop into the class struggle of the revolution- ary proletariat for the overthrow of Capitalism. This class strugle alone is fundamental; it alone functions dynamically in the process of bringing the Social Revolution and Socialism ; and there can be no Social- ism that is not firmly based upon the class struggle. The class struggle implies and makes mandatory the active, aggressive struggle against Capitalism and I for' Socialism; it negates the process of a gradual, pacific penetration of Capitalism by Socialism, a Ingrowing into" the Socialist community. The class 1. In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i. e., capital, is developed, in the same/ proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed; a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, only so long as their labor increase* capital. These laborers, who must sell themselves piece-meal, arc a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and arc consequently exposed to all vicissitudes of competition, to all fluctuations of the market. Owing to the extensive use of ma- chinery and the division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. . . . The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole super-incumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. Communist Manifesto. 76 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM struggle and Socialism are made of sterner stuff. All temporary action and achievements are to arouse the independence and virility of the proletariat; the ! dominant factor is that the proletariat should acquire moral, intellectual and class consciousness, develop its action and class power. The process and means of achievement become of equal importance with the achievement itself. The proletariat must continually express itself in its own class action against Capital- ism, and the class struggle becomes more aggressive, more intensive and more general in scope and pur- ,poses. And this is the function of Socialism, as the [intellectual expression and advance guard of the pro- letariat, that it absorb, and become itself absorbed in, , the class struggle of the proletariat, directing it to the / Social Revolution. In this process, the consciousness of the proletariat is the determining consideration. The development of Capitalism, in itself, whether in the form of industrial concentration or the introduction of collectivistic so- cial and political institutions, will not bring Socialism. This development is indispensable as providing the objective, material conditions for Socialism, and im- portant in its influence upon the consciousness of the proletariat. True enough, in its historical aspects, the two developments are phases of one tendency, each equally the product of the conditions of Capital- ism. The Socialist movement, however, is directly and particularly concerned with the moral, intellectual FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALISM 77 and class consciousness of the proletariat, of further- ing its aggressive action, and of developing in its ideology and action the concept of the Social Revolu- tion. This subjective development supplements the objective conditions, and it alone can bring Socialism. The material and dynamic factors in this revolu- tionary process of the proletarian revolution have been described by Marx in brilliant and imperishable words: 2 "As soon as the laborers are turned into proletar- ians, their means of labor into capital; as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet; then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of produc- tion also socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropria- tion of private proprietors, take a new form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist ex- ploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accom- plished by the action of the immanent laws of cap- italistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor process, the conscious technical application of science, the method- 2. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, chapter XXXII, "Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation." 78 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM ical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into instruments of labor usable only in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as the means of production of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. * Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows /the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, (exploitation; 3 but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in num- bers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production 3. Many a vulgar bourgeois economist, and .here and there a Socialist, hat maintained that the "theory of increasing misery" was an essential doctrine of Marxian Socialism. It is not. In the passage quoted above, this is described as a tendency of Capitalism, along with another tendency, the inevitable and growing revolt of the workers. The increasing poverty of the proletariat is not in any sense a necessary condition for the Social Revolution. Moreover, there is not any sufficiency of material to decide whether poverty is lessening or not; the caste of skilled labor may be more "prosperous," but surely not the mass of unskilled workers. Who will deny, however, that a society which produces such a holocaust as the war, does, even should it better conditions of living, intensify "the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation"? On the general problem, L. B. Boudin's The Theoretical System of Karl Marx has an interesting passage: "Marx does not speak of the growth of the poverty of the working class. The omission of any reference to poverty is very significant in so careful a writer as Marx. This alone would be sufficient warrant for us in assuming that Marx did not consider the growing poverty of the working class a necessary result of the evolution of Capitalism. . . . The lot of the laborer, his general condition as a member of society, must grow worse with the accumulation of capital, no matter whether his wages are high or low. His poverty, in the ordinary sense of that word, depends upon the amount of wages he gets, but not his social condition. And for two reasons. In the first place, because the social condition of any man or class can only be determined by a comparison with the rest of the members or classes of that society. It is not an absolute but a relative quantity. Even the question of poverty is a relative one, and changes from time to time with the change of circumstances. But the question of social condition can never be determined except by a reference to the other classes of society. This is decided not by the absolute amount of worldly good* which they receive in all the worldly goods possessed by society. Thus considered it will be found that the gulf between the capitalist and the working man is con- stantly growing wider. This is admitted by all as an empirical fact." FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALISM 79 itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. . . . The transformation of scattered private property, aris- ing from individual labor, into capitalist private prop- erty is, naturally, a process incomparably more pro- tracted, violent and difficult than the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialized production, into socialized prop- erty. In the former case we had the expropriation of the mass of the people by a few usurpers ; in the latter we have the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people." There is no indication in this passage, nor any- Avhere else in Marx, of a Socialist "penetration" of I the capitalist system, nor of state and social collectiv- I ism as a phase of Socialism in the process of revolu- ftionizing the capitalist order. The material factor of industrial development operates jointly with the dy- namic factor of proletarian action. "Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The expropriators are expropriated" 80 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM by the proletariat "disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist pro- duction itself." It is by and through industry that the proletariat expresses itself, awakens to conscious- ness of class and power, and acquires the physical and moral reserves for the revolutionary "dictatorship of the proletariat" that will function temporarily as the prelude to the abolition of all class divisions and tyr- anny, consequent upon the establishment of the full and free democracy of Socialism. All the activity of the proletariat, industrial, political, social, functions for the purpose of developing a partial control of industry that will in the final stage of the revolution i become a complete communistic control of industry by I the proletariat, industrial self-government of the workers. As capitalist production is internationalized, the class struggle becomes international. The maturity of Socialism is measured by the strength of its ideals of international solidarity in action. The nation be- comes a fetter upon production, and equally a fetter upon the emancipation of the proletariat. The bour- geoisie breaks the fetters of the nation, through Im- perialism, in the interest of its own class purposes, as a national entity; the proletariat must break the fetters of the nation, of national consciousness and action, in the interest of its own local and international class purposes. The Social Revolution is an international revolution. FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALISM 81 Socialism, accordingly, is exclusively the expres- sion of the interests of the proletariat. Socialism is not^jhe conquest of the state by a political party: it is the conquest of society by the proletariat through industrial and political action. ^Socialism is not col- lectivism; it disrupts the collectivism of State Capital- ism, which is simply a means of protecting and pro- moting capitalist interests and more easily oppressing the proletariat, and establishes the communism of in- dustrial self-government. Socialism is not government ownership or control of industry, two things that are purely a capitalist ex- pression fSocialism struggles for the Jransf ormatiqnjrf the state, not the enlarging of its functions. At firsL the proletariat is seduced by the idea of state benefi- cence; it sees in parliamentary struggles and legisla- tion the supreme means of expressing its class inter- ests. As it acquires maturity, the realization is im- pressed upon its consciousness and action that the state increasingly multiplies the powers for shackling thej proletariat; as the facts of its industrial power are recognized, the proletariat becomes contemptuous of; the state. Then it appreciates in its action the funda- mental concept of Socialism, the class struggle, as expressed in revolutionary Socialism, is a struggle to place the management and control of industry directly in the workers through the overthrow of Cap-^ italism and its governmental expression in the state. Socialism, in the words of Engels, is not the govern- 82 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM ment of persons, but the administration of things. The state, and its authority masking itself as democracy, disappears; in its place rises the communism of the initia- tive centralized in the administra!ive~~process of deter- nuning the facts of production antt distribution^ and general way for international VI SOCIALISM IN ACTION THE action of the Socialist movement has been largely the very opposite of its fundamentals. It has theoretically cleaved to these fundamentals, in Germany most, in the United States least; but it has repeatedly and cumulatively violated them in the actual activity of the movement. J5ocialism_in action has been_making for State Capitalism, not^ Socialism; it abandoned the proletar- ian class struggle, and became a general social reform movement; it_ojc^uie^its^f_widL4iarliaments and legislation, not withthe action of the^prpletariat itself^, instead of awakening the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat, it deadened, thai consciousness^ Socialism became a petty bourgeois Messiah, where it should have been proletarian pioneer and rebel; it has not fulfilled its function of being the intellectual and revolutionary expression of the proletariat. / The revolutionary Socialism of Marx developed into the petty bourgeois Socialism of the Second Inter- national. The Paris Commune and its consequent re- 83 84 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM action marked the downfall of the First International. The conditions of the ensuing epoch, the. epoch of de- velopment along national lines, compelled the pro- letariat, which, moreover, had not as a whole assumed its typical class character, to lay aside the great task of revolutionizing the world, and to pursue the peace- ful development of organization activity. But this organization activity represented only a part of the proletariat; moreover, it came under the influence and domination of petty bourgeois ideals. The organized Socialism that developed out of this state of facts was petty, hesitant, compromising; and it retained this character after the proletariat emerged into the new revolutionary epoch of Imperialism. In becoming a movement of general social reform, Socialism expressed the interests of the aristocracy | of skilled labor and the lower layers of the petty 1 bourgeoisie, and of the new middle class in its earlier \ stages of development. Practically every revolt, every aspiration of a middle class being destroyed by concentrated industry was echoed in Socialist propaganda and activity. The demand of this class for government ownership of industry became the leit-motiv of Socialist propaganda, and Socialism in practice was a movement for government ownership and the extension of the functions of the state gener- ally. Compromise after compromise was struck with the fundamentals of Socialism in order to placate and secure the support of non-revolutionary and non-pro- SOCIALISM IN ACTION 85 letarian groups. The thought of the movement, its activity and representation, became that of the liberal petite bourgeoisie and the aristocracy of labor. The fatal consequence was the betrayal of the new, the real proletariat, which was emerging to conscious- ness and action, the industrial proletariat of average, unskilled labor. Instead of appreciating the revolu- tionary potentiality of this class and arousing and expressing its activity, the dominant Socialism be- trayed unskilled labor, used it directly and indirectly \to promote the petty interests of the aristocracy of Jabor and the small bourgeoisie. The revolts of un- skilled labor against this reactionary domination were repeatedly crushed, brutally and unscrupulously, by the bureaucracy of organized Socialism. 1 Every intellectual expression of the unskilled in the move- ment was met with contempt and rejection. It was easier to build a party and a bureaucracy, easier to secure political offices, by catering to non-revolution- ary elements; it was a task of real magnitude, and acceptable only to the real revolutionist, to represent / and awaken the despised, inchoate mass of the un- skilled. But this is precisely the task of Socialism, to express and awaken the real revolutionary class for 1. In the United States, the unskilled, because of the high degree of "internal" imperialistic development, have acquired a large self-consciousness and activity, and the betrayal of the unskilled by the dominant Socialism and its accessory American Federation of Labor, has nowhere been as complete as in this country. McKce* Rocks, Paterson, the Mesaba Range, the great strikes of the unskilled and the I. W. W. generally, have not secured any real support from the dominant forces in the Socialist Party, and have been usually betrayed, either actively or by default. It is true that the party took up the Lawrence strike and the Ludlow outrages, but this was done equally by liberal bourgeois representatives; and in this, again, the Socialist Party was true to its official petty bourgeois ideology. 86 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM action and the conquest of power; and in rejecting this task, Socialism-became a liberal reform move- ment, fundamentally non-proletarian and non-revolu- tionary. Moreover, Socialism adopted the policy of the pacific "penetration" of Socialism into Capitalism, realizing the Socialist community by the extension of capitalist collectivism. The practice of the movement based itself upon the development of Capitalism, in- stead of upon the revolutionary development of the proletariat. It was a policy that expressed the trend toward State Capitalism and emphasized the trend. Where the Socialist movement was large, as in Ger- many, it practically absorbed the national liberal forces of social reform; where small, Socialism be- came an integral part of the national liberal reform movement. Capitalism, not the proletariat, was to 'bring Socialism, this was the actual policy of the anovement, in spite of utterances and a theoretical sys- tem to the contrary. The task of the proletariat was conceived as decis- ively the immediate improvement of its material wel- fare, but this process of improvement was determined almost exclusively by the proposals of skilled labor and the small bourgeoisie. The transformation of Socialist tactics was general; the revolutionary strug- gle for the overthrow of Capitalism was displaced by the policy of "modifying" Capitalism and softening of class antagonisms. The Socialist theory of Marx- SOCIALISM IN ACTION 87 ism maintained itself, although not in any sense ex- pressing the actual basis of the movement; against it washed the tides of revisionism, which desired an adaptation of theory in accord with the bourgeois practices of the movement, and the tides of revolu- tionary thought, which desired to have the movement adapt its practice to the requirements of Imperialism and the new revolutionary epoch into which the pro- letariat had emerged. 2 The apparent futility of theoretical controversy among the Socialist intellectuals was a consequence of considering differences in tactics as theoretical prob- lems, instead of as essentially problems in practice, in the actual relations of classes and the expression of class interests. The doctrinaire Socialist, the pseudo-Marxist, conceives Socialism as a sort of 2. Marxism, originally and essentially a revolutionary system, was perverted (by the pseudo-Marxists into an instrument for maintaining the status quo in the Socialist movement, a status becoming increasingly antiquated and consequently reactionary. The struggle between Marxism and "fteviaiflaUjn resulted in a theoretical victory for Marxism; and yet the Social Democracy in practice became increasingly Revisionist, while it was held up by "Marxists" everywhere as the model Socialist Party. These Marxists, typified by Karl Kautsky in Germany, Jules Cuesde in France and C. Plekhanov in Russia, were fundamentally a reactionary factor, and each in his particular way collapsed miserably under the test of the war. Their thought expresses the characteristics of bourgeois revolutions, in which, according to Marx, "the phrase surpasses the substance." They represent the "center," the Marxism of which is neither revolutionary nor of Marx, and which, precisely because it uses revolutionary phrases in its criticism of the "right," is particularly danger- ous. In a brochure written in April, 1917, N. Lenin said: "The center is the heaven of petty bourgeois phrases, of lip internationalism, of cowardly opportunism, of compromise with the social-patriots. The fact is that the center is not convinced of the necessity of a revolution against the government of its own country; it doe* not preach that kind of a revolution, it does not wage an incessant fight for the revolution, and it resorts to the lowest, super-Marxist dodges to get out of the difficulty. The members of the center group are routine worshippers, eaten up by the gangrene of legality, corrupted by the parliamentary comedy, bureaucrats accustomed to nice sinecures. Historically and economically they do not represent any special stratum of society; they only represent the transition from the old-fashioned labor move- ment, such as it was from 1871 to 1914, which rendered inestimable services to the proletariat through its slow, continued, systematic work of organization in a large, very large field, to the new movement which was objectively necessary at the time of the first world-wide war of Imperialism, and which has inaugurated the social- revolutionary era." 88 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM super-science, unaffected by the conditions which af- fect bourgeois science. The illusion has an apparently materialistic basis. The doctrinaire Socialist assumes that there are no divisions within the proletariat, its interests being one; and that, accordingly, Socialist theory possesses a unity of thought impervious to re- actionary influences. But the assumption is not valid. The immediate interests of the working class are not one although they are, ultimately; it is split by divi- sions between the skilled and the unskilled; and Socialist theory is not only susceptible of reactionary interpretation, but was used for reactionary purposes. Skilled labor was the reactionary factor, aided and abetted by the lower layers of the bourgeoisie two groups which psychologically approach each other, in the measure that capitalist development raises one and lowers the other. The actual practice of the dominant Socialism produced Revisionism in Germany and Ministerialism in France, the softening of class antag- onisms, the open or covert policy of bringing Social- ism by the co-operation of classes. It also produced violent tactical differences, in .which pseudo-Marxism actively and consistently discouraged and rejected new revolutionary practices; instead of appreciating the significance of new developments in class relations and tactics, it used these developments to bolster up its pseudo-Marxism, to maintain the status quo which allowed the opportunists and moderates to direct the movement straight to disaster. In the hands of these SOCIALISM IN ACTION 89 pseudo-Marxists, Marxism was perverted into a reac- tionary system. In our coming revolutionary strug- gles, says Anton Pannekoek, Marxism will be our weapon: "Marxism, regarded by the theoreticians of Socialism as the method to explain the past and the present and in their hands degraded into a dry doc- trine of mechanical fatalism, again is to come into its birth-right as a theory of revolutionary action." Marx himself said of the pseudo-Marxists: "I sowed dra- gons' teeth and I reaped fleas." The acute tactical disputes of Socialism were gen- eral. The controversy in the American movement over direct action and political action, I. W. W. and A. F. of L., was an expression of the conflict between skilled and unskilled, between the proletarian and the petty bourgeois, the early expression of that great up- heaval which is coming in American Socialism, and which alone can make Socialism vital and vitalizing. The controversy was complicated by the fact, that the American Socialist Party was peculiarly affected by the conditions of reaction. In Germany, Social-De- mocracy had a material basis and an ideology of its own, compounded of the liberal aspirations of the Bis- marck era and skilled labor, which because of histor- ical conditions lined up with the Social-Democracy. But in this country, and this explains the stunted growth of American Socialism even in its petty op- portunist phase, the party had no material basis and ideology of its own. It imported these from Europe. 90 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM Skilled labor, organized in the A. F. of L., had deter- mined upon its policy prior to the time it might have been influenced by Socialism, and all attempts of the Socialist Party to "capture" the unions failed miser- ably: the party adapted itself to the craft unions, but these unions as a whole would have nothing to do with the party. The middle class acted through its own movements, and supported the Socialist party only sporadically and in a small way. The party did not sense the task of expressing the unskilled, of adapting itself to the new conditions which everywhere were de- veloping, and which were largely dominant in the United States. The development of "internal" Im- perialism affected the alteration of class groupings and the expression of class interests early and defin- itely; the party did not appreciate this circumstance; and the Socialist Party became a sort of Mahomet's coffin suspended between heaven and earth. The American party is the most miserable failure of the Second International, measuring its success either in practical or theoretical achievements. It had, and has, all the vices and none of the virtues of the Euro- pean movement. It is not a representative of the revo- lutionary proletariat; nor is it honestly even a repre- sentative of skilled labor and the small bourgeoisie: it simply tries to represent these groups. Under the petty bourgeois conditions in which it /was operating, Socialism became necessarily and es- sentially a parliamentary movement. The state was 91 the center of Socialist activity. Legislation was con- ceived as more determinant than action of the pro- letariat, laws more dynamic than proletarian class power. This activity, naturally, increased the func-J/ tions and power of the state ; the state, under the im- petus of Imperialism, intensified its tyranny and bru- tality against the workers; and the answer to this of Socialist parliamentarians was more laws, and more power to the state! As governments entered the orbit of Imperialism and State Capitalism, the necessity arose of a struggle against the state through the cre- ative mass action of the proletariat. The necessity was slighted; instead of seeing parliamentarism in its true proportions, parliamentarism became more of a fetish as it became more impotent. Socialism, in fact^ was now a part of the government, a prop of the state, a conservative and conserving factor in the ruling sys- tem of things. 3 Having become a national liberal movement of social reform, and a part of the state, Socialism adopted the national ideal and submerged the inter- national. In the measure that the dominant Socialism' softened its antagonism to the governing system of 3. Socialism grew into the state, not the socialist state of the future, but into the capitalistic state of the present. It became a part of this state. It strengthened its own position, but in doing so it strengthened also the state of which it formed a part. It aided the capitalist governments in so developing their powers that they could finally extend their activities beyond their own boundaries. Indirectly, then. Socialism aided in creating the very forces which have brought on the present war. Social Democracy ceased to be an organization of those without a country and became a party of valued citizens whose constructive co-operation was useful to the government and is now especially essential at a time when this government could hardly achieve its purposes without the help of the Socialists. Heinrich Laufcnberg and Fritz Wolfheim, The Old International and the New. (This pamphlet waa published in 1915, and is an expression of a revolutionary Socialist group in Germany.) 