HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
[2]BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Negro People in American History
History of the Communist Party of the United States
Outline Political History of the Americas
The Twilight of World Capitalism
American Trade Unionism: Principles and
Organization, Strategy and Tactics
Pages from a Worker's Life
by WILLIAM Z. FOSTER
International Publishers • New York "
[4]
__DEDICATION__
TO ESTHER
__COPYRIGHT__
Copyright, 1955, By
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS CO., INC.
CONTENTS
PART I: THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL, 1864-1876
1. GENERAL ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND 15
The Industrial Revolution, 15. . .The Political Consolidation of Capitalism, 16... The Industrial Revolution and the Workers, 17.. .Early Trade Unionism, 19.. .Anti-Capitalist Tendencies, ai
2. SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM 25
The Communist League and the Communist Manifesto, a6... The Major Principles of Marxist Socialism, 27
3. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
36
The Revolution in France, 36.. .The German Revolution, 38.. .Betrayal
by the Capitalist Class, 40.. .Years of Political Reaction, 41
4. THE FOUNDING OF THE FIRST INTERNATONIAL (1864) 44
Precursors of the First International, 45. . .Establishment of the International Workingmen's Association, 48...The I.W.A. Program and Constitution, 50
5. TRADE UNONISM, PROUDHON, LASSALLE,
AND BAKUNIN 53
Pure and Simple Trade Unionism, 54... Blanquism, 56... Proudhonism, 57...Lassalleism, 59.. .Bakuninism, 61
6. CONSOLIDATION: THE GENEVA CONGRESS (1866) 65 Political Activities of the I.W.A., 67...The Work of the Congress, 68
[6]7- GROWTH: LAUSANNE AND BRUSSELS (1867-1868) 73 I.W.A. Trade Unions and Strikes, 73... The International in the Political Struggle, 74. . .The Congress of Lausanne, 76. . .The Congress of Brussels, 77. . .Increasing Capitalist Attack, 78. . .Growth of the International, 79
8. BAKUNINISM: THE BASLE CONGRESS (1869)
82 The Eisenachers, 83... Bakunin Enters the I.W.A., 84... Marxists and Bakuninists at Basle, 85. ..The Irish Question, 87. . .Outbreak of the Franco-Prusisan War, 88
9. THE PARIS COMMUNE (1871)
90 The French Republic Established, 91...Birth of the Commune, 93...
The International and the Commune, 94. . .The Work of the Commune, 95... The Commune Overthrown, 96... Historical Role of the Commune, 98
10. THE SPLIT AT THE HAGUE CONGRESS (1872)
101
The Internal Crisis, 101. . .The London Conference, 102.. .The Congress
at The Hague, 104...The Powers of the General Council, 104...The
Question of Political Action, 105. .. The International Removes to New
York, 106. . .The Expulsion of the Bakuninists, 107. . .The Aftermath
of the Split, 108
11. THE ANARCHIST INTERNATIONAL (1872-1877)
110
The Saint-Imier Congress, no. . .Downward Course of the Anarchists, us.. .Kropotkiri Succeeds Bakunin, 113. . .Why the Anarchist Movement Shrank, 114...The Disintegration of Anarchism, 116
12. THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL IN THE U.S.A. (1872-1876)
118 The American Situation, 118.. .The I.W.A. in the American Class Struggle, 119. . .The Struggle Against the Sects, 120. . .The Marxists and the Lassalleans, laz. . .Internal Crisis and Political Progress, 123. . .The Dissolution of the First International, 125
13. THE ROLE OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL
(1864-1876) 127
Ideological Destruction of the Sects, 128,. .The Causes for the Dissolution of the I.W.A., 129. . .New Times and New Tasks, 130
[7]PART II: THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL, 1889-1914
14. THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONALS (1876-1889)
132
The Development of the Labor Movement, 133.. .The Gotha
Compromise, 134.. .Continuing International Tendencies, 136.. .The Death
of Karl Marx, 137
15. THE FOUNDING OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1899)
140 The Work of 'the Congress, 141. . .The Marxist Orientation of the Congress, 142... The Right Danger, 143... Origins of Right Opportunism,
'45
16. BRUSSELS, ZURICH, AND LONDON (1891-1896)
148 Growing Right Opportunism, 148...The Struggle Against the War Danger, 150.. .Reformism versus Revolutionary Ideology, 152... The Fight of the Left, 154.. .The Death of Frederick Engels, 155
17. INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNIONISM
157 Pure and Simple Trade Unionism, 158. .. Marxist Trade Unionism, 160
...Anarcho-Syndicalism, 161.. .Toward a Trade Union International, 163
18. IMPERIALISM AND MILLERAND: PARIS (1900)
165 The Millerand Case, 168.. .The Left Defeated in the Paris Congress, 169
. . .The Struggle Against Militarism and War, 170.. .The International Socialist Bureau, 171
19. BERNSTEIN REVISIONISM: AMSTERDAM (1904)
173 The Fight in the Germany Party, 175...The International Struggle Against Revisionism, 176. . .White Chauvinism in the American Socialist Party, 177.. .The Left Carries the Amsterdam Congress, 178. . .The Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution, 179
20. LENIN: THE PARTY OF A NEW TYPE
181 Lenin and His Work, 182. . .The Building of a Revolutionary Program, 183...Early Development of the Party in Russia, 185...The Birth of Bolshevism: London, 1903, 187...The International Intervenes, 188
21. THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1905 190