92 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM things and merged into that system, it drew further away from the militant proletariat and from the Socialism of other nations. There being nothing virik and revolutionary in its policy within the nation, Socialism could not produce a virile and revolution- ary international policy. The Socialist movement, operating in an epoch of national development, had become nationalistic, and its nationalistic bias per- sisted into the new international epoch of Imperial- ism; it was dominated by the vague democratic na- tionalism of a preceding era. In the meanwhile, the nation developed into a carrier of Imperialism, dis- carding democratic nationalism. Socialism went out to fight for the democratic nation, and lo and behold! Imperialism claimed it for its own, as the nation was now imperialistic. The catastrophe of the Social- ist collapse in the crisis of war flowed equally from the circumstance that neither nationally nor interna- tionally had Socialism adapted itself to the conditions and requirements of the era of Imperialism. Social- ism had itself become a fetter upon the revolutionary development of the proletariat. VII THE GREAT COLLAPSE THE test of war during the fatal days of August, 1914, found the dominant Socialism in Europe cor- rupted by the ideology of national liberal ideals. Democracy and the nation were conceived as synony- mous terms: German Socialism declared that Czaristic Russia menaced the democracy of Germany, while the Socialism of Great Britain and France declared that Germany's autocracy menaced the democracy of the world. This ideology of national democracy and the defense of democracy through the nation persisted as a heritage from the days when democratic revolu- tions were national revolutions, and the nation was the carrier of democracy of bourgeois democracy. But even in these revolutions it was the still immature class of workers that forced the furthest democratic advances; and to-day, under the conditions of Im- perialism, the proletarian class struggle alone is the carrier of democracy, of the proletarian democracy which is the only alternative to Imperialism. An ideology, however, develops out of material 93 94 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM conditions and the material conditions of Imperialism produced a new ideology, the ideology of conquest and autocracy. Socialism still clung to the older ide- ology, in spite of new material conditions; and, more- over, while the phraseology was the same, it had come to mean different things. There was war, the nation was assailed, and it had to be defended as the carrier of democracy, but Imperialism had altered the cir- cumstances and the purposes of the nation. Socialism marched out to fight for the nation, but it was an imperialistic nation and an imperialistic war, the most brutal and shameless war in all history. The voice was the voice of the democratic Jacob, but the hand was the hand of the imperialistic Esau. And, moreover, the dominant Socialism had itself subtly become imperialistic. It is misleading, however, to maintain that organ- ized Socialism collapsed upon the declaration of war 'and its failure to act against the war. Socialism col- lapsed during the imperialistic epoch of "armed peace" that preceeded the war; the collapse in August, 1914, was the symbol of a development that marked the transformation of Socialism from a revolutionary and revolutionizing movement into a conservative and conserving factor in the governing system of things. Socialism had collapsed internally, in the national struggle against Capitalism, before it collapsed in- ternationally: the one event followed fatedly and tragically upon the other. Socialism disintegrated as THE GREAT COLLAPSE 95 a revolutionary force during the days of peace be- cause it did not carry on the aggressive struggle against imperialistic Capitalism; it disintegrated be- cause it did not adapt itself to the requirements of the menace of war internationally, nor to the altered class relations within the nation. Moreover, organ- i ized Socialism could not carry on the aggressive strug- gle against Imperialism as it was constituted; it had first to transform its material bases and its official theory of State Capitalism; it had to reorganize in ac- cordance with the altered class relations and forms of expression of class interests of Imperialism, adopt a new set of tactics and a new program of purposes determined by the new revolutionary epoch. The fact is that, prior to the war, organized Social- ism as a social force had merged into Imperialism, a "liberal" and "pacifist" Imperialism to a certain extent, but Imperialism none the less. The dominant and dominating elements in the Socialist movement skilled labor, the small bourgeoisie, and the new mid- dle class had already been seduced by Imperialism. 1 , They were not definitely aware of the fact, perhaps, because of an ideology no longer in accord with actual conditions; and this ideology was a mighty contri- 1. The social-patriots are Socialists in word* and patriots in fact, who agree to defend their fatherland in an imperialistic war, and particularly this imperialistic war. These men are our class-enemies. They have gone over to the bourgeois camp. They count among their numbers the majority of Social Democrats in every na- tion .... The social-patriots are the enemies of our class, they are bourgeois in the midst of the labor movement. They represent layers or groups of the working class which have been practically bought by the bourgeoisie, through better wages, positions of honor, etc., and which help their bourgeoisie to exploit and oppress smaller and weaker nations, and to take part in the division of capitalistic spoils. N. Lenin, Task of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, Petrograd, September 1917. 96 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM buting factor in the great collapse. Social reform, which was the animating purpose of the movement, had become dependent upon the spoils of Imperial- ism; the institutions of the nation, in which Socialism was an integral factor, depended, immediately, upon the success of the nation in its imperialistic war. Na- tionalistic Socialism had a stake in the nation, im- perialistic Socialism had a stake in an imperialistic war. The one militant force which might have been mo- bilized in the revolutionary struggle, the industrial power of the proletariat of machine labor, which alone may act internationally because of its material con- ditions, was slightly if at all represented in the coun- cils and proposals of Socialism. Socialism, accord- ingly, possessed neither the material basis of prole- tarian power nor the ideology of revolutionary action for the general struggle against Imperialism and war. There was in the Socialist movement no general con- ception of Imperialism and no real struggle against its menace, except among a small minority of revolu- tionary Socialists of the left. The "armed peace" carried the threat of war, and war was the synthetic expression of the general con- ditions of Imperialism. But in compromising with forces the activity of which generate war, Socialism inevitably compromised with war itself. Its policy^ against war was a policy of pacifism, which attacks war but allows the class conditions that produce war, THE GREAT COLLAPSE 97 to persist. The Socialist attack upon militarism, ex- cept among minor groups, proceeded within the orbit of pacifism and legality, the pacifism of the small bourgoisie and its psychological reflex, skilled labor. The compromise with militarism became general: in Germany, attested by voting the war budget in 1913 by the parliamentary Social Democracy under the cow- ardly and characteristically petty bourgeois pretext of "equalizing" taxation; in France and the International generally, by not emphasizing the campaign against Imperialism and militarism, or adopting the policy of pacifism in the campaign. The policy on war and militarism of the dominant Socialism was as petty bourgeois as its policy on other major problems. Instead of a revolutionary attack upon Imperialism and militarism and preparatious to prevent war or convert it into a civil war of the oppressed against the oppressors, and for Socialism, there was scheme after scheme proposed to evade war. The theory of Social- ism made it visualize clearly the menace of war; its practice and animating purposes prevented it from offering any real opposition to the coming of war, and none to war itself. Socialism had an abiding horror of war but sentiments are not a substitute for deeds; and this horror expressed itself while simul- taneously pursuing a policy that promoted the com- ing of war. This horror of war the dominant Social- ism shared with the petite bourgeoisie generally; but 98 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM this bourgeoisie allied itself with an Imperialism that inexorably produced war. Capitalism itself, as a whole, may be said to have a horror of war: it is risky; but still it pursues a policy that makes for war, a state of things particularly apparent in France. 2 The Dominant Socialism accepted the softening of class /antagonisms through collectivism as a means of (/'growing into" Socialism; and it accepted pacifism and its policy of gradually softening and regulating national antagonisms as the means to general peace. One policy is related to the other, and each is the consequence of relinquishing the general revolution- ary struggle against Capitalism, of the perversion of revolutionary Socialism. . . . And through the years comes the bitter sarcasm of Marx, "I sowed dragons' teeth and I reaped fleas." It was a national set of circumstances that dictated this policy of the dominant Socialism; and Socialism | clung to its nationalistic bias at a time when Capital- ism was internationalizing itself through Imperialism. The coming of war and war itself can be effectively fought only by subordinating the national ideal to the international. This Socialism did not accomplish. At each international congress proposals for interna- tional action against war met disaster on the rocks of 2. The petit bourgeois sends to parliament a radical who has promised him to preserve peace .... This radical "pacifistic" bloc of deputies gives birth to a radical ministry, which at once finds itself bound hand and foot by all the diplomatic and military obligations and financial interests of the French bourse in Russia Africa and Asia. Never ceasing to pronounce the proper pacifistic sentences, the ministry and parliament automatically continue to carry on a world-policy which involves France in war. Leon Trotzky, "Pacifism in the Service of Imperialism," in The Class Struggle of November-December 1917. THE GREAT COLLAPSE 99 the national ideology dominating every Socialist party, an ideology, moreover, which equally pre- vented national action against war. Imperialism negated nationalism, while using it in its service; So- cialism emphasized nationalism. The result inevit- ably was disaster, a catastrophic collapse. Under these conditions, Socialism might talk against impending war, but it could not act. In the j tragic ten days of July it did talk, furiously, flam- ' boyantly, smugly, but it never acted; it never con- sidered action, satisfying itself with the pacifist ac-, tivity of demonstration and denunciation. The salient feature of the activity of dominant So- cialism during these ten days was a dependence upon forces outside itself to prevent the coming of war. The Socialists denounced war; they held demonstra- tions; they threatened the governments; they did everything, in short, except that which might have produced results: definite, determined action based'! upon the class struggle and the revolutionary activity^ of the proletariat itself. If the dominant Socialism had been revolutionary,, it would have issued a declaration of distrust in all! governments, actively and aggressively opposed the coming of war by deeds, and prepared for civil war in the event of a declaration of war. Action of this, character might have prevented war a government would hesitate to engage in war without the support of the working class. But even if it did not prevent 100 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM war, it would, at least, have beeen a gesture worthy of the revolutionary aspirations of Socialism; more- over, and still more important, it would have given Socialism and the proletariat a strategic and tacti- cal advantage over the governments during the war, hastened the coming of peace and determined the conditions of peace; and, considering the Russian Revolution and the crisis precipitated by the revolu- tionary dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, it would have meant international action for the Social Revolution in Europe. But the dependence upon everything except the mass action of the proletariat, was fatal. Socialism was demoralized, corrupted, palsied except for evil, and the proletariat was curbed in its potential action. The task of organizing action against an impending war in the form of an international General Strike was left to the discretion of the International Socialist Bureau by the Stuttgart Congress in 1907. The Bu- reau, meeting July 20, 1914, at Brussels, adopted a resolution of which two paragraphs are significant: "The Bureau considers it an obligation for the workers of all nations concerned not only to continue but even to strengthen their demonstrations against war in favor of peace, and a settlement of the Austro- Servian conflict by arbitration. "The German and French workers will bring to bear on their governments the most vigorous pressure in order that Germany may secure in Austria a moder- THE GREAT COLLAPSE 101 ating action, and in order that France may obtain from Russia an undertaking that she will not engage in the conflict. On their sides the workers of Great Britain and Italy shall sustain these efforts with all the power at their command." The only indication of the General Strike in the activity of the Bureau was in a resolution "congratu- lating" the workers of Russia "on their revolutionary attitude" [a big General Strike was on in Russia] and inviting them "to continue their heroic efforts against Czarism as one of the most effective guarantees against the threatened world war." But if a General Strike in Russia, not directed primarily against the war and affecting only some hundreds of thousands of workers, was "one of the most effective guarantees against the threatened world war," why did not the Bureau try to multiply this effectiveness by issuing a call for similar strikes in Germany and France against the war? It is clear why this was not done, because the dominant Socialism was not against the war in a rev- olutionary sense, if actually at all; it was against the war only in the sense of bourgeois pacifism, with the gangrene of a national ideology eating away at its vitals. Moreover, there was already talk of the de- fense of democracy and the nation, talk of this or that nation, always never one's own nation, being the aggressor; there was no international unity during 102 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM the crisis because there had not been any during the period proceeding. 3 The dominant spirit at the great anti-war demon- stration in Brussels, July 29, was one of impotent threatening and confidence in one's own government. Emile Vandervelde spoke; so did Jean Jaures and Hugo Haase. Haase held up the spectre of revolu- tion as if, not being backed up by definite, organ- ized, aggressive action, it could frighten the govern- ments; and the threat was still further invalidated by Haase's statement that the German government was working for peace! Jaures said that the French gov- ernment, in co-operation with the "admirable" Eng- lish government, was pursuing a policy of peace. This was an attitude fraught with danger. The policy of peace a bourgeois government may pursue is circumscribed within the definite limits of ruling class interests ; moreover, Jaures' and Haase's attitude converted the possibility of proletarian acquiescence in the war into a certainty by developing confidence in the governments, which under all circumstances should be distrusted. France desired peace, but yet it was clear she would stand by Russia in the event of war; the imperialistic stakes were too immense. In this emergency, revolutionary Socialist action was indispensable and alone consistent, unambiguous 3. The question hoto the war could be resisted was never even raised, became the question whether tho war ought to be resisted was not even answered with a decisive Yes. Anton Pannekoek, "Imperialism and Social Democracy," International Socialist Review, October, 1914. THE GREAT COLLAPSE 103 formulation of a policy directed against governments through strikes and general mass action. The good intentions of governments are as a reed, and the revolutionist, of all people, should know it. The Social Democracy of Germany not only did not organ- ize resistance against the government and the coming of war, but was already preparing to participate in the war: this was the hideous fact underneath all the grandiloquent_phrases. The Berlin Vorwaerts, in the early days, made more than one threat of revolution, and it tore to shreds the claim of a war of democ- racy against Czarism. But its editorial of July 28 concluded: "They [the peoples of Europe] demand from their governments intervention against this polit- cal madness. They demand unambiguous representa- tions in Vienna, in Berlin, in St. Petersburg." On August 1 the Vorwaerts pleaded that "there is still time for negotiations." But war was declared, and then came Socialist acquiescence in the infamy of an accomplished fact. The policy and action described are typical of bour- geois pacifism generally first denunciation and threats hurled at the government, then pleadings ad- dressed to that same government, and then acquies- cence in and acceptance of the acts of the govern- ments. 4 4. In spite of its declaration against the war, the American Socialist party has pursued a similar policy the ideas of its dominant personnel are identical with the social-pacifists and social-patriots in the European movement. The resolutions and declarations of the National Executive Committee since August 1914 are instinct with the spirit of bourgeois pacifism. The party bureaucracy allied itself with the 104 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM All through the crisis action was never proposed or pusued by the dominant Socialism; action was left to the governments. The governments acted for war; and then Socialism equally acted for war and justi- fied the war, mobilized the masses for the war, there- by completely crushing the possibility of proletarian action, except among minor groups and the intrepid Socialist Party of Italy. The indictment against the dominant Socialism does not depend upon its failure to prevent the war: Socialism might not prevent a war, and still retain its integrity and revolutionary honor, prepared to act on the basis of the class struggle at the earliest oppor- "radical" pacifists, abandoned the class struggle, and confused the whole issue of war and peace. The Resolution against war adopted at the St. Louis Convention is largely contradictory and insincere: it means all things to all men. To be sure, the radical part of the delegates forced certain revolutionary declarations into the Resolution; but these have been repeatedly violated and abandoned by the party bureaucracy. Morris Hillquit, under pressure, accepted these declarations; and after the Convention proceeded to explain them away. The climax of his opportunist policy was his answer to the question put to him by William Hard whether, if he had been a member of Congress, he would have voted in favor of war. Hillquit answered (New Republic December 1, 1917, reprinted in the New York Call of December 5) : "If I bad believed that our participation would shorten the world-war and force a better, more democratic and more durable peace, I should have favored the measure, regardless of the cost and sacrifices of America. My opposition to our entry into the war was based upon the conviction that it would prolong the disastrous conflict without compensating gains to humanity," That's all! a complete abandon- ment and repudiation of the St. Louis Resolution, a policy of the worst bourgeois pacifism. Moreover, the officials of the party, and through them the party, became allied with the People's Council, a typical product of bourgeois pacifism. The People's Council, and through it the official bureaucracy of the Socialist Party, destroyed the peace movement, mobilized the ideology of the masses for the war by declaring President Wilson had adopted its terms of peace. Meyer London, the party's repre- sentative in Congress, admirably performed the function of a lackey of Imperialism disguised by a bland hypocrisy of words and deeds. When the proletarian revolution in Russia swept into power, the party officially was silent, while the New York Call confessed an ignorance bordering on intellectual bankruptcy and an infamous pal- liation of its petty bourgeois soul. The party was silent on the Russian proposal for an armistice; it was silent on the peace policy of the proletarian revolution, and after President Wilson spoke nice words about the Russians, the National Executive Committee adopted a resolution presumably in line with the policy of revolutionary Russia, but actually nothing of the sort. Moreover, the official leaders of the party openly or covertly justify the policy of majority Socialism in Europe; and they will after the war in all probability agree with Scheidemann, Thomas 4 Co., on the theory that the social-patriots engaged in a "defensive" war. The party membership on the whole revealed a fine integrity and instinctive class consciousness, but it was baffled by the party bureaucracy, which divided into adherents of the war and ad- herents of a policy of conciliation and pacifism. THE GREAT COLLAPSE 105 tunity. The American representatives of opportun- ist Socialism, together with their recognized leader, Morris Hillquit, argue that there was no collapse of the International because Socialism could not prevent the war. Admitting the premises, in spite of the fact that the dominant Socialism did not really try to pre- vent war, was not the general justification of the war by the dominant Socialism, and manufacturing its ideology, a collapse of the International? The stain upon the dominant Socialism of Europe, par- ticularly of Germany and Austria, is that it used all its efforts to make an imperialistic war popular with the workers; it adopted the arguments of the imperial- istic governments; it consciously mobilized the prole- tariat for slaughter in an imperialistic war. This is the real collapse, and the sophistry and hypocrisy, the dishonest "explanations" of the moderate Social- ist explain nothing, except their own petty bourgeois ideals and revolutionary cowardice. During the war, the dominant Socialism struck a truce with the ruling class "burgfrieden" in Ger- many, the "union sacre" in France. Socialism "sus- pended" the class struggle, relinquishing the final measure of its independence, and developed into an agency of the governments, acting with the turjjilude of a moral pervert and the insolence of a gutter strum- pet. The proletariat was offered as a sacrifice upon the altar of Mars by the very movement that pre- viously offered it emancipation. The dominant So- 106 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM cialism manufactured an ideology for the war more subtle, more dangerous; more calculated to betray the proletariat to its class enemy, than all the acts and propaganda of the governments. The official majority Socialists of Germany, di- rected by the infamous Scheidemann, became the con- fidantes of the government and its comis voyapeurs: they went to Belgium to "explain" to the Socialists that Germany could not have acted otherwise than by violating Belgium; they went to Italy to seduce the Socialist Party to advocate Italy's entrance into the war on the side of Germany, but were contemptu- ously rejected and bastinadoed. Jules Guesde yes, the revolutionary Jules Guesde of yester-year urged Italy to war in the cause of democracy; and Guesde, Albert Thomas and the majority in the French party developed into uncompromising adherents of "war to the finish," come what might. The Socialist majority became an active force in suppressing po- tential proletarian revolt; it generally acquiesced in the most brutal acts of the governments. When the German proletariat prepared great strikes and dem- onstrations for May Day, 1917, the Vorwaerts car- ried on a propaganda against the plans, aided and abetted by the party bureaucracy. Civil peace was maintained by Socialism, in spite of the fact that Capitalism repeatedly violated the peace in its own sinister interests. The Russian Revolution, particu- larly when it definitely developed into a proletarian THE GREAT COLLAPSE 107 revolution, sent a thrill of energy and enthusiasm through the proletariat of Europe, but it could not immediately break the shackles imposed upon it by the dominant Socialism, which used all its power to prevent a revolutionary uprising. The French par- liamentary Socialists answered the call to action of the revolutionary proletariat of Russia by the petty bourgeois appeal for the Revolution to align itself with the Allies, in the words of Guesde "first vic- tory, and then the republic." The great strikes and demonstrations of January and Febraury, 1918, in Austria and Germany, were broken by the antagonism of the dominant Socialism and the imperialistic regu- lar unions of skilled labor; while the Vorwaerts de- clared that it didn't want a revolution, but simply that the government should "mediate" the differences be- tween it and the proletariat. During the war, dominant Socialism acted as the governments acted; a volte face on the part of the governments usually produced the same result among the representatives of the petit_bourgeois. Socialists, who indulged in contemptible intrigues in the interest of their particular imperialistic government. The at- tempt to convene a Socialist Congress for peace at Stockholm in 1917 was vitiated by the dominant So- cialism of the Allies and turned into a miserable pro- German intrigue by the cohorts of Scheidemann and Victor Adler. The dominant Socialism entered the active service of Imperialism, becoming its most val- 108 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM ued ally where it should have been its worst enemy. The class struggle is fundamental. Divested of jhe class struggle, Socialism becomes either utopia^-or reaction. But events are instinct with a fatal logic: the process of softening class antagonisms and_ divi- sions during peace inevitably generates the complete abandonment of the class struggle during war. ^he cycle of collapse is completed. Jtjs^dkmng war that the class struggle should reach its maximum intensity: all the conditions of multiplied oppression and ex ploitation are a call to carry on the class struggle. War does not change the issue, but emphasizes it: the class struggle against Capitalism. 5 Each and every abandonment of the class struggle 5. To the great historic appeal of the Communist Manifesto is added an im- portant amendment and it reads now, according to this revision : "Workers of the world unite in peace and cut one another's throats in war!" Today, "Down with t!ie Russians and French!" tomorrow, "We are brothers all!" This convenient theory introduces an entirely novel revision of the economic interpretation of history. Proletarian tactics before the outbreak of war and after must be based on exactly opposite principles. This pre-supposes that social conditions, the bases of our tactics, are fundamentally different in war from what they are in peace. Ac- cording to the economic interpretation of history as Marx established it, all history is the history of class struggles. According to the new revision, we must add : except in times of war. Now human development has been periodically marked by wars. Therefore, according to this new theory [advocated by Karl Kautsky, the liarmonizer par excellence of bourgeois Socialist practices with pseudo-Marxian theory] social development has gone on according to the following formula : a period of class struggles, marked by class solidarity and conflicts within the nations ; then a period of national solidarity and international conflicts and so on indefinitely. Periodically the foundations of social life as they exist during peace change in time of war. And again, at the moment of the signing of a treaty of peace, they are restored. This is not, evidently, progress by means of successive "catastrophes;" it is rather progress by means of a series of somersaults. Society develops, we are to suppose, like an iceberg floating down a warm current; its lower portion is melted away, it turns over, and continues this process indefinitely. Now all the known facts of human history run straight counter to this new theory. They show that there is a necessary and dialectic relation between the class struggle and war. The class struggle develops into war and war develops into the class struggle; and thus their essential unity is proved. It was so in the medieval cities, in the wars of the Reformation, in the Flemish wars of liberation, in the French Revolution, in the American Rebellion, in the Paris Commune, and in the Russian uprising in 1905. [And in Russia, again in 1917.] Rosa Luxemburg, "The Class Struggle During War," in The International (1915), a magazine started by Rosa Luxenburg and Franz Mehring, and suppressed by the German government after the appearance of the first issue. (Reprinted in The New International of May 5, 1917.) THE GREAT COLLAPSE 109 is a step away from Socialism. The nation has be- come imperialistic. In the course of the war, accord- ingly, the national democratic ideology was trans- formed by large groups within the Socialist move- ment, who projected an imperialistic ideology and accepted Imperialism as a necessary stage to Social- ism. Heinrich Cunow, one of the intellectual leaders of the German Social Democracy, is characteristic of these groups in his theoretical defense of Imperial- ism. Cunow maintains that there will be no immedi- ate collapse of Capitalism and no early victory of Socialism ; that illusions arising out of this belief are responsible for Socialist disappointment caused by the war. Cunow counsels a closer scrutiny of the actual course of development, and proceeds to a defense of Imperialism: "The new imperialistic phase of development is just as necessarily a result of the innermost condi- tions of the financial existence of the capitalist class, is just as necessary a transitional stage to Socialism, as the previous stages of development, for example, the building up of large scale industry. . . . The de- mand, 'we must not allow Imperialism to rule, we must uproot it,' is just as foolish as if we had said at the beginning of machine industry: 'no machine must be tolerated, let us destroy them, and let us hence- forth allow only hand-work.' ' Cunow's conclusion is legitimate in the light of the petty bourgeois, reformist activity of the Social 110 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM Democracy. The struggle against Imperialism is futile if it is limited within the orbit of Capitalism. But Imperialism is the climax of the development of Capitalism; it means Capitalism, fully developed, trying to break through the national ideology and national frontiers in a desperate effort to maintain its ascendancy by conquering new fields of expansion; and it means, accordingly, Capitalism initiating an epoch in which the Social Revolution becomes a neces- sity and a fact. The struggle against Imperialism must consist of the revolutionary strugggle of the class conscious proletariat for the Social Revolution. Imperialism is a menace: it is a menace to the old system of Capitalism and it is a menace to the oncom- ing system of communist Socialism. ^Imperialism is the desperate attempt of Capitalism to maintain its sagremaLCjrj_^ndLiLselSLlhe world afire in the despejca- tion of its struggles. Capitalism is revolting against the fetters imposed by its own contradictions, through Imperialism ; the proletariat must respond by the class strjigggle against Capitalism and Imperialism, by the Social Revolution. But this conclusion and necessity, clearly, imply a struggle of the oncoming proletarian revolution against the dominant Socialism. The petty .. bourgeois, reformistic Socialism rejects the struggle against Imperialism and collapses tactically because / it is itself a part of the imperialistic epoch; it, accord- ingly, accepts Imperialism as a necessary stage to Socialism, meanwhile clownishly crying that it is all THE GREAT COLLAPSE 111 in accord with revolutionary Marxism, that the in- evitable collapse of Capitalism is coming, anyhow: "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world." The sins of Imperialism are washed clean in the holy water of pseudo-Marxian theory. The spirit of Cunow's analysis, moreover, expresses a dangerous tendency latent in pseudo-Marxian thought, and which contributed intellectually to the ^reat collapse. It is what may be termed the "his- torical imagination," the tendency to view contem- porary phenomena as one views the phenomena of history, in scholarly retrospection. This necessarily leads to reactionary concepts and paralysis of action. If there is error in the judgment of history, hovr much more might there not be in judging history in the making? Even in history only the large, general developments can be considered inevitable, the broad tendencies of social evolution. One may speak of the "inevitable" this and the "inevitable" that after the event, perhaps; but it is dangerous to do so before the event. And particular]y-if-we-^ossess~an insight inta^he processes of hiMoTyT~foT~~of~what practical value is this insight if it is not used in an attempt, at~the very least, to direct the course of history? Cunow sees in Imperialism a "necessary transition- al stage to Socialism." The dominant Social Democ- racy of Germany seems to possess real genius for dis- covering "transitional stages" to Socialism, and for emphasizing any and all things except the revolution- 112 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM ary development and activity of the proletariat itself. A generation ago, the conquest of political democracy was considered a "necessary transitional stage" to Socialism, and ended in making the Social Democracy a party of bourgeois democracy and social reform. Now the German Socialist majority seems to have forgotten this particular "transitional stage" and allies itself with a very opposite tendency, Imperial- ism, the arch-enemy of democracy. 6 The prattle of 'transitional stages" is simply a palliation of the refusal to engage in the revolutionary struggle. The imperialistic German government decides upon a cer- tain political course, and then calls upon the historian and the philosopher to manufacture the intellectual justification; the German Social Democracy decides 6. The cross-currents of Socialist thought are not developed clearly in the American movement, because of its historical conditions. But they exist, if only in latent form. John Spargo, William English Walling, and others, including their Social Democratic League, adopted completely the standpoint of the most reactionary social-patriots of Europe. Ernest Untermann, in a series of articles in the Mil- waukee Leader during 1915, accepted and applied Cunow's position. In the course of his arguments, Untermann uses a phrase, "Revolution by Reaction," which, carica- ture as it is and because it is caricature, aptly characterizes the Socialist-imperialist's attitude. "Militarism," says Untermana, "and colonial Imperialism today seem the worst enemies of Democracy and Socialism, yet no other power so rapidly and effectively enforces co-operative discipline, kills anarchist individualism, destroys petty business enterprise and undermines the whole capitalist system nationally and internationally so thoroughly as these arch-enemies of the common good are doing." According to Untermann, "Our American imperialists, like their European brethren, must work for the revolution, whether they like it or not," and he favored the con- quest of Mexico, as it is a "perfervid illusion" to hope that "American interven- tion can and must be prevented:" "Now the alternative facing the American capi- talists is: either a constitutional government of Mexicans controlled by influences hostile to American capitalists, or annexation of Mexico. If they choose annexation, they will give to the Mexicans with one hand what they take with the other. For if Mexico is annexed, the Mexican people lose their national independence, but they gain admission to the American labor movement and the American Socialist Party." Wonderful gains considering the reactionary character of the American labor move- ment and Socialist Party, united against the unskilled workers and favoring anti- immigration. Untermann's views are substantially the views of Victor L. Berger, who advocated editorially in the Leader the conquest of Mexico, and who is a social- imperialist and social-patriot of the worst type. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the policy of the American Socialist majority during peace is identical with, if a caricature of, the policy pursued by the European Socialist majority. THE GREAT COLLAPSE 113 to adopt a non-Socialist policy, and then calls upon the pseudo-Marxist to harmonize it with the robust, revolutionary philosophy of Marx. Imperialism is a necessary stage, and will become a permanent stage of Capitalism, if the Social Revolu j I j tion is not considered. And the fight against Imperial* I/ ism is a dynamic means of bringing the Social Revo-) lution. Should Socialists cease their opposition to the exploitation of labor because that exploitation is necessarily a result of Capitalism? L^ Socialism to~ become the historian, analyzing the developments of Capitalism, instead of a revolutionary and revolution* izing factor in these developments? Is the Socialist movement to renounce its revolutionary heritage for the flesh-pots of Imperialism? In fighting Imperial- ism Socialism doubly fights Capitalism; in abandon- ing the fight against Imperialism it simultaneously and necessarily abandons the fight against Capitalism. For Imperialism is nothing but an acute expression of Capitalism, a symptom that it is rotten-ripe for change. The development of machine industry was jan expression of Capitalism in its initial stage; Im- perialism is an expression of the final stage of Capi- talism, which to-day is over-developed. Capitalism seeks through Imperialism a means of avoiding an in- dustrial and social collapse. The maturity of indus- trial development poses the problem either Impe- rialism or Socialism. Cunow is wrong, there is an alternative to Imperialism, and that is Socialism, 114 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM while there was none to machine industry. The an- swer of Capitalism to the impending collapse is In> rialism and war; die answer of Socialism can only ie and must be the Social Revolution. . """ As the war developed, there was a slight recovery among the representatives of the center, typified by the majority at the Zimmerwald_jGonf erence, and which in Germany led to the formation of the Inde- pendent Socialist Party. The animating spirit of this party, . however, was the old pseudo-Marxism which had justified the conservatism of the movement; it still expressed the facts of the labor and Socialist movement prior to the war, the old tactics, the old policy, not the new requirements of a revolutionary epoch. The new party reverted to the psychology of the past; it did not completely sever the strings that bound it to petty bourgeois, reformistic Socialism. The Independent Socialist Party waged a contempti- ble campaign against the Bolsheviki. Hugo Haase declared that it was legitimate to vote against the war credits, because there was not a foreign soldier on German soil, thereby emphasizing the determina- tion of the French Socialists to support their govern- ment, as German soldiers were on their soil. The intellectual genius of the new party was Karl Kautsky, the vacillator, the harmonizer, the man who manufactured one theoretical justification after an- other for the abandonment of Socialism by the So- cial Democracy, the man who shortly after the war THE GREAT COLLAPSE 115 broke formulated the monstrous doctrines that the International was an instrument during peace, but not during war, and that all Socialists were justified in supporting their governments as under the condi- tions of Imperialism all nations were on the defensive. The Independent Socialist Party, as constituted, is a force for re-establishing the status quo ante, a ca- lamity that revolutionary Socialism must fight against with might and main. These representatives of the center did not issue a call to revolutionary action, they did not measure up to the requirements of a great historic crisis. The old phrases, the old policy, the old tactics: is it with these that we shall revolutionize the world? The dead must bury their dead. The bulk of the revolutionary Socialists of Germany, in- cluding Karl Liebnecht, Franz Mehring, Rosa Luxem- burg and Karl Radek, uncompromisingly attacked the new party, organizing independently, in the "Spar- tacus'" group and the group "Internationale." The// day of compromise is past forever: Socialism must// completely re-constitute itself as an uncompromising revolutionary force in accord with the tactical necesF sity of the new epoch. The old Social Democracy, captained by Scheide- mann, retained possession of the machinery and press of the party, and became more completely identified with the capitalist state, more completely an integral part of the existing system of things. It made no bones of the matter, either. Unblushingly, insolently, 116 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM it placed its faith in the might of the German nation, used all its energy for a victory of its national Im- perialism. The emancipation of the proletariat, the Russian Revolution, the future of the world, were all meaningless to the Social Democracy, all simply in- struments for promoting its bourgeois purposes by means of a brutal Imperialism. The existing sys- tem was accepted as the only conceivable basis upon which to work; this system should be modified, per- haps; but revolutionized never! The state, the im- perialistic state of Capitalism, was the centre of all activity, and the action of the Social Democracy was to be determined by the state. Socialism, according to the new dispensation, was no longer a class move- ment of the proletariat: it was a movement of all the classes, through the co-operation of which alone could Socialism be established. It was precisely this pro- gram and policy that the British Labor Party gradual- ly developed under the pressure of war, and which it clearly formulated in January, 1918. The Labor Party also accepted the war, and promoted the war by mobilizing the masses through the slogan of democ- racy; it became a part of the state, the main-stay of British hopes of victory; it constituted itself a party of all the classes by opening its doors to "workers of the brain." The Social Democracy was now definitely and com- pletely a party of "laborism" and the small bour- geoisie, a counter-revolutionary partry over whose THE GREAT COLLAPSE 117 prostrate corpse alone the proletariat could march to victory. 7 The Socialist-imperialist and social-patriot gener- ^ . ally base their conception of "Socialism" upon the *w development of Capitalism in itself; the revolutionary Socialist bases it upon the class development of tEe proletariat. Capitalism is fully developed; the pro- letariat must develop HJeTevoliiliunai v cuiisciousiiess and action for its historic mission of overthrowing class rule. Socialism cannot "grow into" Capitalism, through collectivism and the co-operation of classes; Sojcialism must overthrow Capitalism._ Instead oF being softened, class antagonisms and the class strug- gle must be emphasized ; instead of compromise with Capitalism, relentless attack upon the whole capital- 7. The Wuerzburg Congress of the Social Democracy, in the second half of 1917, formulated the new policy of the party. The delegates were in complete ac- cord wit!) the government and a policy of social-imperialism; the general sentiment was that it is about time to put an end to "cloister science," and that the new program should be puri6ed of the "Marxist scholastic." Scheidemann ushered in the new dispensation with a speech characteristic of the social-imperialist policy. Among other things, he said: "With regard to tactics we have become more flexible; because, owing to the war, the worker's position has considerably changed. Imper- ialism was forced to fight its battles in this war with the proletariat. And yet the war has not succeeded in strengthening the class rule of the bourgeoisie over the masses; but on the contrary the workers have everywhere learned that the state for which they fight will after the war be less than ever a mere class enemy. The working class is not any more an amorphous mass. It is an organized body. And there are a thousand reasons why tEe organized workers cannot oppose themselves to the state. This they have nowhere done. If organized labor fought the battles for the existence of the state it did not in the least intend to be a mere cannon fodder, and everywhere it held high its particular ideals and class objects. The proletariat is not a mercenary soldier of the ruling classes but an ally who came out of the need of the moment, who at the end, however, will present his bill." And this is what becomes of the historic mission of the proletariat to overthrow Capitalism that it consciously ally itself with the bourgeoisie and march out, for the purpose of "presenting its bill," to rape Belgium, devastate France, and crush the Russian Revolution! "The most interesting point in Scheidemann's speech," said the Berlin Vorwaerts, "was the statement that the socialization of society can not be brought about through the exclusive efforts of Social Democracy. The solution of this great task awaits the aid of all other parties." Oh, yes yes, indeed. And the first step toward this peculiar Socialism, of course, is to destroy Serbia, subjugate Austria, rape Belgium, devastate France, crush the Russian Revolution, justify and promote the most brutal purposes of Imperialism, and, incidentally, crush the on- coming proletarian revolution in Germany. 118 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM 1st regime as determined by the conditions of Impe- rialism. The issue posed by the great collapse is this: Shall Socialism organize dynamically for the overthrow of Capitalism, or shall it organize for the perpetua- tion of Capitalism through a policy of national social- Imperialism and State Capitalism? VIII SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT. THE process of Socialist readjustment depends, im- mediately and ultimately, upon readjustment within the nation; it must start with the reconstruction of the material basis of the movement and the adoption of revolutionary purposes and tactics in the national struggle against the ruling class. This internal read- justment will necessarily express itself in the read- justment of the Socialist International, the creation of a New International that will not break down when the call comes for international revolutionary action, as its constituent national groups will have adopted revolutionary tactics in the internal struggle against imperialistic Capitalism. The attempt to reorganize the International of Socialism without transforming its constituent national groups will inevitably mean a new collapse, new and more acute disappointments. Socialism collapsed internationally because it had pre- viously collapsed nationally; revolutionary action 119 120 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM within the nation alone can impose revolutionary action upon the International of the proletariat. It is a general process of reconstruction: the one promotes the other. The struggle against Imperialism is the starting point of this readjustment, the factor determining our new immediate purposes and tactics, which must break with the immediate purposes and tactics of the past. Under the conditions of the new era, Socialism either organizes aggressively against Imperialism and for the overthrow of the capitalist regime, or it becomes com- pletely submerged in social-Imperialism and reaction. The new conditions require an abandonment of the ifallacyofj'growing into" Socialism, .nce of the fact that revolutionary struggle alone is ieUeterminant factor- Jn Snr.i a 1 i st policy^ The revo- lution becomes, not an aspiration of th an Inspiration instinct in the immpfh'atp. action of the proletariat. The proletariat is a supremely utilitarian class, dominated by the sense of reality; and through .this reality ofjictual struggle the revolutionary spirit has to express itself. The self consciousness of the mass is the impulse of the struggle, thejreality oT its life and material conditions the fulcrum by which it is moved to revolutionary action. The proletarian mass is anim^edtiy^ie'entEusiasm of struggle, rather than by the ideal ; but out of this struggle arises the ideal, for the conditions of its activity impose a revolution- ary expression.^ Struggle succeeds struggle, becoming SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 121 more general, more centralized and national in scope, and project an international struggle by the propul- sion of the activity itself. International action be- comes imperative. The dualism in Socialist tactics disappears there is no political action alon^, there is no industrial action alone, but one unified action : the__ acceptance and merging of all means into the general revolutionary action of the- proletariat^ The class struggle becomes more conscious, more bitter and un- compromising, more revolutionary in scope, means and aspirations. Capitalism meets attack after attack, weakening in the measure that the proletariat acquires the consciousness and strength developing out of its struggles. Capitalism succumbs not to an ultimate. revolutionaryacTalbne, but to a series of revolution// ary acts which inevitably result in the Social Revolif tiqn.^ "The bourgeoisie, born in the Revolution, main- taining itself in a struggle against the Revolution, can only be overcome by the Revolution." 1 The general process of Socialist readjustment is not determined by the formulation of theoretical prob- lems; it is not a study in theory, but a study in the practice and the material basis of the Socialist move- ment. There is no Socialism without the class strug- gle, and the carrier ot this class struggle is the agency^ through which Socialism functions. The readjust- ment of Socialism, accordingly, is determined by ad- justing itself to that class in society which is the most 1. Democracy and Organization, by H. Laufenberg and Fritz Wolfheim. 122 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM typical product of modern industry, and consequent- ly revolutionary. Socialism must locate this class T and express its material conditions of struggle and development] Socialism reorganizes in accordance with the al- tered class relations and expression of class interests of imperialistic Capitalism, which for the first time approximate the conditions considered essential for the Social Revolution by the founders of Socialism. II According to our analysis, Socialism has been dominated by the interests of skilled labor, marshalled by the petty bourgeoisie and the intellectuals of the new middle class. This domination directed the move- ment straight to disaster. It should not require much discussion to prove the reactionary character of the remnants of the small bourgeoisie and representatives of the new middle class. The petite bourgeoisie is not only not a revolu- tionary class, it is a class beaten in the struggle for social supremacy, destroyed as an independent factor and a vassal of dominant Capitalism, a class that com- plains but dares not revolt. Its interest in Socialism, except in the case of isolated individuals, who rise su- perior to their petty class interests, is simply to use the prestige of Socialism to promote its own narrow inter- ests. The small bourgeoisie is not even any longer re- actionary in the sense of Marx, that "it tries to roll SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 123 back the wheels of history" ; it no longer has the neces- sary vigor and independence. The small bourgeois simply strives to make more comfortable his petty place in the existing system of things. The animating spirit of the petite bourgeoisie is compromise it com- promises with Imperialism; and it compromises with Socialism; but where the compromise with Imper- ialism strengthens Imperialism, the compromise with Socialism weakens Socialism, softens its aggressive spirit and alters its class activity. As for the new middle class, it is essentially the product of concen- trated industry and Imperialism, compelled by its very nature to promote the interests of imperialistic Capitalism, directly, by openly adhering to Imper- ialism; indirectly, by allying itself with Socialism upon which it imposes its own reactionary purposes. Thgjiigbest ideals collectivism and State_Capitalism. But Socialism is^a revolutionary^ jbrcejhaL rlisjaipls capitalist collectiv- ism, that thrives by waging unrelenting war upon Cap- italism and the state as unified in State Capitalism; its purposes are not expressed in a pseudo-Socialism of the state, but in the supremacy of the proletariat through industrial communism. Socialism, accordingly, must throw off the domina- tion and destroy the influence of these two alien groups; and it is must equally throw off the domina- tion of skilled labor which, as a caste, becomes in- 124 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM creasingly a part of the new middle class and of re- actionary State Capitalism. The psychology of skilled labor is the psychology of the small bourgeoisie; it thinks in terms of cajte and property, and not in terms of class and solidarity >f action.__ The property of the skilled worker isjiis raft and his~skHT, and his struggles against his em- )loyer are for the purposes of conserving this prop- erty and increasing its purchase price. 2 ^ The tendency of the skilled trades is to promote their interests irrespective of the rest of the workers, and often by brutal betrayal of the unorganized and the unskilled. Their unions are trusts organized to protect property, the property vested in a skilled itrade or craft. These unions, moreover, are corporate concerns, organizations of crafts which reject solidar- ity and co-operation with other crafts. Admission to the craft unions is limited by a variety of means, including abnormally high initiation fees. As the owner of small industrial property was concerned solely in the preservation of his property, so the skilled worker is concerned solely in the preservation of his craft skill and prestige; the concentration of in- dustry expropriates both forms of property, but this fact, instead of creating a revolutionary psychology, intensifies the attachment to property and creates re- action in the two groups. 2. A labor union is not necessarily a part of the proletarian class Mrugjle. Not if the members aim only at immediate advantages, perhaps even at the cost of other groups of workers. Democracy and Organization, by H. Laufenberg and Fritz Wolfheim. SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 125 Originally, the slogan of skilled labor unions is, "A fair day's pay for a fair day's work." As the unions acquire political importance and the develop- ment of the industrial technology menaces the skilled crafts, a new conception arises, that of securing recog- nition as a part of the governing system of things. Unable to cope with the employing class industrially by means of strikes, because of industrial concentra- tion and the decreasing value of skilled laborinlEe' technological JprocessTthe unions seek to accomplish their ends b^becomingjart of jhe government, wmr- promising withjta (tominant Capitalism by means of governmental coercion. Their activity becomes more intensely that of a caste, a caste that is trying to ac- quire status by the hocus pocus of claiming to repre- sent the working class. 