The Rising Revolutionary Wave, 190. . .Two Tactics: Menshevik and Bolshevik, 193...The High Tide of the Revolution and Reaction, 194 ...The International and the Revolution, 195...The Question of the Political Mass Strike, 197
[8]22. COLONIALISM AND WAR: STUTTGART (1907) 200
The Colonial Question, zoo.. .Anti-Militarism and Anti-War, 203... The Stuttgart Resolution, 205... American National Chauvinism, 207
23. THE COPENHAGEN CONGRESS (1910)
209 The Anti-War Resolution, 209. . .Nationalist Trade Unionism, 211... Opportunist Conceptions of the Cooperatives, 212. . .Kautsky and Legien, 213
24. THICKENING WAR CLOUDS: BASLE (1912)
216
The Basle Manifesto, 217.. .Words versus Deeds, 218. . .The Forces of
the Second International, 220.. .Right and Left Wings Prior to World
War, 821
25. THE GREAT BETRAYAL: WORLD WAR I 225
The Great Betrayal, 227. . .How the Betrayal Occurred, 228.. .The Defense of the Fatherland, 230...The War as an Imperialist War, 232 ...The Vicious Circle of the Second International, 233
26. ROLE OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1899-1914)
- 235
Early Constructive Work of the International, 236. . .The Price of Opportunism, 238
PART III: THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, 1919-1943
27. THE ZIMMERWALD MOVEMENT (1915-1917) 240
The Beginnings of the Third International,' 240.. .Socialist Anti-War Conferences, 242... The First Zimmerwald Conference, 343... The Kienthal Conference, 244.. .The Irish Rebellion of 1916, 246. . .Lenin's Great Theoretical Struggle, 247
28. THE RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION
(MARCH 1917) 250
Why the Revolution Took Place, 251...The Reactionary Provisional Government, 253...The Revolutionary Program of the Party, 253... A Peaceful Road to the Revolution, 255...The Stockholm (Zimmerwald) Conference, 256
[9] 2g. THE RUSSIAN PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION
(NOVEMBER 1917) 259
The Conquest of Power, 260... The Soviet Government in Action, 262 .. .The Defense of the Revoluion, 865
30. THE SOVIET SYSTEM 267
The Political Structure, 269... The Economic Foundation, 371...The Trade Unions in the Soviet Regime, 273
31. THE GERMAN AND HUNGARIAN REVOLUTIONS
(1918-1919) 275
Soviets in Germany, 276. . .The Revolution Betrayed, 277.. .The Bourgeoisie Resumes Full Charge, 280.. .The Hungarian Revolution, 281
32. FORMATION OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
(1919) 284
The Resurrection of the Second International, 285.. .The Call for the Third International, 286.. .The Moscow Congress, 287.. .The Program of the Congress, 289.. .The Formation of the Third International, 291
33. REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE:
THIRD CONGRESS (1920) 292
Formation of the Young Communist International, 293... The Program of the Second Congress, 294... "Left- Wing" Communism, 295... The "Twenty-One Points," 297
34. THE COMINTERN AND THE COLONIAL WORLD 300 Karl Marx and the Oppressed Peoples, 301 . . . Social-Democratic Imperialism, 303. .. Communist Anti-Imperialism, 305
35. REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLES: THIRD CONGRESS
(1Q2^^1^^)
3°9
The Birth of Italian Fascism, 310.. .Formation of the Two-and-a-Half International, 311.. .Program of the Third C.I. World Congress, 312 .. .Some Organizational Questions, 314.. .Work Among Women, 315
36. THE RED INTERNATIONAL OF LABOR UNIONS
(1921) 3^
The U.T.U. in War and Peace, 318. . .Foundation of the R.I.L.U., 320 .. .The Program of the R.I.L.U., 322.. .Shaping the R.I.L.U. Program, 323. . .The New Revolutionary Unionism, 324
[10]37- THE UNITED FRONT: FOURTH CONGRESS (1922) 32? Lenin and Labor Unity, 327. . . The Berlin Conference of the Three Internationals, 339...The Fourth World Comintern Congress, 331... The Policy of the United Front, 332
38. PARTIAL STABILIZATION: FIFTH CONGRESS
' (1924) 335
The Amalgation of the two Social-Democratic Internationals, 336. . . The October Defeat in Germany, 337. . . The Congress and Partial Capitalist Stabilization, 338. . . The Question of the United Front, 339. . . The ``Bolshevization'' of the Communist Parties, 341
39. CLASS COLLABORATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE
(1934-1928)
. 343
The Rationalization of Industry, 344. . .The British General Strike, 345, . .Revolutionary Struggles in China, 347. . .The Fight Against the Trotsky-Zinoviev-Bukharin Opposition, 349
40. C. I. PROGRAM: SIXTH CONGRESS (1928) 353
The Comintern Program, 353. . .The Comintern's Political Perspective, 357... Imperialist War and Colonial Revolution, 359... Some Organizational Matters, 360
41. THE GREAT ECONOMIC CRISIS (1929-1933)
362 The Crisis-Stricken United States, 363. . .The First Soviet Five-Year Plan,
365. . . Class Struggle, Fascism, War Preparations, 367
42. HITLER'S FASCISM AND ROOSEVELT'S NEW DEAL 370 The Advance of German Fascism, 371...Hitler Seizes Power, 372... German Fascism, 375...The Roosevelt New Deal, 377
43. GROWNG STRUGGLE AGAINST FASCISM
AND WAR (1933-1935) 380
The Revolutionary Chinese Struggle, 382. . .The Fascist Defeat in France, 384. . .Armed Struggle in Austria, 386. . .Armed Uprising in Spain, 387
44. THE PEOPLE'S FRONT: SEVENTH CONGRESS (1935) 390 What Fascism Is, 390. . .The Internaationtl Peace Front, 391. . .The People's Anti-Fascist United Front, 392. . .The Unification of Labor's Forces,
394.. .The New Tactical Orientation, 396
[11]45- THE PEOPLE'S FRONT IN ACTION (1935-1939) 398
The National Anti-Imperialist Front in China, 399. . . The French People's Front Government, 400. . .The People's Front in the Americas, 402. . . People's Front and Civil War in Spain, 403