3 The unions of skilled labor traffic in the requirement of Imperialism for a docile working class, and secure concessions by bartering away their independence and the interests of the un- organized and the unskilled. One of the reasons why State Capitalism grants a measure of recognition to the unions of the aristocracy of labor is for the pur- pose of using them to maintain the unskilled and the unorganized in subjection. The cleavage between the skilled and the unskilled widens. The procedure adopted by the unions of skilled 3. The Rt. Hon. G. N. Barnes. Laboritc Member of the British War Cabinet, said in an interview in November, 1917: "There are two main things which account for the [labor] unrest. One is the question of status and the other the question of wages. Of these two, the chief, to my mind, is the first." 126 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM labor to secure recognition as a caste in the governing system of things is determined by circumstances, in Germany and France by using the Socialist organiza- tions; in the United States by bringing pressure upon the government through the political party representa- tives of Capitalism; in England, Australia and New Zealand by means of a labor party. ft The characteristics and purposes of skilled labor jifind their clearest expression in Laborism. Having secured political power, Laborism becomes more than [a force for securing skilled labor a place in the gov- erning system of things; it becomes the bulwark of that system, around which rally the interests of the small bourgeoisie and the new middle class, and con- sequently of dominant Capitalism in its imperialistic activity. When the war broke, the Australian Labor Party was in power, 4 with almost complete control of 4. The Australian Labor Government recently sent over its labor Prime Minister to England to represent its interests and as another pledge of loyalty to the Empire. The utterances of "Labor Premier" William Morris Hughes, who started his career as a particularly "revolutionary" labor leader, have met with delighted applause from the imperialistic British press, which is featuring his utterances on "organizing the Empire." Mr. Hughes was active in the I'.iris Trade Conference of the Allies, which met to determine ways and means r-f an economic war against Ger- many after the military war is over. He exo-<-ssed himself ae favoring: "A joint taniT system which will establish minimum rates among tl e Allies and their colonies. reasonable rates for neutrals, and strong di*:rinunation against all dealings with hostile countries." A federated empire, with a centralized War Department, aggres- sive militarism and Imperialism, were other British aims formulated by Mr. Hughes. . . But is there any real difference between Australian Laborism and English Laborism? Superficially, yes; actually no. The apparent differences flow from the circumstance that Laborism is in power in Australia and is a negligible governmental force in England. Laborism, whether in Australia or in England, starts from the same premise : working within the bounds of the national organization, and main- taining the unity of the empire. It may be remembered that Keir Hardie refused granting independence to India. Louis C. Fraina, "Laborism and Imperialism in Australia," in the Neu> Review, June, 1916. The Labor Party repudiated the excesses of its Prime Minister and other officials, but did not fundamentally alter its policy; incidentally, it may be mentioned that even ordinary bourgeois liberals disapproved of Mr. Hughes' excesses. Prime Minister Hughes and other "Labor" officials formed a coalition with the bourgeois representatives, while the Labor Party was strongly influenced by radical currents of thought and action generated by the industrial proletariat. SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 127 the federal and local governments. Australia imme- diately sent contingent after contingent of troops to "fight for liberty" in Europe; and one of the first of these contingents was used to "fight for liberty" by maintaining British rule in Egypt. With but half the population Australia provided nearly as many troops as Canada ; the officials of the Labor Party gave their heartiest support and encouragement to the war and British Imperialism, proving in this respect much more zealous than the bourgeois government of Can- ada. The militarist, imperialist and protectionist in- terests of Australia are in the ascendant. Laborism directly and actively promoted the interests of Imper- ialism. The policy of laborism in England has been equally: reactionary. It used the war to conserve the status of the unions as a caste; it bartered away its integrity for a place in the governing system of things, and secured the place. The strikes in England during the war were generally either a revolt against the policy of Laborism or an expression of the unskilled; and where the unions of skilled labor waged strikes it was to protect its status as a caste and to maintain the un- skilled and the unorganized in subjection. In its pol- icy on war and peace the British Labor Party pro- moted the interests of Imperialism, justified and man- ufactured an ideology for the war, and became the last bulwark of defense of British Imperialism. It played fast and loose with terms of peace, and per- 128 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM petrated the outrageous fraud of pretending to have declared its solidarity with revolutionary proletarian Russia, when as a matter of fact its whole program was a negation of the declarations of revolutionary Russia. In January, 1918, the Labor Party opened its doors to "workers of the brain," thereby completing and emphasizing its character as a party of skilled labor, the small bourgeoisie and the new middle class, uniting to promote their interests through State Cap- italism. The government of Lloyd George more and more had to depend upon British Laborism to pro- mote the war, and the attitude of the Labor Party, as much as the attitude of the dominant Socialism and trades unions in Germany, directly discouraged and prevented revolutionary action of the great mass of the workers. There was an abandonment of the gen- eral interests of the proletariat. Laborism in England airectly and actively promoted social-Imperialism. In this country, the American Federation of Labor pursued a policy similar to that of the trades unions in England, France and Germany. It declared for 'the war, and the officials of many of its affiiliated unions became even more rampantly patriotic than the National Security League. It did not even flaunt the colors of the liberal bourgeoisie, but adopted an unrelenting and reactionary attitude on the war. The /national bureaucracy of the A. F. of L. acquiesced in proposals by which the workers could be cajoled from striking during the war. Gompers acted as the office SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 129 boy, not of the "liberal" elements of American Capitalism, but of its most reactionary representa- tives. Indeed, the A. F. of L. policy was even too reactionary for the British Labor Party and the French unions, the representatives of which vainly tried to convince Gompers and the "American Labor Mission" of the reactionary character of their attitude. Moreover, Gompers and his bureaucracy did not even show the low intelligence of British labor leaders in their dealings with the government. The British Labor Party as payment for its support of the war secured a recognized place in the government, and became a direct factor in the management of things; but the A. F. of L. bartered away its independence and integrity and received no mess of pottage as payment. The policyofj^aborism results from the concept that the intejgsjts_gfj[abgr_depend upon the interests of capital. Where these interests clash it is assumed as * being more or less accidental and incidental; their; identity of interest is still the dominant factor. As/ the struggles between groups in the capitalist class,/ often severe and bitter, do not destroy their funda- mental identity of interests, so the struggle between labor and capital, according to the theory of Labor-/ ism, does not alter their identity of interest. The unions are careful that their struggles shall in no way menace Capitalism itself. The employer may be fought, but his power must not be menaced. On the field of international action, this policy is expressed in 130 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM backing up the capitalist class in its projects of imper- ialistic expansion and wars. If our Capitalism is weakened by defeat, reasons Laborism, the unions will suffer through unemployment, longer hours and lower wages; and, therefore, Laborism promotes the intersts pf imperialistic Capitalism. Nationally, the policy of /Laborism concerns itself simply with the interests of /skilled labor and ignores the bulk of the workers, j Internationally, its policy promotes the narrow inter- / ests of a nation to the exclusion of general proletarian I revolutionary interests. Nationally and internation- ally, accordingly, Laborism betrays the cause of the /proletariat. 5 An essential characteristic of Laborism in power is that it uses the power of the state to suppress ruth- lessly the strikes of the unorganized and the unskilled. But this procedure is an inevitable consequence of the psychology and status of Laborism, which is non-pro- letarian and has "grown into" the existing system. The industrial proletariat of unskilled labor threatens this system, and Laborism uses all its power of repres- sion against this revolutionary class. All non-pro- letarian elements coalesce into one general reaction- 5. This ideology It the ideology of Socialism wherever its councils are dominated by skilled labor. Wolfgang Heine represented this "Socialist Laborism" when in a speech on February 22, 1915, he said: "Our working people live from industry. Espe- cially from export trade. If this is destroyed, the worker will be more damaged than the employer. The capitalist can take his money away and put it in other under- takings, even abroad. The worker, if he has no more work, is ruined. It has been taid, 'What difference does it make whether the worker has any longer a living in Germany? He emigrates and expends his labor power elsewhere.' That is no longer such a simple affair, and our German working people are too good to serve as fer- tilizer for foreign civilization. In spite of all conflicts with the present state, the worker it bound to it." SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 131 ary mass against the unskilled. Laborism in action proves conclusively its non-proletarian character, and strengthens the consciousness of the unskilled, who decide upon independent action. The cleavage widens between the non-proletarian and proletarian elements among the workers, and it is the task of Socialism to intensify and organize this cleavage by arousing the independent action and emphasizing the revolutionary character of the industrial proletariat of unskilled labor the carrier of the Social Revolution. 6 in The process of concentration in industry expropri-/ ates the skill of the skilled worker by standardizing! labor through the perfection of machinery. But this* fact, as in the case of the small bourgeoisie, makes skilled labor even more reactionary. The unions try A to maintain the prestige of their craft skill by means oy their organizations, through political action, and by bringing the unskilled under their subjection. At- tempts are made by the unions to organize the un- skilled, but the purpose is simply to maintain the power of the crafts. The ideology of property, which is the ideology of the small bourgeoisie, continues to dominate the minds of the skilled after their "prop- 6. In New Zealand, the Labor Party repeatedly betrayed the unskilled, and these betrayals finally resulted in the formation of a new proletarian party, the Social Democratic Party. Five years ago the United Federation of Labor, which practically adopted the I. W. W. preamble, prepared for a general strike, relying chiefly upon seamen, dock laborers and miners. The strike was betrayed by skilled labor, which deserted. Moreover, the United Labor Party issued a manifesto against the strike, and this betrayal was one of the chief causes of the strike's failure. Skilled labor, its unions and its party, joined hands with the employers and strikebreakers. 132 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM erty" has been expropriated by the machine process. This ideology, in the first place, prevents the unions from generally organizing the unskilled; and, in the second place, injuriously affects those unskilled that come under the domination of the unions. Unions composed essentially of the unskilled proletariat, such as the United Mine Workers, are seduced into reaction by their affiliation with the A. F. of L.; the bureauc- racy of these unions becomes a typical craft union bureaucracy, and time and again have the mine work- ers been betrayed by their own officials. The unskilled ire organized, where they are organized by the A. F. L., simply to protect the crafts from the ravages of the machine industry. 7 The members of craft unions have repeatedly scabbed during strikes of the unskilled in the past, when their's was the power; to- day, the unions make perfunctory efforts to organize for their own interests the unskilled to whom is pass- ing the actual power in industry. \ This circumstancej)^)pwer is determinant. The I unskiiled^roJetariat is the typical product of modern 1 Capitalism and controls the basic industries. This prcleta^ian^cT^scontrolsequjll^jbe destiny of Cap- italism and of skilled labor. The mining industry and 7. Briefly, the organization of the unskilled is not compatible with the A. F. of L., \ for the reason that the latter in its essentials is a federation of individual crafts, ' whereas the unskilled cannot by any means be so classed. . . . The consciousness that they [the unskilled] cannot achieve their solidarity with the American Federation of Labor is one of the chief reasons why they do not join the United Laborers' Locals which have been instituted in their special behalf. They know that there is no identity of interest between themselves and the craft organizations; that the latter will use them when it is convenient to do so, otherwise they will repudiate them or will refuse to make any effort to help them gain better conditions. Austin Lewi*, "Organization of the Unskilled," in the New Review, November, 1913. SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 133 the steel industry are domuiatejLlay-4bc unskilled; and, except in a few casesTas for example the locomo- tive engineers, this is equally true of the railway in- dustry and of transportation generally. What are the characteristics of the proletariat of average unskilled labor? The unskilled proletariat is the Jndnstrial^jTiTYjTpitariat of standardized machine industry^ An unskilled proletarian is not necessarily and always simply a worker who has no skill. The Mexican peon, the "coolie" of China, may have no skill or craft, but he is not an unskilled proletarian in the sociological sense. The unskilled preMtmat is a machine proletariat^ As Capitalism develops, the industrial process is standardi/H, thft Inbor flp^n'nl- ized. The perfection of machinery expropriates the skilled worker of his skill, as such, makes him simply a machine-minder, or drives him into minor indus- tries where technological development lags; individ- ual skill becomes of no importance except for a small group, and what slight aptitude may be necessary can be acquired in a few days or weeks. The worker becomes an appendage nf thft machine; it is no longer a skilled worker that usesthe machine, but the ma- chine uses an unskilled worker. l-^OT^b^onc^_a^T' age labor, Standardized and specialized as an auto- matic^ tactor in thfi TnanViinft prorass. The machine subjects the worker to its process; the procedure be- comes mechanical, the organization systematic and standardized; standardization eliminates skill, crafts- 134 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM manship, intelligence and individuality; the worker no longer has the skill of a craft: he has simply labor power, hands and muscle, and the eyes that direct these hands and muscle. A new skilled labor is created, the very small minority of engineers, super- intendents, and technicians generally. TheefficienQy movement climaxes this development: its exponents are concerned not in the skill of the workers^but_gL theJegularitY aJJ^'standardization of their movements. TEe proIetariaTEecomes in far* marking proletariat- 8 THemachine process dominates not a single fac- tory or industry', but the whole of industry, integrat- ing and standardizing the industrial system. Indus- try correlates itself, and if it ceases functioning at one point, the whole system feels the shock. The con- centration of capital and the machine process operate jointly to unify the industrial system, in which com- mon labor controls the working activity^ Thus, while the machine process strips the worker of all skill, it simultaneously creates and places in his hands an im- mense power, the power of at any moment dislocat- ing the process of production through the mass action of any considerable group of proletarians. The 8. The share of the operative workman in the machine industry is typically that of an attendant, an assistant, whose duty it is to keep pace with the machine process and to help out with workmanlike manipulation at points where the machine process engaged is incomplete. His work supplements the machine process, rather than makes use of it. On the contrary, the machine process makes use of the workman. The ideal mechanical contrivance is the automatic machine. Perfection in the machine technology is attained in the degree in which the given process can dispense with manual labor; whereas perfection in the handicraft system means perfection of manual workmanship. It is the part of the workman to know the working of the mechanism in which he i* associated and to adapt his movements with mechanical accuracy to its requirements. Thorstein Veblen, The Instinct of Workmanship. SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 135 strikes of the unskilled unconsciously but inevitably assume the large proportions of mass revolts, includ- ing scores of thousands of workers, where the strikes of the crafts seldom did; it is easy to replace a few thousand workers at their jobs, but it is much more difficult to replace twenty or one hundred thousand. The proletariat instinctively adjusts itself to this fact. Thejmachine process makes a homogeneous mass out of the heterogeneous racial and religious ele- ments; the machine process subjects the diversity of these workers to a commondiscipline, a common suf- fering, a common ideology. "By and large," says VeBIenT^the technology of the machine process is a technology of action by contact." Action by contact! Thisjechnological jact permeates the_consciQusness of the unskilled workers, sjibUy_jnculcates themjyith thlTlo!eat~oT~87Jidarity r of action. The outstanding |f act in the revolts of the unskilled is that they ex- Ihibit a remarkable degree of solidarity and assume Revolutionary proportions and expression. The great industrial revolts of the past twenty years in this country have been revolts of the unskilled, revolts that coalesced around revolutionary organizations and activity. While the skilled were bargaining, the unskilled were fighting. Moreover, the strikes of the unskilled Eave~Eeen remarkably free from violence, while the craft unions have repeatedly indulged in that individual and secret violence which is charac- teristic of groups beaten in the social struggle. The 136 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM machine process impresses upon the minds of the un- skilled the value of force, of control of the industrial process, of solidarity in action; and these circum- stances inevitably discourage sporadic acts of individ- ual violence. It is the great fact and hope of the machine proletariat that, during the great strikes of the unskilled, in which men and women speaking dozens of languages participated, there was no vio- lence on their part, no hysteria of despair, but there was determination, solidarity, the aggressive spirit of the revolution in action. The proletarian rgyolu- tionjs imtjfnatgi^Tir-ft, but it makes use^of industrial power and organized force. But the machine process does not simply organize the proletariat through the mechanism of production itself; it simultaneously creates a new ideology among the workers. The skilled worker thinks in terms of^ craft, of the individual and his property; the un- skilled proletariat thinks in terms of the mass, of power, and of the control of the machine process. The skilled cling to craft strikes, the unskilled turn to mass action. All the facts, all the indications prove that the action of the unskilled industrial proletariat in- evitably proceeds along general and revolutionary lines, that it is a revolutionary class. 9 9. This great fact was proven and emphasized during the proletarian revolution in Russia. Thnj^^oi-nto gn^ialUf i th(> ftlensheviki. representing the dominant Social- ism, largely expressed skilled labor and the small Bourgeoisie ; while the great strength of the Bolshevik! lay in their influence among the industrial workers, the unskilled proletariat. The railway unions, dominated officially by the skilled workers, acted in favor of the revolution to overthrow Czarism, but they acted against the pro- letarian revolution as expressed in the Bolshevist movement ; and when the revolu- tionary proletarian government dissolved the Constituent Assembly, because it was SOCIALIST READJUSTMENT 137 The proletariat of unskilled labor is a pariah; it has no part in the existing system, except that of a beast of burden. Its pariah position and the domina- tion of the machine process in its ideology separate it from the rest of the community. The proletariat is out of touch with the pernicious upper class ideas that contaminate skilled labor; and the great danger is that the unions of the "aristocracy of labor" may for a time impress these ideas upon a portion of the un- skilled, although the machine process itself prevents this from being permanent. All the circumstances, all the conditions, all the thoughts of this industrial proletariat place it against the existing system; its control of industry gives it the power of overthrow- ing that system. All other classes are arrayed against this machine proletariat, even the skilled portions of the working class. They all have contempt for this proletariat of unskilled labor; its strikes are betrayed by the skilled and crushed by the violence of the state. The unskilled proletarian has no rights except what he can conquer by his own power; he trusts no one but himself. The conditions of imperialistic Capital- ism, with its merging of upper class interests into a general reactionary mass, including the aristocracy of labor, intensifies the brutality against the unskilled counter-revolutionary, representative of the bourgeois democracy of all the classes and an expression of the parliamentary system that the revolution must necessarily annihilate, the railway unions opposed the Bolsheviki and supported the Constituent Assembly. The Social. Reyolution_can be_carried through only by the industrial \ I / f / proletariat of~~nBskilled labor, in spite of~~aflf Utopia or in the quagmires of reaction. The strug- gle igji struggle for power; the readjustment of Social- ism is the organization and expression of the actual revolutionary class in modenTsociety. This class is tEeTproletarian class, the mass of unskilledTTabor dqm- inatJngThelndustrial process of concentrated Capital- ism in the_new imperialistic_jepoch. This class emerges to consciousness, throws off equally the dom- ination of skilled labor and the small bourgeoisie, and organizes its power for the overthrow of Capitalism. Revolutionary Socialism is the expression and syn- fthesis of this development. IX CLASS AND NATION. REVOLUTIONARY Socialism adopts a policy of unre- lenting antagonism toward nationalism in fully-de- veloped capitalist nations, (only in pre-capitalistic nations that are the objectives of Imperialism, such as Egypt, China and India, is nationalism progres- sive). This is an acceptance of the fact that our attitude towards the nation is a decisive factor in the readjustment of Socialism; and our attitude towards the nation carries with it the reconstruction of our national and international policy, not simply in rela- tion to war, but to the whole scope of the movement. The nation is an historical product, and its signi- ficance and our attitude are determined by the pre- vailing historical conditions. It is this circumstance that makes necessary our opposition to nationalism in highly-developed imperialistic countries, and our favoring nationalism in the revolutionary sense in the pre-capitalistic countries that are the objectives of Imperialism. The nation did not come into being because of 145 146 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM mystical or cultural impulses; it was the product of a definite process of economic and class development, and its political reflex. Being the product of an his- torical process, it is futile to discuss whether the na- tion is or is not desirable in itself; the necessity of the nation, its character and function, are determined by the prevailing stage of social development. The nation, as such, is neither democratic nor reactionary in tendency, this depends upon the historical milieu and the social forces it expresses; under certain con- ditions the nation is progressive, under other condi- tions it may be compellingly reactionary. An im- portant point to be stressed in our attitude toward the nation, accordingly, is the fundamental difference be- tween the democratic nationalism of the era of bour- geois revolution and the reactionary nationalism of imperialistic Capitalism. Eduard Bernstein has pro- posed that Socialists oppose the "new capitalistic na- tionalism which culminates in Imperialism," and not the "old ideology" of nationalism "which required the self-government of the nation as a centre of culture among other similar centres." 