46. MUNICH: THE ROAD TO WAR (1935-1939)
407 The Appeasement Crime, 407... The Growth of Soviet Power, 409. ..
The Betrayal at Munich, 411.. .The Drive to War, 413
47. WORLD WAR II: THE COURSE OF THE WAR 415
The Imperialist Stage of the War, 415. . .The Soviet-Finnish War, 417. . . Hitler Smashes the Western Powers, 418. . .The Changed Character of the War, 419. . .The Russians Smash Nazi Germany, 422
48. WORLD WAR II: THE GUERILLA FORCES 425
The Russian Partisans, 427 . . . The Chinese Guerillas, 429 . . . The Partisans in Eastern and Middle Europe, 432. . .The Resistance Movements in Western Europe, 433
»
49. THE ROLE OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
(i9^^1^^9-^^1^^943)
43^^6^^
Why the Comintern Was Dissolved, 437. . . The Historical Role of the Comintern, 440
PART IV: THE HISTORICAL ADVANCE OF SOCIALISM
50. THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD "WAR II 443
The Growth of Democratic and Socialist Forces, 444. . .The Drive of American Imperialism for World Domination, 445. . . The Basis of the Cold War, 448. . .The Second International and the Cold War, 450
51. BIRTH OF THE PEOPLE'S DEMOCRACIES
(i945-^^1^^947) 452
The Rise of the People's Democracies, 453. . . The New Type of Proletarian Dictatorship, 455. . . The Coalition Government in Italy, 456. .. The Fight for Democracy in France, 458. . .The British Labor Government, 460. . .Military Repression in Germany and Japan, 462
52. EXPANSION OF TRADE UNIONS AND OTHER
MASS ORGANIZATIONS 464
Formation of the World Federation of Trade Unions, 465 . . The Struggle for World Labor Unity, 467. . .The World Youth Organization, 468. .. The Women's International Democratic Federation, 470. . .The European Mass Communist Parties, 471
[12]53. THE REVOLUTION IN THE COLONIAL WORLD
(1945-1949) 473
The Chinese and Indian Revolutions, 475.. .The Revolution in Other Asian Countries, 477... National Liberation Movements in Africa and Latin America, 479
54. EARLY PHASES OF THE COLD WAR (1947-1950)
483 Atomic Diplomacy, 483... The Truman Doctrine, 485... The Marshall Plan, 487...The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.), 489 ...Social Democracy and American Imperialism, 491
55. THE COMMUNIST INFORMATION BUREAU (1947) 493 The Tito Betrayal, 495. . .The Right Social-Democrats Split the World Trade Union Movement, 496. . .The Ideological Decay of World SocialDemocracy, 500
56. VICTORY OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION (1950) 503 Chiang Launches the Civil War, 504. . .The Victory of the People,505
... The Chinese People's Democracy, 507... The Role" of Mao Tsetung, 511
57. WALL ST. WANTS WAR: THE WORLD
WANTS PEACE 514
The Korean War, 514. . .The War in Indochina, 517.. .The Hydrogen Bomb, 518.. .The Collapse of the E.D.C., "519. . .The Fight for World Peace, 520... The Third World War Is Not Inevitable, 523... The Death of Stalin, 524
58. THE GENERAL CRISIS OF CAPITALISM 526
Capitalism Cannot Automatically Recover, 527. . .The Futility of Keynesism, 528. . .American Hegemony No Solution, 531.. .The Insanity of Imperialist War, 533
59. THE INEVITABILTY OF WORLD SOCIALISM 536
A Record of Unprecedented Economic Progress, 538. ..Socialism Solves the People's Problems, 540.. .The Road to Socialism, 544
60. THE HISTORICAL ADVANCE OF SOCIALISM
(1848-1954) 548
The Rise and Decline of Capitalism, 548.. .The Advance of the Working Class, 550.. .The Historical Justification of Marxism, 553
APPENDIX
558
REFERENCES
559
INDEX
577
[13]ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank very much the many comrades who helped in the preparation of this book. There were many who cooperated valuably with their advice, with their loans of important reference materials, and with their careful reading and criticisms of the book proofs---for all of which I am very grateful. I wish especially to express my thanks to Arthur Zipser for his extensive and indispensable research work.
WILLIAM Z. FOSTER
[14] ~ 15 __NOTE__ On this page, page # "15" at bottom of page, not top. __ALPHA_LVL1__ PART I: THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL, 1864-1876 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. General Economic andThe founding in London in 1864 of the International Workingmen's Association---the First International---took place in a situation of a rapidly rising tide of capitalist development. The great discovery voyages of the i5th and i6th centuries had given a big stimulus to capitalism by widely extending commerce and the cultivation of many local guild handicrafts. This general impulse was further greatly intensified, particularly in England, by the Industrial Revolution. This began in the middle of the i8th century and, according to Frederick Engels, concluded, about 1830. The rapid expansion of capitalism, however, went right on. The whole development marked the beginning of the transformation of society from the agricultural-mercantile basis of feudalism to the industrial basis of capitalism.
The Industrial Revolution, which had its center in England, was marked by a very rapid growth and expansion of the coal, iron, and textile industries, as well as of the railroads. These developments were based upon a whole series of revolutionary inventions. Among the more outstanding were those of Henry Cort in iron-making; of John Kay, James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright, and Samuel Crompton in devising textile machinery; and of Thomas Newcomen, Richard Watt, and George Stephenson in the invention and application of the steam engine to industry and transportation. A key invention in this great series was the cotton gin, by an American, Eli Whitney, in 1793, which provided cheap and abundant cotton for the hungry new English textile industry.
Among the more elementary economic effects of the Industrial Revolution were that it shifted production from a hand to a machine basis, substituted huge factories for small workshops, transferred motive power from a wind and water basis to one of steam, revolutionized the transportation system by covering the land with a 16 __RUNNING_HEADER__
HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS network of railroads, canals, and roads, and the seas with great fleets of ships---at first wind-driven but eventually operated by steam---and it developed commerce from primarily a local scale to a world basis.
Principally because of its huge supplies of cheap coal and its strategic commercial location, England became the main center of the new industrialization. Between 1720 and 1839, its production of pigiron increased from 25,000 tons to 1,347,000 tons, and whereas in 1764 England imported 4,000,000 pounds of cotton for manufacture, in 1833 it imported 300,000,000 pounds.^^1^^ By the middle of the igth century, England, producing the bulk of all manufactured goods, had become "the workshop of the world.''
The Industrial Revolution soon spread from England to the Continent. In its early stages France, with many notable inventions to its credit, nearly kept abreast of England; but by the middle of the igth century, due largely to lack of available coal, France had fallen far behind. The Low Countries early became important industrial centers, and by 1850 Germany also was well on the way to industrialization. The latter country was handicapped, however, by its unfavorable commercial location, by many feudal hangovers, and also by being periodically overrun by wars. The United States, due eventually to far outstrip England, quickly felt the impulse of the Industrial Revolution. In 1790 the textile industry got under way in New England; by 1805 it had about 4,500, and by 1860 some 5,235,000 spindles in operation.^^2^^ In the meantime, a considerable body of industry---iron, shoe, lumber, shipbuilding, etc.---was growing up in the North Atlantic states; but it was not until about 1850 that large-scale industrialization in the United States got going full blast. As for Eastern Europe, it had very little industry at the time the First International was founded, and Asia, Africa, Australia, and Latin America had hardly any at all.
With its rapid development of industry and trade, the Industrial Revolution produced a class of rich capitalists, the bourgeoisie, who gradually differentiated themselves from the petty bourgeoisie. This new and powerful class intensified the bitter struggle that nascent capitalism had already been developing against the predominant feudal system. Philosophically, economically, politically, and militarily, the capitalists warred against the great feudal landowners---kings, 17 __RUNNING_HEADER__ ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND
popes, bishops, and nobles. This struggle climaxed in many bourgeois revolutions, fought through by extremely violent civil wars.
The long series of bourgeois revolutions eventually extended to all parts of the world, and it has continued on down to our own days. But at the time of the establishment of the First International, the most important of such revolutions that had taken place were those in England (1649), United States (1776), France (1789), Haiti (1790), the Spanish colonies in America (1810), Brazil (1822), France (1830), and France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Hungary (1848), Italy (1859), and United States (1861). The general effect of these revolutions, which were eventually to make capitalism world dominant, had been at this time to put the capitalists more or less in control of England, Western Europe, and North America.
Parallel and interlocked with these bourgeois revolutions, there also went ahead a capitalist-directed process of establishing the modern bourgeois states---in Great Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and other countries. In order to hold the. working class in subjugation and exploitation, to secure for themselves domination over the respective national markets, and to mobilize the military strength of the nations for war, the capitalists had irriperative need for much more definite and well-organized national states, either as republics or constitutional monarchies, than the loose and shifting and (in Germany and Italy) atomized political regimes characteristic of feudalism. The establishment of the new bourgeois states led to the violent suppression of many smaller peoples (as the Scotch, Welsh, and Irish in Great Britain), and also to the waging of many intense national wars. These wars included, among others, the French and English wars of the i8th century, the American-English wars of 1776 and 1812, the Napoleonic wars of 1799-1815, the several Latin American wars after 1826, the United States-Mexican war of 1846, the Crimean war of 1853, the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, the American Civil War of 1861, and, in the immediate years of the setting up of the First International, the Prussian wars---against Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866, and France in 1870. The capitalist system grew everywhere in the blood and mire of war and revolution.