1 Bernstein's proposal neglects the economic and political aspects of the problem as determined by the development of Imper- ialism and its reactionary character. His attitude is abstract, and not realistic. Bernstein admits that na- tionalism culminates in Imperialism, but a certain 1. Eduard Bernstein. "RerUionUm and Nationalism," in the Netc Reiiru Sepember 1, 1915. CLASS AND NATION 147 cultural beauty in nationalism is dear to his soul: the proletarian revolution, however, sets its face to- ward the future, not the past. Imperialism annihil- ates "self-government of the nation" and its cultural value, and the struggle becomes a struggle for Social- ism, which solves all problems. Moreover, it is no longer possible, it is even undesirable from the stand- point of the proletarian revolution, to revive the democratic ideology of nationalism, since the social conditions underlying its previous existence are not now dominant in the economy of industrially highly- developed nations, and since it is an ideology not at all compatible with the emancipation of the proleta- riat. The emphasis laid upon democratic nationalism leaves unconsidered the fact that Capitalism has turned its back upon the era of democratic aspirations, and that consequently the contemporary expression of nationalism is undemocratic and reactionary. And if we favor nationalism in pre-capitalistic countries, it is because nationalism there is a revolutionary fac- tor and an historical necessity in the struggle against Imperialism: the necessity of national wars of libera- tion is recognized by Socialism, and colonial upris- ings are national wars in the making. Whatever cul- tural value may inhere in the nation will be retained and released for further development by the proleta- rian revolution, which establishes a society interna- tionally united, but which, being communistic, decrees 148 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM the utmost in national, racial and local autonomy, in- itiative and individuality. What is the nation, and what are its characteristic forms in the development of society? The nation, the trend toward the nation, makes its appearance with Capitalism. Ascending Capitalism develops the nation-state, which plays an important part in the overthrow of Feudalism, is, in fact, one of its consequences. The effort to break the fetters placed upon industry organized on the basis of the city-state leads directly to the formation of the nation- state. Ascending Capitalism requires freedom of trade within as large a territorial unit as possible, national markets exclusively for the national bour- geoisie to develop and exploit; a common system of coinage, weights and measures; and a strong central government to maintain order, foster industry, and carve out the territorial limits of the nation. The nation-state develops a sense of solidarity in the peo- ple of a particular national group, and firmly estab- lishes national institutions, a national literature and culture, and a national bourgeoisie. The nation con- forms essentially to economic and geographical facts ; while race and language have been convenient expres- sions of the nation, the nation has itself created "race" and "language," and often suppressed or amalga- mated them in the fulfillment of its historic mission. The early struggles of ascending Capitalism seek to create the national unit along as large territorial CLASS AND NATION 149 limits as possible, while maintaining order within the national domain. The industrialized unit within the developing nation seeks wider markets, new sources of raw materials, regions which it can bring within the sway of the internal market. The earlier process of expansion is accelerated by a series of bloody wars. All this, in conjunction with other favoring circum- stances, including the growing power of the bour- geoisie and the decay of the feudal nobility, leads to the institution of absolute monarchy, directly trace- able to the requirements of the bourgeoisie. The bour- geoisie at this period, and after, is revolutionary, its revolutionary expressions assuming vitality in the measure that the carving out of the national frontiers is completed. But, this task accomplished, the social and political organization expressed in the dominance of absolute monarchy, itself based upon a comprom- ise between bourgeoisie and feudal nobility, becomes a very real obstacle to the development of the forces of production. In the effort to destroy this obstacle, the bourgeoisie initiates a more intensive revolution- ary era, one result of which is the organization of the nation along democratic and republican, or semi- republican lines. It is at this epoch that the nation assumes a definite and mature expression. But the bourgeoisie becomes frightened of its own revolutionary impulses: bourgeois revolutions end in dictatorships, which persist or disintegrate as con- ditions determine. Having accomplished the task of 150 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM destroying the economic fetters upon its development, the bourgeoisie becomes largely indifferent to the form of government, as long as scope is allowed its economic development; questions of the form of gov- ernment become means of expression for rival bour- geois group interests, issues in the immature struggles of the workers, and in older nations means of intrigue for the remnants of the feudal nobility. Fear of the proletariat, competition between nations, struggles of various groups within the ruling class itself, all these and other circumstances incline the bourgeoisie toward "strong" government, leaving a merely senti- mental and theoretical feeling for general liberal principles. A compromise is struck in constitutional monarchy or an oligarchical republic. In this pro- cess of developing the nation, bourgeois revolutions and liberal ideas are an incidence. When the bour- geoisie has completed the industrial revolution and established its supremacy, it discards liberal ideas and retains only that irreducible minimum necessary for social control. The minimum varies as historical re- quirements vary; but bourgeois democracy persists, until the era of Imperialism establishes a new autoc- racy, comparable in its fundamentals, if not in its forms, to the absolute monarchy. In nations which completed their national bourgeois revolution sufficiently prior to the era of modern Im- perialism to allow their democratic ideas scope for ascendancy, the reaction against liberal ideas was only CLASS AND NATION 151 partially successful. But in nations which completed their national revolution almost simultaneously with the advent of Imperialism, or which emerged into the modern era of Capitalism without such a revolution, democracy in government never established itself. Germany is the classic type of this development, with Japan a remarkably close parallel. The bourgeois revolution in Germany in 1848 was crushed by the cowardly hesitancy and treason of the middle class, the revolution being uncompromisingly adhered to only by the developing proletariat. National unity was achieved not as a revolt against the feudal class, but in a compromise with the feudal class of junkers. Bourgeois democracy did not materialize, and was lost. The industrial revolution strengthened, instead of weakening, the monarchical power. But the reac- tion against democracy might have proven temporary, as in previous periods, (the forces of "democracy" grew steadily, a whole movement, the Social Democ- racy, being devoted almost solely to the task of com- pleting the bourgeois revolution,) had not a new set of circumstances intervened which, instead of finding an expression in the overthrow of autocracy, found its interests in the perpetuation of autocracy, the advent of Imperialism. Germany was united in 1871, and a decade later its imperialistic era began; and this let loose all those reactionary tendencies which lead to a capitalist revival of autocracy in one form or another. Where "democratic" nations had to create a 152 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM new autocracy, Germany simply adapted its prevail- ing autocracy to the new conditions. Imperialism assumes objectively the form of a struggle for the control of territory rich in natural resources and capable of being industrially revolu- tionized by an industrial nation undertaking the work of "development." Capitalism in the imperialistic era turns in on itself and in a certain way reproduces the period of its youth, when it struggled for a similar territorial objective, with this difference, however: that where the former struggle created the nation, the contemporary struggle negates the nation. 2 This pro- cess carries with it an accessory fact: as the earlier struggles of Capitalism produced war and absolute monarchy, so today Imperialism not only produces war, but a tendency toward "strong" government, autocracy disguised under a variety of political forms. There is an assumption among some Socialists that, while the nation is the particular creation and form of expression of the bourgeoisie, the nation is just as necessary as the class, that it is a separate factor, and that the struggles of nation against nation as such function as dynamically as class struggles. History 2 The negation of the nation is not peculiar to German Imperialism : it is an attribute of all Imperialism. An Italian imperialist declaims as follows : "It remains for us to conquer. It is said that all the other territories are 'occupied.' But there have never been any territories res nullius. Strong nations, or nation* on the path of progress, conquer nations in decadence." British domination in Egypt was established at a period when Egypt was on the verge of a national revival, and the British bave ruthlessly suppressed national aspirations and unity, as they have in India. Turkey has the necessary materials for becoming ' a strong modern nation ; but the Great Powers have consciously and brutally kept it in a state of decadence, all because of imperialistic interests. This is the identical policy being pursued in China. CLASS AND NATION 153 refutes the assumption: national struggles are a form of expression of the class struggle. The historical generalizations concerning this prob- lem may be summarized as follows: 1. The nation is the expression of a particular social and economic system and the class representing that system, historically, the era of competitive Capitalism and the bourgeoisie. 2. The course of a nation is determined by the development of the economics of its social system and ruling class. 3. Competing nations represent competing social- economic systems and ruling class interests. 4. The hegemony of a nation at any particular epoch represents the hegemony of the most highly developed social system, consequently most powerful ruling class. 5. The struggle between nations national strug- gles are an expression of a struggle between rival ruling classes using the nation in waging their dis- putes. 6. In the era of Imperialism, these struggles be- tween nations become active aspects of the class strug- gle against the proletariat, as "national" imperialis- tic wars have a general tendency to increase and in- tensify the exploitation of the proletariat and break up the proletarian movement by strengthening the class position of the capitalist. The ultimate objective of Imperialism is world power, and this power is to 154 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM exploit more intensively the proletariat. While, ac- cordingly, Imperialism and imperialistic wars are struggles of bourgeoisie against bourgeoisie, they are simultaneously and more fundamentally a single struggle against the proletariat. These are the generalizations; the practice is not as concrete. Social progress is uneven ; nations do not develop simultaneously, although their development is along essentially parallel lines; remnants of the pre- ceding social system persist into the new and affect events; a ruling class often disputes supremacy with, its predecessor or potential successor, and is itself often divided into warring groups; nor is Capitalism static, its various stages of development being a dis- tinct factor and affecting the course of events. Then, again, the nation, a product of historic factors, be- comes itself an historic factor, and at times must be considered as a distinct category. But all the historic factors are synthesized in the dominance of class and the struggle of class against class, and are fundament- ally determined by the process of the class struggle. The series of bloody wars which signalized the ad- vent of the bourgeoisie and the nation-state was essen- tially the expression of the class interests of the bour- geoisie in conflict with Feudalism. The struggles of many years between France and England, marked by the battles of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, were fundamentally a class struggle in the form of war between the rising bourgeoisie of England struggling CLASS AND NATION 155 for territorial conquest and markets, and the Feudal- ism of France, the triumph of the English yeomanry over the flower of the French nobility is symbolical of the character of the wars. It is true that England and France at this period had much in common, his- torically, both being at the era of territorial consolida- tion, politically a distinguishing feature of the forma- tion of the nation. But England was much more ad- vanced than France economically, its bourgeoisie hav- ing acquired a larger share of power, the commercial interests stronger; while in France Feudalism was still largely unshaken by the bourgeoisie. The flourishing manufacturing interests of England were encouraged and protected by the government, and the extensive trade in wool with the manufacturing towns of Flan- ders was a direct cause of the wars. Undoubtedly, these wars were not purely capitalist wars, feudal interests being involved; but what distinguishes them from previous wars and gives them their distinctive historic character was the emergence of bourgeois interests. The national struggles of the era of the Reformation were another expression of the interests of the class struggle of the bourgeoisie. The Refor- mation was a revolt against the "universal empire" of Rome and a factor in the development of the nation, a product of the national impulses of the oncoming bourgeois social system ; the wars it let loose were na- tional wars waged to destroy the moral, political and economic system of Feudalism as synthesized in the 156 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM Papacy: they were wars that promoted bourgeois class interests in the process of securing social supremacy. The wars of the French Revolution offer the finest illustration of the essentially class character of the nation and its wars. These wars were an extension and continuation of the struggle waged by the bour- geoisie within France against the absolute monarchy and Feudalism. The revolution that overthrew the monarchy and its remaining feudal relations struck a terrific blow at monarchy and Feudalism throughout Europe. Clearly and absolutely, the national strug- gles that followed were determined by class interests the class interests of the bourgeoisie, incarnated in France, in conflict with the class interests of Feudal- ism, incarnated in monarchical Europe. The class struggle waged by the bourgeoisie in France by means of revolution was converted into an international class struggle waged by means of war. The revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were the death-grapple of two social-economic systems struggling for supremacy. 3 The class struggle is a struggle between a dominant economic system and its ruling class, and a rising 3 The supremacy of Napoleon and the national uprisings that finally accom- plished his overthrow, do not alter this interpretation. Under Napoleon the struggle gradually assumed a new form: the class interests and national interests of the European bourgeoisie, which the Napoleonic wars had stirred into life by riding rough-shod over feudal institutions, fought against the plans of France to establish an hegemony in Europe and subordinate other nations to its interests. The very factor that under-lay the Napoleonic epoch, the destruction of feudal relations wherever the French armies conquered, at the same time developed the force that overthrew Napoleon the more definite emergence of the nation and its bourgeois character. At this stage, the struggle was essentially between rival groups of the same ruling class in different nations: the struggle between England and Napoleon was of this character, England participating in the wars against Napoleon not to conserve monarchy in Europe, but to protect its indus- trial and commercial supremacy. CLASS AND NATION 157 economic system and its class representative. The national struggles cited were of this character, struggles between Feudalism and Capitalism, each seeking control, a struggle, moreover, which was pro- ceeding equally within the states representing feudal interests. But once all states become bourgeois na- tions, the national struggles become struggles of the same ruling class for international supremacy, na- tional bourgeoisie against national bourgeoisie, as in the great clash between Napoleonic France and Eng- land. This struggle between bourgeois nations waged in the form of war is as much an aspect of the class struggle as the struggles between groups of the ruling class within a nation. This is particularly so in the struggles of Imperialism. An important phase of Capitalism is the expropria- tion of the capitalist by the capitalist. In national economics this expropriation proceeds by means of concentration of industry and centralization of capi- tal. But Capitalism reaches a point where, along with other factors, this process of expropriation develops into a higher form. Expropriation and concentration along national lines become insufficient; big capital and small capital compromise through monopoly and State Capitalism; and instead of the expro- priation of the individual capitalist within the nation there comes the struggle to expropriate the capitalist class of another nation by means of diplomatic pres- sure, Imperialism and war. The process of expro- 158 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM priation assumes a new aspect: it becomes dominantly international, instead of national. The national struggles of Imperialism, accordingly, are struggles of class against class, of bourgeoisie against bourgeoisie for the robbery and mastery of the world. But these struggles are equally and more dynamic- ally aspects of the proletarian class struggle, impos- ing the neccesity of an uncompromising war of the proletariat against Imperialism and the imperialistic nation. The struggle of nation against nation con- verts itself into a struggle of proletariat against bour- geoisie, in which the relative class power decides the issue. A victorious imperialistic nation strengthens its class power not only against a rival bourgeoisie, but as against its own proletariat and the proletariat in the countries it has acquired for "development." The "penetration" of capital in new territory subjects new peoples, a new proletariat, to the rule of capital, to the system of capitalist exploitation; and the significance of this new system is not simply in added numbers of exploitable workers, but in an increase of power of the capitalist, an altering of the relations of class power in the older capitalist countries to the disadvantage of the proletariat. It is quite obvious that a general imperialistic war oppresses the prole- tariat; but this general war was prepared by a series of minor, colonial wars, by years of imperialistic ex- ploitation, during a period when the workers of capi- CLASS AND NATION 159 talistic nations tolerated the subjection of colonial peoples because of a smug and illusory sense of accruing "prosperity." The general capitalist ten- dency is to impose the rule of capital over the whole world; the ultimate stake of Imperialism is world power, and this power depends upon the subjection and exploitation of the proletariat, furthering and in- tensifying this subjection and exploitation. A general imperialistic war is fundamentally, accordingly, a phase of the class struggle waged by the capitalist class against the workers of the world. In two senses, then, are national struggles today class struggles: they are, incidentally, struggles of bourgeois class against bourgeois class for world su- premacy; and they are, fundamentally, struggles for the subjection of the proletariat. As an expression of the bourgeoisie, the nation must conform to the requirements of bourgeois supremacy. Imperialism is a revolt against the national fetters placed upon the development of the productive forces. Capitalism has developed a world economy, the parts of which are dependent each upon the other. The world is agonizing in the contradiction of a world economy which national states are trying to bend to their purposes to promote the profits of the national bourgeoisie. The only method conceivable to Capi- talism is Imperialism, the extension of the limits of the nation by fire and sword and the annexation of as much new territory as possible within a particular 160 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM nation. But when this is done, the nation ceases as a nation, and a political monstrosity takes its place. The great, the overwhelming fact is that the nation has out-lived its usefulness, that it is now decrepit as an economic and political entity. The bourgeoisie itself is in revolt against the nation, its own particular pro- duct: and against international Imperialism the prole- tariat must oppose international Socialism. Imperialism fundamentally excludes the demo- cratic federation of nations. The increasing volume of surplus-values develops the capitalist necessity of rivalry and destruction. Imperialistic Capitalism is compelled to discover new means of waste, of destruc- tion, it must throw the world into continual and in- creasingly gigantic struggles to perpetuate itself. Capitalism has generated the forces of international- ity; it remains for Socialism, however, to effectively organize the forces into a world-state through prole- tarian communism. It is inconceivable that Capital- ism should produce an actual unity of nations, which would have to include those nations and territory that are objectives of Imperialism, and pre-suppose the dissolution of the nation in its present bourgeois form and the abandonment of national-imperialistic inter- ests, and that, clearly, means the end of capitalist domination. Identically as with parliamentary gov- ernment, the nation is the particular form of expres- sion of Capitalism. Capitalism finds its essential ex- pression in the nation and parliamentary government; CLASS AND NATION 161 the proletariat in the world-state and industrial gov- ernment. The nation, or nationality, will remain as a cul- tural, ideological and psychological fact; its economic and political necessity has passed away. And it is this cultural and psychological fact that confuses the problem of the nation in the eyes of many. The So- cialist does not deny that the nation has performed a cultural mission, but as a phase of the general pro- cess of human development. Whatever of cultural value may inhere in the nation, or nationality, will persist under Socialism, just as the proletarian revolu- tion, in annihilating Capitalism, does not annihilate that which is of value in Capitalism. Socialism is the cultural heir of the ages. At the present moment, however, the greatest menace to these cultural con- tributions lies in the perpetuation of the nation in its bourgeois, imperialistic form, symbol of a decrepit industrial and social system. In the coming decisive struggles against Capitalism, revolutionary Socialism recognizes and emphasizes that the class struggle determines all our action that the national ideology is a fetter upon the emancipation of the proletariat and that the Social Revolution is international in scope and purpose. X PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM. IMPERIALISTIC State Capitalism emphasizes the fact of the state, of government, being an economic agency of the ruling class. State and capitalist industry, government and ruling class, become one and in- divisible. This was not completely the case in the era of competitive Capitalism. The influence of per- sisting feudal remnants and bourgeois class immatur- ity, compelled the state to adopt a policy, so to say, of maintaining the "balance of power" between rival groups of the ruling class itself, a state of things deter- mining the earlier manifestations of the workers' struggles; and precisely because of these divisions the state was occasionally in the position of asserting its supremacy as against the diversity of ruling class interests. Today, the conditions of Imperialism have created a bloc of ruling class interests, an amalgam of Capitalism that functions through the state and which makes the state completely and consciously the agency of dominant Capitalism and the groups it has forced into its service. State Capitalism, accordingly, 162 PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 163 is not an abandonment of Capitalism: it is a strength- ening of Capitalism Capitalism at the climax of its development. The larger part of Socialist propaganda and prac- tice in the past have been making for State Capitalism, often euphoniously and misleadingly designated as State Socialism. Whenever the state nationalized an industry, whenever the state imposed its control over industry, the Socialist majority naively accepted this as an abandonment of Capitalism, as a symptom of the growing importance of Socialism and the trans- formation of Capitalism into Socialism. Simple souls! What was passing was not Capitalism, but the competitive laissez faire era of Capitalism; what came was not Socialism nor an "installment" of So- cialism, but imperialistic State Capitalism, the most brutal and typical expression of capitalist power and supremacy. Socialist propaganda, including largely Socialist thought, did not adapt itself to the develop- ment of Capitalism, did not adapt itself to the new conditions and requirements arising out of this de- velopment. Socialism is not state ownership or man- agement of industry, but the opposite: Socialism an- nihilates the state. Not even should Socialism con- quer the state and maintain itself, proceeding to nationalize industry, would that be Socialism: when Socialism conquers, its first act is to abolish the state, its parliamentary regime and forms of activity. So- cialism, it must be emphasized, annihilates the state; 164 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM industry is not transformed into the state, but state and industry, as now constituted, are transformed into proletarian communism, functioning industrially and socially through new administrative norms of the or- ganized producers, and not through the state. 1 Revolutionary Socialism rejects the bourgeois policy of state ownership, rejects State Capitalism as a phase of Socialism, and insists upon proletarian management through industrial communism. The conditions of State Capitalism emphasize this revolutionary policy; the antagonism between state and Socialism is intensified, compelling the separa- tion of Socialism from an industrial policy of the imperialistic state, and in this sense directly promotes the revolution. State Capitalism is not Socialism and never can become Socialism. It may promote the coming of Socialism, but only indirectly through intensifying the antagonism of the proletariat toward the bourgeois state, and by compelling Socialism to adopt a policy of industrial communism. The "nationalization" of industry is a Socialist measure, a measure making for 1 The growth of state ownership in Europe and the complete lack of any developing Socialism, compelled a pondering of the problem. In a lecture on "Socialism versus the State," (reprinted in the New Review, August, 1914) Emile Vandervelde, prominent opportunist and now a social-patriot, said: "We see, with Guesde, as with Marx and Engels, that there is ~c> confusion possible between Socialism and state ownership. They will have nothing to do with the capitalist state, except to fight it. If they wish to master it, it is only that they may abolish it. At most, they would use it during a transitory period of working class dictator- ship." The latter statement is urtrue; Marx recognized, and the proletarian revolu- tion in Russia confirms the fact, that the proletariat cannot seize hold of the bourgeois state and use it for purposes of the revolution ; the state is destroyed, and the dictatorship of the proletariat functions through a new "state," as in the Soviets, which is simply the organized workers and peasants, and no other class in society. PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 165 Socialism, only when introduced as a temporary meas- ure of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the first act of which is to lay a dictatorial hand upon the forces of production in the process of crushing the old regime and introducing the communist system of Socialism. State Capitalism makes for Socialism in this sense, as with Imperialism, that it climaxes the development of Capitalism and broadens and deepens class an- tagonisms; but as Imperialism must necessarily be struggled against for its overthrow, so State Capital- ism is a factor in the coming of Socialism by arousing a new and more intense struggle against the whole of bourgeois society. The institutional developments of Capitalism do not bring, they never can bring, So- cialism; they function in the process simply as they develop the proletarian struggle against these institu- tions and all institutions of capitalist society. State Capitalism is not Socialism and never can become So- cialism precisely because it is a state proposition; Socialism is determined in a struggle to annihilate the state as a necessary instrument of revolution and as a means of developing the new communist society which negates the "state" in the bourgeois sense. State Capitalism accentuates and sharpens class divisions, by arraying against the industrial prole- tariat all other class groups merged and expressed in the new state. As against the general reactionary mass of ruling class interests, the proletariat stands as a class thrown by the very conditions of its existence 166 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM against the unified capitalist regime. State Capitalism regulates and directs capital and labor; it seeks to realize the Utopia of peace between the classes, of the abolition, or at least suspension, of the class struggle. 