The rapid growth of capitalism quickly produced profound effects upon the toiling masses, first of all in England. Great numbers of 18 __RUNNING_HEADER__
HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS peasants, erstwhile independent producers, who had been driven from their lands to make room for sheep-growing, were herded into the new factories, where they became wage workers, and large numbers of handicraftsmen, who had worked either for themselves or in small workshops, were gradually assembled into larger and larger manufacturing plants. The modern working class was being born. This creation of the proletariat through the evolution of industry was taking place in all the countries where capitalism was developing.
The capitalists, with the boundless greed characteristic of their social system, worked men, women, and children to the point of destruction. Their working and living conditions were but little better than those of chattel slaves. Working hours ranged from 12 to 16 per day, wages were at starvation levels, children from six years on worked in the mills, and the employers ruled dictatorially over the unorganized wage workers in the factories. A Parliamentary report in 1833 said that "the destitution of the English workers almost eclipses the horrors of slavery in America, of English landlordism in Ireland, and of British rule in India.''^^3^^ In his great work, Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Engels imperishably portrayed the horrifying position of the workers during this general period. On the Continent, wherever capitalism had secured "a grip, conditions were, if possible, even worse than in England. The new factories in France and western Germany were wretched slave pens, and Marx called Belgium "the paradise of the capitalists." In the United States, "the land of the free," similar bad conditions prevailed for industrial workers, and it was a moot question as to who were physically the worse off, slaves or wage-earners. Foner, Commons, and other labor historians have vividly described the wretched wages, the interminably long hours, the boss tyranny in the shops, and the murderous exploitation of men, women, and children characteristic of the young American industries, especially textiles, during the decades following the turn of the century. During the recurring economic crises in the respective countries, the poverty and destitution of the jobless masses beggared description.
In various ways, the workers in the capitalist countries fought back against the economic and political slavery in which they were enmeshed. They did the fighting in the various bourgeois revolutions in Europe and America, hoping to wring from these struggles some of the glittering promises of the bourgeois platforms---of which the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution was a shining example. But experience quickly demonstrated that such paper rights could
19 __RUNNING_HEADER__ ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUNDbe made real for the workers only when they themselves fought resolutely to enforce them.
To cpmbat the intolerable working and living conditions to which they were barbarously subjected, the workers were compelled to rely upon their own class strength, which they expressed in various ways. In England, the Luddites smashed machines and wrecked factories, and in various countries the workers carried through insurrections--- as in Manchester, in 1819; in Lyons, France, in 1831-34; and in Silesia and Bohemia in 1844. In the wake of the liberal sections of the bourgeoisie, as in the English electoral struggle of 1832, they also strove for political reforms. They built mutual benefit and cooperative societies; but most of all, the workers turned to trade unionism. Wherever capitalism established itself, the workers quickly learned that they possessed a weapon of profound importance, the strike, to bring industry to a halt, thereby temporarily cutting off the profits of their exploiters.
In England, the mother country of capitalism, trade unions began to take form as early as iy52.^^4^^ These pioneer unions were chiefly groupings of skilled workers, and they had to struggle, mostly in an illegal status, against ferocious anti-combination laws. The partial repeal of such laws in England in 1824 brought out into the open many trade unions, hitherto disguised as "friendly societies." The movement shot ahead, and in 1830 it crystallized nationally in the National Association for the Protection of Labor. This body was the forerunner of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union of 1833- 34. The latter had an estimated membership of some 500,000.
In 1837, the great Chartist movement was launched upon the initiative of the London Workingmen's Association, which had been formed a year earlier. Chartism was a broad working class political movement, with wide, but not all-inclusive, trade union support and also drawing in large sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Its most outstanding leaders were James Bronterre O'Brien, Feargus O'Connor, G. J. Harney, Ernest Jones, and William Lovett, and its main journal was The Northern Star. The movement finally crystallized in 1841 as the National Charter Association.
The Chartist program, the famous "Six Points" or "People's 20 Charter," was introduced into Parliament early in 1837. It aimed chiefly to secure the franchise for the workers---at that time, of the 6,000,000 men in England, only 850,000 had the right to vote. The "Six Points" demanded universal suffrage for men, equal electoral districts, annual Parliaments, payment of Parliamentary members, secret ballot, and no property qualifications for Members of Parliament.
In support of this elementary program, the Chartists carried on an immense agitation all over the country. Some of their meetings attracted as many as 350,000 people. They also sent several mass petitions to Parliament, one bearing some 5,000,000 signatures, gathered among a general population of 19,000,000. And when the reactionary Parliament cynically rejected the Chartists' mass petitions, the movement undertook to use methods of general strike and insurrection to enforce its demands.
The first major collision came in 1842, after Parliament had spurned a great petition for the "Six Points," bearing 3,317,700 names. The workers began to strike in many places jand to go into insurrection. The movement was put down, however, and some 1,500 leaders and active workers were arrested. In 1848, under the influence of the revolutionary situation in western Europe, the Chartist movement revived, but it had spent its force. When Parliament again rejected its mass petition, an attempt was made at insurrection; but this failed, largely because of the hesitations of petty bourgeois elements in the movement, and because the Duke of Wellington had mobilized 250,000 soldiers and police to crush it. The movement died out by 1850. Within a generation, however, the workers succeeded in writing into law virtually all of the famous "Six Points." The Chartist movement, the first attempt to build a broad national labor party of the working class, in which the workers got a taste of their great political power, was one of the most significant and glorious movements in the history of world labor.
During this stirring period, early in 1844, an important labor event, but little noticed at the time, was the formation of a consumers' cooperative by a handful of weavers in Toad Lane, Rochdale, England. This tiny organization, based on the principle of "dividends on purchases," is generally considered to be the beginning of the huge modern cooperative movement.
In France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, and other European countries, where harsh anti-union laws prevailed, there were but 21 __RUNNING_HEADER__ ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND
a few local trade unions in existence at the time the First International was born. In countries ruled by reactionary regimes there were numerous underground revolutionary political circles, and about the only types of labor organization more or less tolerated were mutual benefit (``friendly'') societies and cooperatives.
In the United States, where the Negro people languished in barbaric chattel slavery, there were more democratic freedoms, for white workers, and also a considerable growth of labor unionism, following the familiar pattern of craft unions of skilled workers. Already in 1786 the printers of Philadelphia carried through an organized strike. Toward the end of the 1820*5, in the mass democratic struggles of the Jacksonian period, the trade unions grew and many strikes took place. In 1827, 15 unions in Philadelphia formed the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations; in 1831, the New England Association of Farmers, Mechanics, and Other Workingmen was organized, and within the next several years local central bodies were set up in many eastern cities.^^5^^ This whole movement was accompanied by the establishment of labor parties in various localities, the first such organizations in the world. The workers fought especially for higher wages, the 10- hour workday, against debtor prisons, for free public education, for free land, and for a more democratic suffrage. The general movement subsided for a while, but the growth of individual unions continued. From 1834 to 1837, the National Trades Union served as the center of the young labor movement, and from 1845 to 1856, this need was met by the Industrial Congress, which had branches in all important industrial centers. The growth of the labor movement proceeded apace with the evolution of industry into the factory system. At the beginning of the Civil War several national craft unions were in existence.
The British workers not only strove to ease specific evils cjf the terrible exploitation they suffered, they also began to attack the capitalist system itself. With real genius, long before Karl Marx wrote, the celebrated Chartist leader, James Bronterre O'Brien developed a pretty clear understanding of the class struggle and of the nature of the capitalist state. In 1832, he said: "The Government is made up by the profit-men to protect them in their exorbitant profits, rents, 22 and impositions on the people who labor. Is it the Government who makes the laws, or is it not, on the contrary, the great profit-men who make them to enrich themselves and then have the Government to execute them? It is the profit-men who are the oppressors everywhere. The Government is their watchman and the people who labor are the oppressed." O'Brien fought the machine-breakers, and proposed instead that the machinery be owned by the people and used for their benefit.^^6^^
Rothstein points out that there was much confusion and utopianism in O'Brien's writings, but he marvels that the latter "came remarkably close to modern Marxism." Referring to O'Brien, Rothstein says that, "fifteen years before the drawing up of the Communist Manifesto, the theory of class antagonisms and class struggle in capitalist society had been presented in all its bearings, not in a fragmentary form, but in such a systematic and complete manner as to arouse even today our wonder and admiration.''^^7^^
German immigrant workers in London formed the Exiles' League (1834-1836) and the Federation of the Just (1836-1839). A leader of the latter organization, Wilhelm Weitling, a journeyman tailor, fundamentally attacked capitalism and elaborated in two books (1838 and 1842) a system of communism. Of the latter of these, Marx said in 1844: "When could the German bourgeoisie, including its philosophers and divines, point to a work championing bourgeois political emancipation which could in any way compare with Weitling's Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit (Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom)?''^^8^^
In the United States, too, the workers began to assail the capitalist system and to try to escape its toils. In 1829, tne brilliant machinist, Thomas Skidmore of New York, called upon the workers to challenge "the nature of the tenure by which all men hold title to their property." He proposed the equal division of all existing property---lands, houses, factories, vessels, etc." Skidmore, like George Henry Evans and many other workers' leaders of the times, and in the spirit of Jeffersonianism, prescribed the characteristic American petty-- bourgeois panacea of the times: that the workers could escape capitalist exploitation by getting themselves farms out of the vast body of land held by the Government. This was a sort of de-nationalization of the land, a process which, however, the English Chartist collectivists Schepper and Harney mistakenly opposed as reactionary.^^10^^
23 __RUNNING_HEADER__ ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND
Brutal capitalist exploitation, especially intensified by the Industrial Revolution, also called forth objections from the ranks of the capitalist and middle classes themselves. These protests were manifested in various types of Utopian socialism; that is, efforts to replace barbarous capitalism with more humane and intelligent regimes. The most important of the Utopian socialists were Robert Owen (1771- 1858) in Great Britain, and Claude H. Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Charles F. M. Fourier (1772-1837), and Etienne Cabet (1788-1856) in France. The general characteristic of the Utopians was that, instead of basing themselves upon the actual laws of social development, they worked out idealistic plans of society of their own imagining. The Utopians hoped that the people, including the capitalists, would adopt their plans as obviously superior to the existing regimes. Frederick Engels deals fundamentally with this whole movement in his great book, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Owen, a successful Scottish textile mill owner, set up a model workshop in New Lanark, Scotland, in 1800, with greatly improved conditions for the workers, and it was also highly profitable. Later he developed a system of worker ownership of industry. This general plan he hoped to have not only workers, but capitalists accept. But the capitalists would have nothing to do with Owen's scheme, except to denounce it. Owen, however, won a broad following among the working class. He became president of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, referred to above. Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Cabet also evolved systems of ideal societies. Disappointed and alarmed at the failure of the masses to realize the glittering democratic promises of the great French Revolution, these keen and generous spirits, at the turn of the new century, sharply criticized capitalism and undertook to build new systems of society based on justice and reason. They sought "to discover a new and more perfect system of social order and to impose this upon society from without by propaganda, and, wherever it was possible, by the example of model experiments."11 While the writings of the great Utopians attracted much attention in France, they produced but few concrete results there.