2 This regulation may, in a measure, prove onerous to the capitalist, but is accepted as the necessary condi- tion for the progressive promotion of his interests; it proves in large measure onerous to the proletariat, and as it cannot be merged in State Capitalism the proletariat is driven to revolt against the state and Capitalism as unified in the new scheme of things. The policy of revolutionary Socialism is neither to oppose nor to advocate the coming of State Capitalism. Either policy would be futile, and reactionary. State Capitalism is a fact and Socialism must adjust itself to the fact. Socialism organizes the aggressive struggle against State Capitalism as the synthetic expression of the whole capitalist regime. The problem of revolu- tionary Socialism is to develop the consciousness and class power of the proletariat, to throw the proletariat against Capitalism in struggle after struggle deter- mined by the immediate and ultimate requirements of revolutionary action. The antagonism between State Capitalism and Socialism is emphasized by sharply distinguishing between the two and by the action of 2 President Wilson, during the early days of his first administration, used the phrase, "The Constitution of Peace," as covering a policy of class harmony. The harmony did not materialize; it was during this administration that the bloody struggles occurred at Ludlow, the Mesaba Range, and Passaic through strikes crushed ruhlessly by armed force. Moreover, not even the President's declarations against Big Capital were put into practice; the administration was compelled to accept the fact of the dominance of Big Capital, the basic factor in any program of State Capitalism. PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 167 the proletariat itself. The policy of State Capitalism of regulating labor, and in this way to prevent if not actually prohibit strikes, rouses the action of the work- ers; a strike under these conditions becomes a strike directed against the state; a strike, accordingly, be- comes a class act of political importance. More and more it becomes clear that strikes are not simply di- rected against the employer or against the state, but against the unified capitalist regime as organized in State Capitalism, and that it is this regime against which the struggle must be consciously directed. The process of state regulation is met by the Socialist pro- cess of arousing in the proletariat the consciousness of its control of industry. The proletariat sets itself against the state, the state against the proletariat; the struggle becomes more intense and general, the an- tagonisms more acute and irreconcilable. As the state imposes its control over industry, the proletariat challenges that control, contests the authority and force of the state, and itself gradually acquires the power of control over industry. The challenge under the impulse of events develops into the Social Revolu- tion. The Social Revolution becomes a fact when the proletariat has acquired sufficient consciousness of its control over industry to establish that control in prac- tice. The proletariat, accordingly, develops a state within the state, develops the norms of the future So- cialist society within the structure of Capitalism. The 168 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM central factor in this is the industrial organization of the proletariat, partly actual through industrial unions, partly ideological through the conception of the necessity of overthrowing the state and substitut- ing for it a society of communistically organized pro- ducers, the proletariat functioning in industry and becoming aware of its strategic power. 3 It is this proletarian control, organized and unorganized, that constitutes equally the force for the overthrow of State Capitalism and its social system, and the basis of the Socialist society of the future. A lure that will be offered the workers is the struggle to "democratize" State Capitalism through Socialist parliamentary activity. This constitutes in a new form the old conception of "growing into" So- cialism, transforming State Capitalism into Social- ism by "democratizing" the government, placing it in the hands of "the people." This policy is equally condemnable as strategy and tactics, as strategy, it dispenses with the necessity of overthrowing the state as an indispensable phase of the Social Revolution ; as tactics, it strengthens the state and weakens the prole- 3 Capitalism is the la.st expression of Class Rule. The economic foundation of Class Rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production. The Social structure, or garb, of Class Rule is the political State that social structure in which Government is an organ separate and apart from production, with no vital function other than the maintenance of the supremacy of the ruling class. The overthrow of Class Rule means the overthrow of the political State, and its substitution with the Industrial Social Ordcr.under which the necessaries for production are collectively owned and operated by and for all the people. . . . Industrial Unionism is clear upon the goal the substitution of the political State with the Industrial Government. . . . While Class Rule casts the nation, and, with the nation, its government, in the mold of territory, Industrial Unionism casts the nation in the mold of useful occupations, and transforms the nation'* government into the representations from these. . . . Industrial Unionism is the Socialist Republic in the making; and the goal once reached, the Industrial Union is the Socialist Republic in operation. Daniel De Leon, Industrial Unionism. PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 169 tariat by obscuring the fact that its power resides in control of the industrial process. Moreover, State Capitalism is fundamentally and necessarily undemo- cratic ; it cannot be democratized, it must be abolished by the proletarian revolution. The coming of Social- ism is a process of violent and implacable struggles, not a dress parade of amicable transformation. The concept of "transformation" in practise doesn't trans- form Capitalism, it transforms the proletarian move- ment into a caricature of Socialism and a prop of Capitalism. The proletariat is concerned, not in- directly with the forms of administration of State Capitalism, but directly in developing its forces for the immediate struggle against and the ultimate over- throw of State Capitalism. Socialism is not a struggle for democracy; it is a struggle for proletarian power. The only democracy compatible with the requirements of the proletariat is the democracy of communist So- cialism, a democracy arising out of the total destruc- tion of bourgeois democracy. The only immediate democracy that concerns the proletariat is the democ- racy of its dynamic struggles, the democracy of its own industrial unions and mass action. Revolutionary Socialism rejects "co-operation" with the capitalist, in industry as in politics. One phase of State Capitalism is the policy of trying to maintain industrial peace, and this is attempted al- ternately by coercion and cajolery. One means of cajolery is an arrangement by which the workers may 170 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM "co-operate" with the employers in the consideration of matters affecting a particular industry or factory. 4 The state tries to compel this co-operation, making it an impliedly compulsory affair, and it becomes the function of the government to bring the workers under the sway of the capitalist in ways that strike at the independent action of the proletariat. Autocracy in government is supplemented by a sham democracy in industry, by apparently giving the workers a share in the regulation of their conditions, but which ac- tually is an illusion, as the power of the employers sets it at naught. The purpose is to run the militant spirit of the workers into the ground, to disorganize their independent action. A development of this character is the proposal, recently adopted by the British government, for the 4. Scheme after scheme is being tried by the capitalist class to insure a satisfied and subject class of workers. Profit-sharing, welfare work, and other schemes having proven miserable failures, and democracy novr being the slogan of the day, "industrial democracy" is being used instead. As political democracy is simply a form of authority of the bourgeoisie over the workers, so this "industrial democracy" perpetuates the authority of the employers over the workers. This "industrial democracy" assumes the grandiloquent iorm of a "republic of labor." And, peculiarly, this "republic" is being introduced by the Rockefeller interests, which ruthlessly refuse to tolerate unionism or any independent action of the workers. The "republic" will be introduced in the plants of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey on April 1. It means that the workers will select, by secret ballot, a committee of their own number "who will treat with the directors of the company in all matters concerning health, conditions, wages and situation of labor." The New York Mail says: "While in the last analysis the plan fails to give the men real control over their own working conditions, it has been tried in Colorado with success and has given the men there a practical labor government, maintained by themselves." And: "In Colorado, once the scene of labor troubles of magnitude, the Standard Oil Companies have found the new plan has assured a co-operation which has almost automatically ended serious disputes." The "repub- lic of labor" leaves the workers a disorganized mass, wasting their energy in the election of committees and making recommendations which the directors don't have to accept. It cannot and will not end the struggle between labor and capital. At the best, it will simply increase the privileges of a small group of skilled workers as against the great mass of the unskilled. The only republic of labor that the proletariat will consider is an industrial communism organized and managed through the industrially organized producers, functioning in a new Socialist state that will supplant the bourgeois political state. Louis C. Fraina, "The Republic of Labor," The New International, April, 1918. PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 171 formation of National Industrial Councils, to be es- tablished in each industry by the government and which are to consist of employers and employees, act- ing under the control of the state. This is an attempt at general and definite "class co-operation" which would inevitably react against the proletariat. More- over, it is in a measure prompted by the hope that through this means British capital may cajole labor to accept lower wages after the war on the plea that it is necessary to meet the new competition. These councils would be dominated by the capitalist inter- ests, as against the workers would be arrayed state and employers and their joint power; they would strengthen the reactionary influence of the bureaucracy within the craft unions, and as a matter of fact many British union officials are enthusiastic about the pro- posal, while there is considerable opposition develop- ing among the workers and the more radical unions. Finally, such industrial councils would obviously and dominantly be used by the skilled minority against the unskilled workers, and this is undoubtedly one of the driving purposes behind the proposal. In its attitude toward the workers, State Capitalism adopts and emphasizes the policy of "divide and conquer." All proposals for a sham industrial democracy are useless and dangerous; they are schemes directed at the independence and action of the proletariat, aim- ing to subordinate the proletarian to the capitalist. They foster the illusion of a measure of industrial 172 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM democracy under Capitalism granted by grace of the capitalist: the only measure of industrial democ- racy that the proletariat can secure under Capitalism must be conquered by itself, maintained and extended through its industrial unions, strikes and general mass action, which impose its will upon employer and gov- ernment. The revolutionary proletariat, accordingly, rejects equally the lure of "democratizing" the government of State Capitalism and the lure of a "share" in the regulation of labor conditions through the fraudulent pretense of "industrial democracy." The proletariat uses all its action, industrial and parliamentary, to develop its class power and strike at State Capitalism, and to secure an immediately partial and ultimately complete control of industry. State Capitalism emphasizes the fact that Capital- ism is not transformed into Socialism by the develop- ment of bourgeois institutions, but by the develop- ment of proletarian consciousness and class power out of which arise the norms of the institutions of the oncoming communist society. It is only because the meaning of political action has been misunderstood or disguised by petty bour- geois Socialism that its function is conceived as being the "democratizing" of State Capitalism into Social- ism. Political action, in the Marxian sense, is the general revolutionary action of the proletariat. An industrial revolt, a mass strike, are as much a politi- PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 173 cal act as participation in the parliamentary activity of the state. There is no more complete proof of the petty bourgeois character of the dominant Socialism than its narrow interpretation and practice of politi- cal action. 5 In the actual practice of the Socialist movement, political action has become a dead and deadening parliamentarism, the "parliamentary idiocy" bitterly satirized by Marx, "that fetters those whom it infects to an imaginary world, and robs them of all sense, all remembrance, all understanding of the rude outside world." Parliamentarism is simply one phase of political action; political action is a process which, in the revolutionary sense and as a factor in the overthrow of Capitalism, is and includes all forms of militant class action of the proletariat. Socialist political action is a process of revolution; it is in this sense that "all class struggles are political struggles," political in the sense that the class strug- gle is directed against the existing social system and its governmental expression. The conquest of politi- cal power is not the parliamentary penetration of the state, but the developing class power of the pro- letariat that yields it social supremacy. Parliamen- tarism is a phase, and not at all a dominant phase, of revolutionary political action; it is utterly reac- 5 The climax of this emasculation of Socialist political action was reached at the Indianapolis convention of the Socialist Party, which, in the notorious Section 6, Article II, defined political action as "participation in elections for public office and practical legislative and administrative work along the lines of the Socialist Party platform." This utterly reactionary and unscientific measure was repealed at the St. Louis Convention in 1917, but the practice and policy it defines have not yet in practice been completely repealed. 174 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM tionary when it separates itself, as it has done, from the general action of the proletariat, when it seeks to dominate, instead of being dominated by, the gen- eral struggles of the workers. Under the conditions of State Capitalism, parliamentarism alone and of itself becomes even more incomplete than in the past, because State Capitalism carries with it the collapse of parliaments as a real governing force. The trend of recent years emphasizes the fact of parliamentary impotence, and State Capitalism strengthens this trend. As government more and more adapts itself to the requirements of regulation of industry, the parliament breaks down in trying to cope with the new problems. The constituent and geographical basis of parliamentary government dis- qualifies it from performing industrial functions. The complexity of forces expressed in State Capital- ism, independent of the necessity of a centralized autocracy in the struggles of Imperialism, renders par- liamentary control futile and demoralizing. 6 The powers of the state centralize in the administration, while formally they may remain legislative. The regulation of industry becoming the dominant func- tion of the state, experts and extra-parliamentary 6 Our governmental machinery city, state and national is not geared to deal with serious economic problems. It breaks down when a demand is made on it for aid in regulating big economic forces. It does not know how to compel economic and social efficiency. New York Tribune, February 25, 1917. Moreover, the arch-Imperialist London Times recently proposed, as an after-the-war measure, the reconstruction of the House of Commons, favoring the abolition of political representation based on geographical divisions, and insisting upon elections by trades, industries and occupations. Of course, such a reconstruction would proceed on a capitalistic basis. PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 175 commissions are put in charge of this function of regulation, responsible to the administrative power, and not to the parliament. Parliaments may talk, but they do not act; they have no real control over events and the functions of government, becoming convenient forms for maintaining the illusion of democracy. This tendency toward an administrative autocracy is strengthened by the belligerent character of Imperialism, but fundamentally it is an expression of the industrial facts of State Capitalism, and neces- sary even if military considerations were excluded. The capitalist state must not be strengthened but weakened by Socialist parliamentary criticism and action; the state must be undermined and dragged down by the developing class power and struggles of the proletariat by all the general means of action at its disposal. Parliamentarism showed itself utterly futile in the European crisis, except in the revolutionary criticism of a few rebels such as Liebnecht, Ruhle, and Mor- gari. The supreme utility attached to parliamentar- ism was a strong factor in destroying the morale and taming the fighting energy of Socialism. Even had the Socialists had the will to organize actual opposi- tion to the war, what could they have done? Parlia- ment had no real control over events ; all the Socialist parliamentarians could have done was to vote against the war credits. The unions had no initiative, the par- liamentary movement having always played the domi- 176 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM nant role. A General Strike? But a General Strike implies a conscious and virile industrial proletariat and organization, aware of its power and accustomed to act without being subservient to a parliamentary- mad bureaucracy. The Social Democracy had al- ways conceived the unions as an auxiliary of minor importance, denying them any decisive function. Moreover, the dominant unions had become imperial- istic. The actual sources of power were centralized in an administrative autocracy, and only revolution- ary mass action could have undermined these pow- ers, that general mass action out of which revolu- tionary struggles arise, but which was bitterly op- posed by parliamentary, petty bourgeois Socialism. Parliamentarism may become an expression of pro- letarian class power: it can never become class power itself. As an expression of the general struggles of the proletariat, as a means of developing proletarian con- sciousness, as an integral phase of proletarian strug- gle as a whole, parliamentarism is necessary and of value. But it must relate itself to other forms of struggle ; it must abandon the policy of social-reform- ism. The revolutionary Socialist does not abandon the struggle for immediate demands to the opportuni- ist; on the contrary, the final and only answer to the misleading "immediate demands" of the oppor- tunist is for the revolutionary Socialist to concen- trate on immediate demands that imply an aggressive PROBLEMS OF STATE CAPITALISM 177 struggle against Capitalism and that are phases of the developing Social Revolution. The revolutionary proletariat and Socialism, ac- cordingly, organize against State Capitalism, against the bourgeois state and parliamentary government, preparing to substitute in their place an industrial, communist administration by and of the proletariat. XI UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION. THE working class, as every revolutionary class, passes through a process of material and ideological development, in which its purposes and tactics, de- termined by the prevailing historical conditions, are transformed and adapted to new circumstances as they arise. This development, roughly, consists of three phases: 1. Isolated economic action, through craft unions and sporadic strikes, with a gradual development of the idea of independent political action as a revolu- tionary means of struggle. 2. Political action, in its parliamentary sense, dominant in the proletarian class movement, becomes conservative and incompatible with the development of the proletariat, does not adapt itself to this devel- opment; and revolutionary movements arise, indus- trial in character, that repudiate all politics. 3. The third phase, the phase into which we are now emerging, adjusts itself to new circumstances and the increasing development of the proletariat, recog- 178 UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 179 nizing industrial and political action as synthetic/ factors in the general mass action of the proletariat^ as phases of the dynamic struggles of the new social* revolutionary era. The proletariat steps upon the stage of history as a revolutionary class. It was the still immature class of workers that saved the French Revolution, that established a bourgeois revolution in spite of the cowardly hesitancy and compromise of the bour- geoisie. In all subsequent revolutions in France and France is the classical exemplar of this period in the development of the proletariat the workers were a dynamic factor; they made the revolution, but they could not retain control because of the immaturity of their class development. The great struggle of the Paris Commune was the final heroic act of this period, and at the same time a projection of what was to come. In the historical sense, these revolts were not revolution but insurrections, revivals of the action of the bourgeois revolution and dominated largely by its ideology. With the downfall of the Commune and the collapse of the social-revolutionary First In- ternational, the workers enter upon a new period, the period of systematic, peaceful organization and strug- gle, along national and moderate lines, and not inter- national and revolutionary. The value of these early revolts lay in impressing the workers with a sense of their own class immaturity and driving out of their 180 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM consciousness the surviving ideology of the bourgeois revolution. The workers, when they organize against Capital- ism, organize into unions to carry on a struggle for more wages and better conditions of work generally. Largely because their skill is still an important factor, (and these early movements are dominantly move- ments of skilled labor), the workers win certain con- cessions. But because they are skilled workers, and equally because Capitalism has not yet integrated industry and the proletariat, these movements do not assume revolutionary proportions, nor do they ac- tually conquer material concessions. The economic action is isolated; there is no general contact of the working class with the capitalist class, and the con- ception of a more general class struggle arises, de- veloping into politics and parliamentary activity. Through the action of politics, the workers oppose a general struggle to Capitalism, a struggle that can- not develop out of isolated economic action. At this period the concept of the workers engaging in inde- pendent class politics is revolutionary, as it develops the consciousness of class and establishes class contact with the ruling class. Socialism, with its program of class politics, offers the workers a class conceptipji^iigLjjlasZacdyityjyhial are_historicajly revolutionary. This development marks an epoch in the proletarian movement. It arouses, ideologically and potentially at least, the UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 181 workers' consciousness of class; and without this con- sciousness of class the proletariat is doomed either to futile insurrection or being an instrument for the promotion of rival bourgeois interests. Accordingly, Socialism develops along the lines of politics, in the parliamentary sense. But a means of action may be revolutionary or conservative ac- cording to historical conditions and requirements. At one period, a particular means may be revolution- ary; at another, considering new conditions which re- quire new or supplementary means of action, it may become conservative, even reactionary. This is pre- cisely what happens to Socialism in its parliamentary phase, which is its dominant phase. Where previous- ly Socialism developed the consciousness of class and potential revolution in the proletariat, within the limits of its maturity, it now becomes a force that hampers this development. Socialism in its early activity as a general organ- ized movement was^compeHed to emphasizeThe ac- tion of politics bec^use^^jhe_immaturity of thej>ro- , Ifitariat. The workers are scattered, and their strug- ;les are largely directed against the individual em- loyer; large scale industry has not developed suffi- ciently to make large masses of workers engage in a general industrial class struggle against Capitalism and the state. The workers, subjectively and objec- tively, find it difficult to establish general class con- tact with each other industrially; it could be, and 182 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM it was, done through political contact of isolated workers. Socialism, the dominant parliamentary Socialism, sees in the unions simply a transitory phase which may be necessary under given conditions, but which are unimportant in comparison with politics, as is mass action and extra-parliamentary action gen- erally. The unions are conceived as conservative instruments, as organizations that in fact retard the revolutionary development of the workers, which is true, in the period under consideration, but not as an ultimate proposition. Socialism makes ajfetish of politicsijiaijiamentarism^ is emphasized as the instrument withjwfaich the proletariat may emancipate itself. But that happens which differs from the ear- lier Socialist politics; under the impulse of the na- tional bias, social-reformism and an opportunism that refuses to adapt itself to new requirements, the parliamentary, as well as the general, activity of So- cialism becomes conservative, hesitant, compromis- ing. The dominant Socialism becomes a fetter upon the emancipation of the proletariat. 