The European Utopians paid much attention to the United States, where land for experiments was cheap, where greater democratic liberties prevailed, and where the masses were largely in a progressive mood. Owen himself came to the United States in 1824 and organized cooperative colonies in New Harmony, Indiana, and several other places. The followers of Fourier, including such outstanding 24 personalities as Horace Greeley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Russell Lowell, and many other notables, set up during the 1840'$ cooperative ``phalanxes'' or colonies in some 40 places, the best known of which was Brook Farm in Massachusetts. During the same decade, the Cabet, or Icarian, movement also organized a number of colonies in Texas, Iowa, and Missouri.^^12^^ But these tiny idealistic ventures were only drops in the ocean of capitalism and they were all soon absorbed by it. When the First International came upon the scene of history, the Utopian movements were already things of the past.
During the pre-First International decades, several other social trends of major importance also developed, including pure and simple trade unionism, Bkinquism, Proudhonism, Lassalleism, and Bakuninism. These played important roles in the life of the International, therefore, we shall discuss them as we go on. Incomparably the greatest revolutionary advance and achievement of the working class, however, in these formative decades, was the development of scientific socialism by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.
[25] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Scientific SocialismKarl Marx was born in Treves, Rhenish Prussia, May 5, 1818. His father Heinrich was born a Jew but embraced Christianity. The son, Karl, was educated at the Bonn, Berlin, and Jena universities. His father wanted him to become a lawyer like himself, but he turned his main attention to philosophy, history, and science. In 1841 he got his Ph.iD. In his student days he studied deeply the works of the great German philosopher, Hegel, and he was also much influenced by the materialist writer, Ludwig Feuerbach. Upon his graduation, Marx plunged into the current turbulent political life, in the period of the gathering German bourgeois revolution of 1848. In 1842, while only 24 years old, he became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, a radical democratic journal. In the meantime, he married Jenny von Westphalen, daughter of a Prussian nobleman. It was at this time that Marx met Frederick Engels, who was to become his life-long friend and collaborator.
Engels was born in Barmen, Prussia, September 28, 1820. He was the son of a wealthy cotton mill owner, who planned a business career for him. But like Marx, Engels became immersed in the developing revolutionary movement. He went to England in 1843, where his father owned a mill near Manchester. There he contacted the Chartist and Owenite movements and became a revolutionary. On a visit to Paris, in 1844, he resumed his acquaintance with Marx. The latter, an exile from Prussia after his paper had been closed down by the government, was then editing the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher (German-French Year-books).
The two revolutionary youths had by this time definitely become Communists. Marx, for the first time, began to write as a socialist and materialist, and subjected Hegel's views on the state and on law to criticism from the socialist standpoint.^^1^^ Engels was in general agreement with Marx. Thus began the fruitful partnership of these two magnificent fighters for and with the working class.
26Marx was expelled from France in January 1845 and went to Brussels, where he was very active politically in revolutionary organizations, the Democratic League and the General Workers Society. In February 1846, jointly with Engels in England, the two began to form Communist Committees of Correspondence, a name reminiscent of American revolutionary experience. These committees carried on Communist propaganda in the adjoining countries. Meanwhile, relations were established with the remnants of the Federation of the Just, which had been shattered as a result of the abortive 1839 rising of the Blanquists in Paris. After some negotiations, the various groups came together in London during the summer of 1847, witn Engels in attendance. There they formed the Communist League. This was the first international Communist organization and it was a forerunner of the International Workingmen's Association of a decade and a half later.
The Communist League was made up chiefly of exiled workers and intellectuals---French, German, Swiss, Italian, Russian, etc.---in London, Paris, and Brussels. The League held a second congress in 1847, from November 29 to December 8, in London, with both Marx and Engels present. At this congress the League definitely organized itself, adopting a constitution and providing for a program. The task of preparing the program was delegated to Marx, who was already widely known as a well-developed and steadfast Communist. Throughout December 1847 and January 1848, Marx and Engels worked on the draft, and by the end of the latter month it was completed and forwarded to London, where it was published in February. The Manifesto of the Communist Party, popularly referred to as The Communist Manifesto, the most important single document in the history of mankind, had come into being.
The Communist Manifesto was the first revolutionary program of the world's workers. It laid down the solid foundations of proletarian thought and action for the workers thenceforth on their road to socialism. It showed them how to protect themselves under capitalism, how to abolish the capitalist system, and how to build the structure of the new socialist society. Marx, Engels, V. I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and others were to write many books on Marxism during the ensuing decades, and their writings served to elaborate and to buttress 27 __RUNNING_HEADER__ SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM
the basic' propositions of the Manifesto. Today, 107 years after the great document was written, The Communist Manifesto stands as firm as a rock, a clear guide for the international working class, justified by generations of revolutionary experience, and altogether impervious to the attacks of capitalist enemies.