1 This result does not arise out of any one fact, but out of a series of facts, previously considered; the central fact is that Socialism did not adjust itself to the development of the proletariat, nor to the social- revolutionary era objectively introduced by Imper- ialism and the war; and this failure to adjust pur- 1 Just as the national states became an obstacle to the development of the forces of production, so the Socialist parties became the chief obstacle to the development of the revolutionary movements of the working class. Leon Trotzky, The War and the International. UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 183 poses and tactics to the new proletarian and social conditions conservatizes Socialism, turns it into a re- actionary force, temporarily, to be sure, but still reactionary. The concentration of industry and technological development generally have during the past twenty years revolutionized the material existence of the proletariat. On the one hand has been produced the typical proletarian~of~avttiaae unskilled labor;" on the other, the integration of industry in mammoth proportions has developed the conditions for general class action of the workers through inidustrial means directed against the capitalist, not as an individual but as a class, and against the whole bourgeois regime and its state. The proletariat has been centralized into large industrial groupings, and jtsrevolts~anJ ajtinnj^nnafrtiTte a gpnpfa] action against Capitalism, the tremors ofjivlTJrJT__arg_fff1l' throughout the whnle industrial and social system. This development, co- incident, it must be emphasized, with the rise of Im- perialism, arouses discontent and revolts in the craft unions, which are unable to cope with the new devel- opments, and in which the unskilled become a more and more influential factor. But even more signifi- cant are the great strikes involving large masses of unorganized unskilled workers, strikes that shake the very fabric of capitalist society, and the influence of which Stimulate revolutionary r.iirrpnts within thf> Sp- ciallsForganizations. Instead of recognizing the re- 184 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM volutionary vitality of these new developments, the dominant Socialism tries to compress and stultify them within the limits of the old tactics, tries to main- tain the ascendancy of a Socialism expressing the non-revolutionary elements of skilled labor and the petty bourgeoisie. In its struggles against Capital- ism and the dominant Socialism the unskilled indus- trial proletariat turns to mass action, a mass action that emphasizes the futility and reactionary character of pure and simple parliamentarism. 2 The reactionary character of the dominant Social- ism is expressed not simply in the failure to accept the new developments, but in the fact that it has fre- quently condemned and opposed manifestations of the new proletarian action, occassionally even ac- tively betrayed the unskilled proletariat while it was in the midst of gigantic struggles against Capital- ism. The dominant Socialism maintains its influence be- cause of prestige, the conservatism of organization, and the insufficiently developed consciousness of the unskilled proletariat; but it is gradually undermined by industrial development and its new requirements. The industrial proletariat is "organized by the very mechanism of capitalist production itself;" industry becomes co-ordinated, integrated, and the strikes of 2 "The caute of the new tactical differences," says Anton Pannekoek, "arise* from the fact that under the influence of the modern form of capitalism the labor movement lias taken on a new form of action, to wit, mass action ;" and in criticizing Kaustky, to whom the new tactics appear as anarchistic, Pannekoek says, "for Kaustky mass action is an act of revolution, for us it is a process of revolution." UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 185 the unskilled workers assume revolutionary signifi- cance, antagonizing the dominant craft unions and pailiamentary^Sgcialism, and striking directly at Capitalism through the industrial source of capitalist .supremacy. While antagonisms between the bloc of skilled labor and the petite bourgeoisie as against the ipitalist class are softened, the antagonisms between le industrial proletariat and Capitalism are sharp- ened. Industrial struggles become more and more ;eneral, larger in scope and intensity; a new epoch of class war emerges, rpilpnflpiss in spirit sive in purpose, a class war having as its driving orce the mass action of the industrial proletariat of average labor. The new conditions of proletarian struggle develop new conceptions and organization, or ideas of organ- ization. The facts of industrial concentration, the decreasing importancejjf skilled labor, the massing of industrial control in a centralized capitalist autoc- racy, gender more and more futile the_economic struggles ofjhe craft unions, ly in industrial andjxdjtical bargaining. But^a new and militant force arises in the unions, composed of the unskilled and those whose skill has been expropri- ----- * * ated by the machine process; revolutionary_current8 develop, and the problem ofjndustrial unionism be- comes an issue. Industrial unionism, however, is in- compatible with the dominant forces in the craft unions; the unskilled are a minority, and industrial 186 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM unionism is turned into a compromise, a grotesque compromise in the form of "amalgamations." The concept of industrial unity and solidarity of action cannot break through the pride and prestige of craft and property; industrial unionism founders on the rocks of craft disputes and jurisdictional squabbles, which absorb so much of craft union activity. The craft unions are completly destroyed, as in the steel industry, or they become, largely, mere "job trusts" and instruments of peaceful bargaining and compro- mise with the employers, supplemented by betrayals of the unskilled. IndustriaHmioiusmJjejXMnes an expression of, and develops real strength and influence junong. the un- skilled workers, in whom common conditions jjQaJbo*; absence of craft distinctions and the discipline of ma- chine industry develop the necessjty_and potentiality nf_ tfrg "idiT g tria1 f^mLJiL organization. 3 The power of thisj3roletariat^ lies in its mass and numbers, in its lack of artificial distinctions of skill and craft. Being a product of the massing of workers in a particular industry, the unskilled strike en masse, .acLtbrough mass action; being united and disciplined by concen- . 3 In this country, the history of the Industrial Workers of the World proTes (conclusively that industrial unionism is a movement of the proletariat of unskilled labor. The convention that organized the I. W. W. in 1905 consisted of skilled /fend unskilled, but the skilled workers gradually deserted the organization; and the real history and significance of the I. W. W. has been precisely its expressing the developing consciousness and action of the unskilled workers. It is this circum- stance that made the I. W. W. a revolutionary portent in the labor movement. The non-recognition of this fact was largely responsible for the violent attacks made upon the I. W. W. as organized after 1908, by Daniel De Leon and the Socialist Labor Party; and this fact also is responsible for the antagonism and often open warfare between the I. W. W. and the dominant force* in the Socialist Party. UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 187 trated industry and its machine process, the unskilled proletariat organizes its unions industrially, in accord with the facts of industry, in accord with the condi- tions of its work and existence. Industrial unionism mjmmja an expression of the integrationjfjndustry and tTipj->rnTpffln'at hy tViP mechanism jof^capitalist productign_itgelf. fiomsm of the revolutionary proletariat. groups of workers in an industry are organized and unified into one union, "cast in the mold of the in- dustry in which ~they york, artinciflj rlrffiftrenr.^ of c^u^alioliaTdivisions_Jbeing swept aside. Strikes become general and acquire political significance, ac- e integrated i aiTintegrated prnl eta ri a t^ Where the craft unions initiated the strike of a single group of workers in an industry, the industrial j"*f *ft *njli|Kifig a g tnV p of all the workers. The ideology of solidarity be- Industrial unionism, as the expression of unskilled workers impelled by objective conditions to subjec- tively accept class action, acquires a revolutionary concept, consciousness and activity. Instead of the craft union motto of "A fair day's pay for a fail day's work," industrial unionism inscribes upon its banners the revolutionaray motto, "Abolition of the wages system." The ultimate purpose of industrial. unionism is the organization of all the workers in ac- co"rcf with the facts of production, constructing in this 188 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM Wjiy_thestructure of the new society within th a necessaryjjhase in the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of a new society which shall func- tion through the industrially organized producers. //NoTthe~state, but Aejndustrial union is the instru- ment of revolution, equally the might for the revolu- n tionary act and the norm of the new society. Indus^" trial unionism is noTslmpIy a means, a more effective means than any previously "^useoT, to carry on the every-day struggle against the employing class: it is~Socialism in action and Socialism in the making. 4 But the dominant conservative Socialism refuses to accept, it cannot accept unless transforming itself, the revolutionary implications of industrial union- ism. Organized Socialism persists in rendering stulti- fying homage to the fetish of parliamentarism. The general defects of parliamentarism are emphasized and multiplied by the conditions of State Capitalism and the developing requirements of the proletariat of average labor: it cannot express the requirements of this proletariat, nor can it successfully wage the struggle against State Capitalism, which means an in- tensification of class antagonisms and struggles and 4. Karl Kautsky. who usually sees clearly in theory but hesitate* and com- promise* miserably in practice, an attitude typical of the "centrist," said in an article in the International Socialist Review, April 1901: "The trades unions .... will constitute the most energetic factors in surmounting the present mode of pro- duction and they will be pillars on which the edifice of the Socialist commonwealth will be erected." This_ is a recognition of the revolutionary TH'**''"" of imtontlnT But the trades unions are not working for therevolution ; they are working for a place in the governing system of things, making for State Capitalism, and not So- cialism. Nor does the structure of the trades unions admit of their waging a revolu- tionary struggle against Capitalism or of assuming management of concentrated industry. UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 189 the development of an emerging proletarian state through industrial unions as against the state of im- perialistic State Capitalism. The new movements of the industrial proletariat engage in a struggle to rev- olutionize the dominant Socialism; the struggle fails and is relinquished, developing the idea that Social- ist politics as such are not and never can become rev- olutionary; the trend becomes one of severing re- lations with Socialism, and the revolutionary move- ments of the proletariat acquire an active or passive non-political bias. This development emphasizes the vital defects of the parliamentary policy of Social- ism. 5 This non-political policy is temporary, being the product of transitory conditions. As industrial un- ionism engages more and more in the general class fight against Capitalism, as parliamentary Socialism weakens under the pressure of revolutionary events, each in itself and even jointly are considered incom- plete, and the two means of action become merged in the general action of the proletariat, centralized, dominated and energized by revolutionary mass ac- tion. What are the limitations of industrial unionism and 5. Ti -conquest of political supremacy becomes a peaceful process, which BO far as the masses are concerned Consists only of propaganda and elections. It is the work Tfr tbc- Suulnl Democracy as a political party J~ other working clan organ- izations, even the labor unions, are unnecessary .... The defect of pure andtt simple parliamentarism lies in the fact that it considers the form of suffrage as H something absolute and independent. But precisely like the entire constitution the 1 suffrage is merely an expression of the actual relations of power in society .... 1 | The peaceful parliamentary conquest of power .... pre-supposes universal suffrage, \ and universal suffrage can simply be abolished by a parliament. Anton Pannekoek, M "Socialism and Labor Unionism," in The New Review, July 1913. 190 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM parliamentary action in their particularized activity? Parliamentary action in and of itself cannot real- thtTmilitant independence of the proletariat, mar- e tmian nepenence o e proeara, mar- hal its forces and organize its revolutionary action. arliamentary activity is an expression of the pro- etarian struggle, not the struggle itself; it is a form f expressio>n_Qj class power., but iyrt a fundamental factor in develojnngjhis class power. Parliamentar- ism in itselFcannot alter the actual bases of power in the class struggle, nor develop that force without which the aspirations of the Revolution are unreal- izable. All propaganda, all electoral and parliamen- tary activity are insufficient for the overthrow of CapT^ talism,impotent when the ultimate test of the class tin ifitn q tpst nf pwv~r The power for foe Social Revolution issues out of the actual strug- glesjjfjhe prolgtariatgjm^of its strikes, its industrial unions and mass action. The peaceful parliamentary conquest of the state is_either sheerjutopia or reac- tion; this conception forgets two important^hTng^: the actuaPpbwer of government resides in uidusjtry and in' an administrative autocracy, not in parlia- ments, and this power, must he overthrown by extra- parliamentary action ; while it is utterly inconceiv- able that revolutionary Socialism should ever secure power through an electoral majority under the forms of bourgeois democracy. ajJiamentarism_ is ac- tually counter-revolutionary, as it strengthens the fet- isITof democracy: bourgeois democracy must be an- UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 191 nihilated before the proletarian revolution may func- tion. The revolution is an act of a minority, at first; of the most class conscious section of the industrial proletariat, which, in a test of electoral strength, would be a minority, but which, being a solid, in- dustrially indispensable class, can disperse and de- feat all other classes through the annihilation of the fraudulent democracy of the parliamentary system implied in the dictatorship of the proletariat, imposed upon society by means of revolutionary mass action. State j^gpitalism, through it wefllcp.ning of parlia- mentary control _and. its jcentralized administrative autocracy^ emphasizes the^ insufficiency^ of parliamen- tarism. But yet the proletarian, movement cannot re- ject_pplitics. Paradoxical though it may appear, State Capitalism, while it emphasizes the futility of parlia- mentarism in and of itself, broadens the scope and necessity of politics. In unifying ruling class inter- ests and imposing a drastic regulation upon industry, State Capitalism makes the state a vital issue of the class struggle in its general aspects. More and more the state cj^e^^hsjelfjd^recdyjn industrial disputes: the~class struggle becomes intensely political. Politics is the field in which all issues of the class struggle are in action. It is not a single issue, but the totality oT issues arising out of the antagonisms of bourgeois so- ciety that the proletariat must struggle against. It is not through ownership of industry alone that the capi- talist maintains his rule; the simple fact of ownership 192 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM is itself maintained by a large number of means, a large number of issues, social, political, international, all of which are centralized in State Capitalism. The proletariat must interest itself in all these issues, engage in the parliamentary struggle through which capitalist society as a whole stands forth naked and unashamed. The parliamentary struggle, waged in a revolution- ary spirit and as a phase of the general action of the proletariat, issues a challenge -to. capitalist supremacy in every issue that comes up for discussion, the total- ity ofjssues which insures bourgeois supremacy. It js not through securing better wages and better con- jditions of labor that the proletariat conquers social '/power, but by weakening Capitalism in all the issues that maintain its ascendancy. Parliamentary action centers attention on all these issues^ if revolutionary, parliamentary action realizes the futility, however, of solvSgjhgge issues through politics Baloney and it therefore calls tojhe struggle the industrial and mass action oTtEe^proletariat in class politicalstrikes. This unity of means and action develops class consciousness and class power. By concentrating^]! all issues that are vital to Capitalism, revolutionary Socialist par- liamentarismejnphlisTzes and intensifies the antagon- ismlTBeTween proletariat and bourgeoisie, and in this sense awakens the consciousness and general action of the proletariat. At one momentjxxLitics developJnto industrial and mass action; at another moment, jliese UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 193 develop into jmlitics: thejwo are inseparable phases of the same dynamic process _of_d.ass i^ __ ^ dependent upon and developing the other. Socialist parliamentarism, accordingly, should not be an empty means of protest or a futile means of "democ- ratizing" the state and "growing into" Socialism, but a dynamic phase of proletarian action; and, recogniz- ing its limitations and utility, becomes a supreme method of developing revolutionary and class con-/ sciousness ideologically, which is transformed into class power by industrial and mass action. itself , and even if it recog- nizes and accepts the Socialist parliamentary struggle, has its own limitations. Industrial unionism, in its dogmatic expression, assumes a general organization oi^heproletariat before Socialism can be established, JLa .general industrial organization that may seize and operate industry. In terms of in- finity, it may be conceivable that some day, some how, toe majority of the proletariat, or an overwhelm- ing minority, may become organized into industrial unions under Capitalism. In terms of actual practice, this is inconceivable. The_proletariat of unskilled labor, which alone may accept industrial unionism, JFlTcTass difficultjo organize; its conditions of labor discourage or^mzatipji^ndjnake it move and act under themipulse of mass action. The conditions of Capitalism, its violent upheavals and stress of strug- gle, exclude the probability of an all-inclusive pro- 194 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM letarian organization; moreover, should we hestitate to act until this general organization materializes, 6 Capitalism may turn in on itself and establish a new form of slavery. In its_dogmatic expression, indus- trial unionism has much in common with the parlia- mentary Socialist conception of the_j3ejicj;fulJi!grow- ing into" Socialism; it evades the dynamic problems of ffieTlevolution, siibstitutmgJh A m : y~^ nr reality and formula for action. It is fantastic as a general prop- osition, it is particularly fantastic considering the period of violent upheavals and struggle into which the world is now emerging, to consider that the prole- tariat under Capitalism can through industrialism or- ganize the structure of the new society. The structure ,of industrialism, the form of thejiew communist so- ciety, can be organized only during the transition period fromljapitalism to Socialism jicting through the dictatorship of the proletariat; all that can be done inTEemeanwhile is to develop a measure of industrial organization and its ideology of the industrial state, ft starting point for a proleta- rian dictatorship in its task of introducing the indus- tfiaj^stateof communist Socialism. The supremacy of the proletariat is determined by its action, and not by its organization. The proletariat wh^F^-thprfi 19 no org^^j^tinn^tVirQiigli mass action; organization_isa means to action, and not a 6. A general organization of the workers will always remain impossible under Capitalism because of its continuous state of development. H. Lauffenberg, The Political Strike, 1914. UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 195 substitute for action. The function of an organiza- tion7Tn~the revolutionary sense, is that it may serve as the centre for action of the unorganized proletarian masses, rally and integrate the general mass action of the proletariat, organizing and directing it for the conquest of power. Socialism hastens the overthrow of Capitalism through revolutionary action. In this sense, parliamentarism and industrial unionism he- come integral phases of mass action. Mass action is not a form of action as much as it is a prfuvssjmA_ .yyytf/|flfifa of artinn. 7 It IS the Unity forms of proletarian action, a means of throw- ing~the proletariat, organized and unorganized, in a genefaTstruggle against Capitalism and the capitalist stated It IsHie sharp, definite expression of the revolt of the workers under the impact of the antagonisms and repressions of Capitalism, of the recurring crises 7. Rosa Luxemburg has called the mass strike the dynamic method of the pro- letarian masses, the characteristic form of the proletarian struggle in the Revolution. She considers mass action, and its most important frntnro.,thr mass striker as the sum total of a period in the class struggle that may last for years and tens of years until victory couuw to the proletariat^. In permanent change, it comprises all phases of the political and economic struggle, all phase* of the. Revolution. Mass ggSon. in its highest form of political strike, means the uflity of Apolitical and economic action, means the prnl.-farr.in rpvnlmj ftn a. a~hktnri<- profifi^" . . '. M industrial action is tne most efficient form of mass action, why bother about minor issues? Why not concentrate all our efforts and thought in building our industrial unions so strong as to overcome the capitalist employer and the capitalist state? touch an objection overlooks the complexity of real conditions. We are not free to choose our methods in accordance with certain theoretical constructions, but have to build on the solid ground of actual facts in the light of historical developments. . . .Industrial organization has its historical limits beyond which we cannot rise at the given moment of our action. Large groups of workers will continue for a certain length of time to organize in craft unions, and although we will tell them they are wrong, and fight them where injurious to their class, still they will be a factor in our revolutionary struggle, either for or against. . . We are convinced that the technical development of the capitalist world makes conditions ripe for the Socialist commonwealth at this very moment, that only our lack of power stands in the way of the realization of our hopes. What we want above all is a unity and concentration of the forces already existing in a latent form, a combination and further development of these forces towards our revolutionary aims. S. J. Rutgers, "Mass Action and Socialism," The New International, February, 1918. 196 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM and revolutionary situations produced by the violent era of Imperialism. Mass action is the instinctive action of the proletariat, gradually developing more conscious and organized forms and definite purposes. It is extra-parliamentary in method, although political ;in purpose and result, may develop into and be itself developed by the parliamentary struggle. Organizations, political and economic, have a ten- dency to become conservative; a tendency emphasized, moreover, by the fact that they largely represent the more favored groups of workers. These organiza- tions must be swept out of their conservatism by the elemental impact of mass action, functioning through organized and unorganized workers acting instinctive- ly under the pressure of events and in disregard of bureaucratic discipline. The great expressions of mass action in recent years, the New Zealand General Strike, the Lawrence strike, the great strike of the British miners under which capitalist society reeled on the verge of collapse, all were mass actions or- ganized and carried through in spite of the passive and active hostility of the dominant Socialist and labor organizations, ynderjlhe impulse of mass ac- tion, lJieJndh[Lsjriaj^roleJajiat senses its own power and acguires the force to actequally against Capital- ism and tlip^nnsp f rvflHsTn nf nrgflnJKfltjnns. Indeed, a vital feature of mass action is precisely that it places in the hands of the proletariat the power to overcome the fetters of these organizations, to act in spite of UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 197 their conservatism, and through proletarian mass ac- tion emphasize antagonisms between workers and capi- talists, and conquer power. A determining phase of the proletarian revolution in Russia was its acting against the dominant Socialist organization, sweeping these aside through its mass action before it could seize social supremacy. And the great strikes and demonstrations in Germany and Austria during Feb- ruary, 1918, potentially revolutionary in character, were a form of mass action that broke loose against the open opposition of the dominant Socialist and union organizations, and that were crushed by this opposition. Mass action is the proletariat tiself in action, dispensin^jvitib^u^gaucrats and intellectuals acting through its own initiative; and it is precisely this circumstance that horrifies the soul of petty bourgeois Socialism. The masses are to >jict upon their_ own initiative anc^the impulse jjf Jtheir-own struggles; it is the function of the revolutionary Socialist to provide the program and the course for this elemental action, to adapt himself to the new proletarian modes of struggle. Mass acjdon_orgaiiizes_ajiL develops into the politk cal strike and demonstration, in which aj^eneral politi- cal issue is the source^, of_the action. Political mass action is determined not by the struggle for wages, but by gejieraljsjLiesj^_piime_p^^ in which the proletariat central i^s and integrates its forces,Tn which organized and unorganized workers 198 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM may act together in a general struggle against Capi- talism. This concentration of forces through mass action is an^ndispejisable condition for the general revolutionary struggles-in-tbe^ days to come. ~~ Mass action may consist of a spontaneous strike of organized workers in revolt against the union bureauc- racy; or, as is most usually the case, of the strikes and action of unorganized, juiskilled workers. These are primitive forms of mass action, although they con- stitute the genesis of the general mass action which may include workers, organized and unorganized, in various industrial groupings, in a sweeping struggle against Capitalism on general class issues. An im- portant fact, a fact that disposes of the cheap sneers of petty bourgeois Socialism stigmatizing these mani- festations as "anarchistic" and "slum proletarian," is that these mass actions are an expression of the in- dustnaL^roletariat against tire centralized Jnsfiiitry of dominant Capitalism. The mass that functions _ through mass action is the industrial proletarian mass, the cohesive action of which may attract other social ( groups to the great struggle. As an historic process, mass action is an expression anoT recognition of the fact that the new era is an eraof violent struggles, ^Jjmjujute crislifoFantagon- isms7"oFth~e~ impacToFtHe' proletariat InlTrevoIution- arysituation against Capitalisin^folTtEedemiite revo- lutionary conquest of power. Imperialistic State Capitalism, while trying to and UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 199 temporarily succeeding in softening antagonisms, act- ually and fundamentally multiplies the antagonisms and contradictions inherent in Capitalism. These an- tagonisms assume a violent form, equally between nations, and between the proletariat and the bour- geoisie. This crisis in antagonisms constitutes the so- cial-revolutionary era, in which the proletariat is driven to violent struggles against Capitalism through mass action. ThgjSQcial-revolutionary era finds its expressionamj_its^ tqptic in magjj^antion : this is die great fact of contemporary proletarian development. f revolution nrmsists ifl of_jhe__cLa5S-_piiwr_jof_the bourgeoisie as against a strengthening of the class power of the proletariat. The class power of the proletariat arises out of the intensity of its struggles and revolutionary energy. It consists, moreover, of undermining the bases of the power and morale of the capitalist state, a process that requires extra-parliamentary activity through mass action. Capitalism trembles when it meets the impact of a strike in a basic industry; Capitalism will more than tremble, it will actually verge on a collapse, when it meets the impact of a general mass action invoIvjng_a_niiTnbp!r of correlated industries, and developing into revolutionary mass action against the whole capitali8t__regime. The value of this mass action is that it shows the proletariat its power, weak- ens Capitalism, and compels the state largely to de- pend upon the use of brutal force in the struggle, either 200 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM the physical force of the military or the force of legal terrorism; this emphasizes antagonisms between pro- letarian and capitalist, widening the scope and deepen- ing the intensity of the proletarian struggle against Capitalism. General mass action, moreover, a prod- uct of the industrial proletariat, will, by the impulse and psychology of events and the emphasizing of antagonisms, draw within the orbit of the struggle workers still under the control of the craft unions. 1 1 Mass action, being the proletariat itself in action, I (loosens its energy, develops enthusiasm, and uni- vfies the action of the workers to its utmost measure. It is this concentration of proletarian forces that makes mass action the method of the proletarian revo- lution. It is this dynamic quality of mass action that makes it the expression of an era in which the prole- tariat throws itself in violent struggles against Capi- talism. The proletarian revolution is a test of power, a process of forcible struggles, an epoch in which the roletariat requires a flexible method of action, aT method of action that will not only concentrate alT its available forces, but which will develop itslmtia- tjvejmd consciousness, allowing it to seize and use any par^idarjnieans pf^ jtruggle in accord wit prevailing situation and necessai tions. Moreover, mass action means the repudiation of bourgeois democracy. Socialism will come not through the peaceful^ democratic parliamentary con- UNIONISM AND MASS ACTION 201 quest of the state, butthrough the determined and revolutionary mass action of a proletarian minority. The fetish of democracy is a fetter upon the prole-i tarian revolution; mass action smashes the fetish, em- phasizing that the proletariat recognizes no limits to its action except the limits of its own power. The proletariat will never conquer unless it proceeds to struggle after struggle; its power is developed and its energy let loose only through action. Parliamentar- ism, in and of itsel,-etter proletarian action; pj> ganizations are often equally fetters upon action; the proletariat must ap.t^grw^ajwjiys f.t? through action it conquers. The great merit and necessity of mass auction is that it frees the energy, while it co-ordinates the forces, of the proletariat, compels the proletariat to act uncompromisingly and reject the "rights" of any other class; and action destroys hesitancy and a paltering with the revolutionary task. 8 8. The Council [of Workers and Soldiers, during the earlier period of the Russian Revolution, when the Menshevik and Social-Revolutionist moderates were in control] hesitates; and out of hesitancy conies compromise. It imagines that the course of the Revolution may be determined by interminable discussions among the intellectuals: it acts only under pressure of the revolutionary masses. It talks revolu- tion, while the government acts reaction. It takes refuge in proclamations, in discussion, in appeals to a pseudo-theory, in everything save the revolutionary action of the masses directed aggressively to a solution of the pressing problems of the day .... Where revolutions do not act immediately, particularly the proletarian revolution, reaction appears and controls the situation; and the formerly revolu- tionary representatives of the masses accept and strengthen this reaction. Once revolutionary ardor cools, the force of bourgeois institutions and control of indus- try weights the balance in favor of the ruling class. Revolutions march from action to action : action, more action, again action, supplemented by an audacity that shrinks at nothing, these arc the tactics of the proletarian revolution .... The Council hampers and tries to control the instincts and action of the masses, in- stead of directing them in a way that leaves the initiative to the masses developing that action of the masses out of which class power arises .... Instead of action phrases; instead of Revolution a paltering with the revolutionary task .... Its failure to act accordingly marked the decline of its power and influence as then constituted: the task of the Council now became that of revolutionizing itself, of discarding its old policy and personnel. And this revolutionary process could develop only out of the masses, not out of the Council's intellectual representatives: these representatives had to be thrust aside, brutally and contemptuously. Louis C. Fraina, "The Proletarian Revolution in Russia," The Class Struggle, January-February 1918. 202 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM The great war has objectively brought Europe to the verge of revolt. Capitalist society at any moment may be thrust into the air by an upheaval of the pro- letariat, as in Russia. Whence will the impulse for the revolutionary struggle come? Surely not from the moderate Socialism and unionism, which are united solidly in favor of an imperialistic war; surely not from futile parliamentary rhetoric, even should it be revolutionary rhetoric. The impulse will come out of the m^sj^ction^of^ie proletariat, jnd it is this mass action alone that canjsweep aside the hesit- ancy and the risks, that can topple over the repressions and power oFthe bourgeois state. Mass action is the dynamic impulse of the revolutionary proletarian struggle, whatever the specific form it may assume; in the actual revolutionary period, mass action unites all forms of struggle in one sweeping action against Capitalism, each contributing its share as integral phases of the general mass action, as in the prole- tarian revolution in Russia. In a crisis, the state rigidly controls all the available forces of normal ac- tion; parliaments become impotent, and a "state of siege" prevails that can be broken through only by revolutionary mass action, equally during war and in any revolutionary situation. Mass action is dynamic, pliable, creative; the pro- letariat through mass action instinctively adapts itself to the means and tactics necessary in a prevailing situ- ation. The forms of activity of the proletariat are not 203 limited and stultified by mass action, they are broad- ened, deepened and co-ordinated. Mass action is, egually a praceaa. nf revolution and tfrf R itself in operation. XII THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. THE theory of the gradual transformation of Capi- talism into Socialism, of a peaceful "growing into** Socialism, rlppfmrk^ipnn t^yo a ssiimptigns : the col- lectivism of State Capitaligjn is an approach to So- cialism, that will gradually and of its own compulsion become transformed into Socialism; and State Capi- talism, operating jointly with an enlightened and or- ganized working class, will succeed in limiting and re- straining the economic forces of Capitalism, j)ur analysis^oT acfaaj_fatcts_and forces shows, however, that State^apitalism means Capitalism at the violent climax of its development, intensifying the subjection of the prolfttariaj^flTifl thp. domination of the capitalist class. The economic forces of Capitalism have not been limited, they have burst forth in a violent up- heaval, the most violent of the ages; and these forces will burst forth, in new upheavals unless directed into the channel of Social Revolution. Nor have the organ- izations of the workers succeeded in restraining the tendencies of Capitalism : the imperialistic Capitalism 204 THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 205 of Germany, France and Great Britain, in which oper- ate powerful Socialist and labor organizations, have precipitated the proletariat and the world into a catas- trophe the agony and oppression of which are in- conceivable. If all this means a limiting of the forces of Capitalism and a "growing into" Socialism, then may heaven have mercy upon the world and the pro- letariat! This theory often appears in pseudo-Marxian garb ; t is, in fact, a distortion and a repudiation of Marx- ism. Marxism conceives the Social Revolution as a dyna- mic process of proletarian struggles in a period when the forces of production in capitalist society come in conflict with the old relations of production, relations which develop into fetters upon the productive pro- cess. This conflict creates a social-revolutionary crisis, a revolutionary situation and a breach in the old order in which the proletariat breaks through for action and the conquest of power. All the developments of bour-\ geois society simply produce the objective conditions! for the proletarian revolution out of which emerges! Socialism; these developments alone never can and/ won't bring Socialism. The process consists^ of two' phases: the objective development of Capitalism^ jmd_ tEe~subjective development of the proletariat. Histor- icallyTthese two phases of the process are one; act- ually, they are not necessarily a unity: Germany, with an intense development of Capitalism and an appar 206 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM i ently mature proletariat, has not yet developed a pro- i letarian revolution, in spite of the revolutionary ac- * tivity of capitalistically inferior Russia. The epoch of Imperialism, which means Capitalism at the climax of its development, meets the require- ments of the Marxian analysis. All the violence, all the upheavals of Imperialism are symptoms of the revolt of Capitalism against the fetters placed upon the productive forces. The requirements of develop- ing Capitalism are incompatible with the capitalist forms of production. The crisis is acute. Capital- ism strives to break the fetters, annihilate the multi- plying contradictions, through State Capitalism and Imperialism, only to strengthen the fetters and in- crease the contradictions, resulting in a mad, violent and destructive world war. The economic and social, the political and national bases of Capitalism are now fetters upon the forces of production: the fetters -must be broken, they can be broken only by the Social Revolution; and Capitalism writhes in the agony of its struggles, a mad beast rending itself and the world. Imperialism, accordingly, introduces a new epoch in Capitalism, the social-revolutionary epoch. Ob- jectively, a revolutionary situation prevails; subjec- tively, the proletariat must prepare itself for the final revolutionary struggle against Capitalism. It is the tragedy of Imperialism that it can produce maggots only. It cannot, except temporarily, dispose of the contradictions implied in a fettering of the THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 207 forces of production. The imperialistic nation seeks to broaden the base of its economic activity through conquest and the development of new territory; but in accomplishing this, the base is correspondingly narrowed for other nations, and for the world. And even the imperialistically triumphant nation secures only momentary relief: the new territory is developed, and again there is a surplus of commodities and of capital, again the vicious circle of production of means of production for new commodity production; and again within the triumphant nation itself there is a crisis, supplemented by still more acute crises within the defeated nations. A new upheaval arises, new and more violent wars, new and more intense waste. War becomes the normal aspect of Imperialism. There is no alternative for the proletariat: either r and again war, or the Social Revolution. it The world war has brought Capitalism to the verge *of collapse. It has compelled the state to lay a dic- tatorial hand upon the process of production, and the nation to negate its own basis by striving to break through the limits of the nation. It has compelled in- dustrial necessity to subordinate itself to the over- whelming fact of military necessity. The debts of the belligerent nations are colossal, and they will fetter the nations, constitute a crucial problem in the days to come. The war has weakened Capitalism while it has strengthened a fictitious domination of the capitalist class. Contradications and antagonisms 208 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM have been multiplied. War has become the normal occupation of Capitalism, and the transition to peace will shake Capitalism to its foundations, posing new and more acute problems for solution. Industry will have to adjust itself to a peace basis, and it will be a herculean task; the proletariat will have to adjust itself to the new conditions, new struggles and new problems, and the experiences of war are not calcu- lated to make it submissive. The proletariat will find upon the conclusion of peace that all its sacrifices have availed it naught, and that the old system of exploitation persists in in- tensified form. Capitalism will equally find that war has availed it naught: its old economic problems will not have been solved and new problems have been created. Will Capitalism answer with a feverish era of industrial expansion? But war debts will weigh upon the nation, and an era of expansion will simply hasten the new crisis and a new war. There is a point where Capitalism comes up against an impasse in the industrial process. The forces of production inexorably generate new contradictions and crises. Capitalism verges on collapse. The fatalist uses these facts, and they are facts, as an arument for aninevitable xl an equaH^Tmevitable comlngof Socialism. The argument is as futile as it is fatalistic. The world war, in which millions of workers have sacrificed and died in the cause of Imperialism, is a warning of an THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 209 alternative. The fatalist attitude in practice allows Capitalism to dispose of things in its own brutal way. And instead of a coming of Socialism, the world may see the coming of a new barbarism, the "common ruin of the contending classes." If war becomes the normal state of society, if the proletariat as the mod- ern revolutionary class has not the initiative and the energy to assume control of society, then instead of a new society we shall have a new era of rapine and conquest. Europe rending itself, Europe and Amer- ica rending each other, and the two rending Asia, or Asia rending them all. A collapse of Capitalism, in one form or another, is inevitable; but the coming of Socialism is not equally inevitable. 1 It may become a collapse of all civilization. What determined the supremacy of the bourgeoisie 'was its possession of actual material power, of the ownership of capital. It was a propertied class, and property as a class prerogative imparts power and \ultimate ascendancy. The proletariat is a non-proper- tied, an expropnatedLclass;_ what will determine its 1. Let there be no fatalism in our councils. The Socialist Republic is no pro-destined inevitable development. . . . The Socialist Republic will not leap into existence out of the existing social loom, like a yard of calico is turned out by a Northrop loom. Nor will its only possible architect, the Working Class that is, the wage earner, or wage slave, the modern proletariat figure in the process as a mechanical force moved mechanically. In other words, the world's theatre of Social Evolution is not a Punch and Judy box, nor are the actors on that world's stage mannikins, operated with wires .... The Socialist Republic depends, not upon material conditions only; it depends upon these plus clearness of vision to assist the evolutionary process .... Is the revolutionary class of this Age living under ripened conditions to avail itself of its opportunity and fulfill its historic mis- sion? Or is the revolutionary spark of our Age to be smothered and banked up till, as in Rome of old, it leap from the furnace, a weapon of national suicide? In sight of the invasion of the Philippine Islands and the horrors that are coming to light, is there any to deny that the question is a burning one? Daniel De Leon, Two Pages From Roman History, 1902. 210 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM supremacy is revolutionary energy and integrity, and tnese alone. The development during the war of Socialist so- cial-reformism into social-Imperialism is an acute ex- pression of a danger that besets the proletariat. Is it imaginary, is it inconceivable, in view of the un- believable events in Europe, that the proletariat, in- stead of an instrument of revolution, might become an instrument of imperialistic conquest and spolia- tion? Only an uncompromising adherence to the revo- lutionary task, only the conscious and definite emer- gence of revolutionary Socialism, may avert the catas- trophe. The subjective factor of a revolutionary pro- letariat alone will convert the objective conditions of Capitalism into Socialism. The proletariat will act, but its action must be directed. It may be skewed awry by petty bourgeois Socialism, as was unsuccess- fully attempted in Russia and as was successfully done in Austria and Germany. The shortcomings of the dominant Socialism might convert proletarian ac- tion into a weapon of proletarian suicide. The tac- tics of petty bourgeois Socialism may not completely destroy the revolution, but they may hamper it and prolong the period of agony of imperialistic Capital- ism. In this epoch of Imperialism, of war and catas- trophe, of actual and potential betrayals of the pro- letariat, the Socialist cannot swerve from the funda- mentals of Socialism. Social-reformism means a pal- THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 211 tering with the revolutionary task, social-Imperialism means a betrayal of the revolutionary task: and it is that way disaster lies. There are many dangers that beset the path of the proletariat, dangers that the Socialist must appreciate and guard against. The bourgeois revolution was, in a sense, automatic: its possession of property insured its ultimate supremacy. Indeed, the bourgeois revolution triumphed in spite of its cowardly hesitancy and vacillation, in spite of disastrous mistakes; its struggles were one long series of compromises with the feudal class, even on the verge of victory; and where the revolution was dras- tic and definite, as in France, it was because of the courage and action of the peasantry and the city pro- letarians. But mistakes may be fatal to the prole- tariat, because the proletariat is an expropriated class. The proletarian revolution is not in any sense of the word an automatic process: it will conquer only through uncompromising action, courageous and un- relenting adherence to the class struggle, and by de- veloping the necessary clarity of understanding of the epoch we are in, an understanding that will avoid tactical mistakes and offer a definite, decisive pro- gram of revolutionary action to the proletariat. The class character and independence of the revo- lution must be emphasized under any and all condi- tions; the proletariat must not be lured into com- promises either with Capitalism or its own organiza i tions, compromises that invade its class integrity and 212 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM palsy its action. On with the struggle, in spite of all and everything! The epoch is an epoch of revolution- ry, uncompromising struggle and this struggle alone hall prevail. The processj>f impact of antagonisms and a revolutionary situation, develop into the great and final struggle, an intense, violent and uncompromising struggle against Capi- talism. This struggle will not break out as a con- scious, organized struggle for Socialism: it will break out unHer the impulse of a crisis, through mass action. Itscharacter, of course, will initially vary in accord with prevailing conditions, although probably, at first, animated by petty or vague purposes. And its course will be determined by the sense of reality, conscious- ness of purpose and power of revolutionary Socialism, its capacity to propose and organize a revolutionary program around which the masses may rally for action and the conquest of power. _0r^ajnzjn^^nd^i r ecting the revolutiojijwil] L ^e^ome_Jbe_supreme task of So- Lglly nf its jinrnrnprnmising spirit sense of reality. The policy of revolutionary phrases is as disastrous as the policy of parliamentary rhetoric and dickering with the bourgeois state. _Revo- lutigns_do^ not rally_j|rojjnrl Hngnias, but programs; andjhe program of the proletarian revolution must hp aspractical^and realistic as it is__r_e.vnliitinnary_ainfl Reality and the revolution are one, united and made dynamic by the class character of THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 213 the proposals and purposes of the proletariat in action. The immediate objective of the proletarian revolu- tion is the conquest of the power j)f_ihe . Ptafrs an d thislneans the annihilation of the bourgeois state, its parliamentary system and bourgeois democracy^ ajnd the introduction of a new "state" comprised in the dictatorship of the proletariat. 2 In his "Criticism of the Gotha Program" Marx projected this phase of the proletarian revolution: "Between the capjtajisj^and the npmTmiP"* s y s - tems of societylies th formation of the one_intojhe other. This corresponds to a political transition_perjod, whose state canjbe nothing else than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.!' The alternative to this dictatorship of the pro- letariat is the bourgeois state, its democracy and parliamentary system. To compromise with this system is to yield up the revolutionary task and to allow Capitalism to dominate. The parliamentary^ bourgeois state must be destroyed not simply because*' it is the ultimate purpose of Socialism to do awa/ 2. As to the revolutionary organization and its task, the conquest of the power of the state and militarism : From the praxis of the Paris Commune, Marx shows that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made machinery of the state, and wield it for its own purposes." The proletariat must break down this machinery. And this has been either concealed or denied by the opportunists. But it i* the most valuable lesson of the Paris Commune and of the Revolution in Russia of 1905. The difference between us and the anarchists is, that we admit the state is a necessity in the development of our Revolution. TJie difference with lh - fl 1 necessity. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a revolutionary rgcogm'tinn <*f tV^ fa^t that the proletariat alone counts, and no other class has any ".rights." The dictatorship of the proletariat places all power in the control of the proletariat, and weakens the bourgeoisie, makes them incapable of any concerted action against the Revolution. J3rgan- ized injijlicjalorship of thft proletariat, fa. Tfovnlii^ tion uimesitatingly^and relejide^ljjpursues its task ojF reconstructing society on the basis of communistSo- cialism. The parliamentary regime is the expression of bour- geois democracy, each equally an instrument for the I promotion of bourgeois class interests. Parliamentar- ism, presumably representing ill r,1 ai sses^ actually rep- resents and promotes^ the requirements of the ruling class alone. Its trappings of army, police and judici- jry are indispensable means of repression used ;ainst the proletariat, and the proletariat in action annihilates them all: in place of the army, the armed j proletarian militia, until unnecessary; in place of the police, disciplinary measures of the masses them- selves; in place of the judiciary, tribunals of work- men. The bureaucratic machinery of the state dis- appears. The division of functions in the parliamen- tary system into legislative and executive has for its THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 215 direct purpose the indirect smothering of the opposi- tion, the legislature talks and represents the pre- tense of "democracy," while the executive acts auto- cratically. The parliamentary system is a fetter up- on revolutionary class action in the epoch of the ftoal struggle against Capitalism. The_proletarian revolu- :ion annihilates the j^arlimentary jsystenL _an d Jitsjlp yisTorTof functions, legislative and executive being united in one body, as in the Paris Commune and in tEe Russian Councils of Workers and Peasants. The dictatorship of the proletariat, moreover, an- nihilates bourgeois dejrnocrajcy. All democracy is re- lative, is class democracy^ As an historical category, democracy is a form of authority of one class over another; bourgeois democracy is the form of expres- sion of the authority and tyranny of Capitalism. Authority is an instrument of class rule, historically: Socialisni destroys authority. The democracy of So- cialism, the self-government of the proletarian masses, discards the democracy of Capitalism relative democracy is superseded by the individual and social autonomy of communist Socialism. The proletarian revolution does not allow the "ethical concepts" of bourgeois democracy to interfere in the course of events: it ruthlessly sweeps aside "democracy" in the process of revolutionary transformation. ^Capitalism hypocritically insists upon a government of all the classes; the Revolution frankly and fearlessly intro- duces the government of one class, the proletariat, 216 REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM through a proletarian dictatorship. The proletarian revolution is inexorable; it completely and ruthlessly annihilates the institutions and ideology of the regime of communist Socialism. 3 This problem of democracy is crucial in the prole- tarian revolution. Democracy becomes the last bul- wark of defense of Capitalism, an instrument used by dominant Capitalism and the petite bourgeoisie in a last desperate defense of private property. Any com- promise on the issue of democracy compromises the integrity of the Revolution, stultifies its purposes and palsies its action: it is an issue pregnant with the potentiality of fatal mistakes. And yet it is all sim- plicity itself: in the revolution, the proletariat may depend upon itself alone; it alone is necessary in the process of production; it alone is a revolutionary class, implacably arrayed against all other classes; it alone counts as a class in the reconstruction of so- ciety, and, accordingly, the_dictatorship of the_pro- 3. During the course of events in Russia, democracy was a fetter upon the development of the proletarian revolution; once this revolution was accomplished, /democracy became a counter-revolutionary instrument used by the petty bourgeois Socialism of the Mensheviki and Social-Revolutionists of the Right through the Constituent Assembly. If the Soviet government had not dissolved the Constituent Assembly, it would have stultified itself and the Revolution. The Revolution, 1 declared the decree of dissolution, created the Workers' and Soldiers' Council the n. m. Y. ost ial md Rosa Luxemburg, 35 cents. "/ Accuse," by Fritz Ad er, 10 cents. "Political Parties in Russia," by N. Lenin, . 5 cents. "Laborism and Socialism" by Louis C. Fraina, 10 cents. SOCIALIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 431 Pulaski St., Brooklyn, N. Y, ciupnic PBESS, irw YOHK UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 076 589 9