Prior to 1848, the movement for socialism was a welter of confusion regarding the analysis of capitalism, organizational forms, methods of struggle, and the conception of the ultimate goal. It was a mixture of primitivism, utopianism, adventurism, and opportunism. But Marx, actively aided by Engels, with one masterly stroke, in The Communist Manifesto^ swept aside all this idealism, ignorance, and eclecticism, and put the socialist movement, for the first time, upon a scientific basis. As Engels said 35 years later in his famous address at the grave of Marx, "Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.''^^2^^ Marxism, during its century of life, has irresistibly triumphed over the host of confusions and illusions, bred of capitalism, that have plagued the working class on its advance to emancipation. "Every other theory and world outlook lies in ruins," says Dutt, "shattered and impotent before the march of events.''^^3^^ Marxism, first formulated basically in The Communist Manifesto, becomes ever more expanded and powerful with the passage of the decades.
Stalin thus defines Marxism: "Marxism is the science of the laws governing the development of nature and society, the science of the revolution of the oppressed and exploited masses, the science of the victory of socialism in all countries, the science of building a communist society.''^^4^^ And Lenin thus describes the basic composition of Marxism: "Marx was the genius who continued and completed the three chief ideological currents of the igth century, represented respectively by the three most advanced countries of humanity: classical German philosophy, classical English political economy, and French socialism combined with French revolutionary doctrines.''^^8^^ Major among the basic elements of Marxism are the following:
i. PHILOSOPHICAL MATERIALISM: Marx based himself upon the reality of the world, as against the metaphysical imaginings of the idealistic philosophers George Berkeley, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Georg W. F. Hegel, and the many others whose systems, by one route 28 or another, all led to the acceptance of religion and to the conception of an artificial external creation and operation of the world. Marx counterposes a world ruled by natural law, against the bourgeois metaphysical conception of a world under the arbitrary guidance of some remote divinity. To him materiality is fundamental, and all thought and understanding flow from it.
Engels says: "The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being . . . spirit to nature . . . which is primary, spirit or nature. . . . The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature, and therefore, in the last analysis, assumed world creation in some form or another . . . comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.''^^6^^
Marx was the supreme philosopher in the second camp, carrying the materialist conception into all branches of thought and action. The practical effect of philosophical materialism is to free Marxists, and eventually the working class, from the crippling influence of the innumerable hoary and reactionary conceptions relating to philosophy, science, government, religion, economics, morality, art, etc., which constitute the fundamental ideological buttresses of the capitalist system. Philosophical materialism is the sharpest intellectual weapon of the proletariat in its fight against capitalism and for socialism.
2. DIALECTICS: Marx and Engels adopted the dialectics of Hegel (1770-1831), which, as Lenin puts it, is "the theory of evolution which is most comprehensive, rich in content, and profound." Dialectics, Marx says, "is the science of the general laws of motion---both of the external world and of human thought.''^^7^^ But in accepting Hegel's dialectic system, Marx and Engels stripped it of its idealism and developed it on a materialist basis. For dialectical philosophy, says Engels, "nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendency from the lower to the higher.''^^8^^
Dialectical evolution, says Lenin, is "a development that repeats, as it were, the stages already passed, but repeats them in a different way, on a higher plane ('negation of negation'); a development, so to speak, in spirals, not in a straight line; a spasmodic, catastrophic, 29 __RUNNING_HEADER__ SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM
revolutionary development; 'breaks of gradualness/ transformation of quantity into quality; inner impulses for development, imparted by the contradiction, the conflict of different forces and tendencies reacting on a given body, or inside a given phenomenon or within a given society; interdependence, and the closest, indissoluble connection between all sides of every phenomenon. . . .''^^9^^
3. THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY: Marx and Engels were the first to put the writing of history upon a scientific basis, stripping it of the mass of metaphysics, subjectivism, hero-worship, class bias, and superficialities characterizing bourgeois-written " history." The heart of the Marxist materialist conception of history lies in the economic factor, the way people make their living. Marx outlines it as follows: "In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society---the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.''^^10^^
Marxists have frequently been accused of laying sole stress upon the economic factor and of ignoring all others, such as national traditions, history, culture, etc. But this is nonsense. In this respect, Engels combats vulgar economic determinism: "According to the materialist conception of history, the determining element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction in real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. If therefore somebody twists this into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase.''^^11^^
The bourgeoisie, with its idealistic, eclectic system of history writing, which denies causation and reason and puts the stress upon all sorts of secondary and superficial elements, has no clear picture of past history nor of what is happening at the present time. Historical materialism, the method of Marx, with its stress on the economic factor, gives to Marxists a decisive advantage in drawing the elementary lessons from past history, and for understanding the fundamental 30 meaning of the complex economic and political processes of today. It is this that enables Marxists to foresee the inevitability of social revolution and socialism, an eventuality which the bourgeois economists and historians neither can nor dare envisage.
4. THE CLASS STRUGGLE: The Communist Manifesto thus states the fundamental Marxist position on the class struggle: "The history of all hitherto existing society^^*^^ is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all these classes, again, subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes . . . new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.''^^12^^
Modern capitalist society is a maze of sharply contending internal groups. "Marxism," says Lenin, "provides a clue which enables us to discover the reign of law in this seeming labyrinth and chaos: the theory of the class struggle.''^^13^^ The bourgeoisie, particularly in these later years, is anxious to obscure the class character of the internal struggles that are taking place, and thus to confuse the masses as to their true class interests. But the class analysis of Marxism lays bare the whole process, and it is the first consideration, not only in understanding .past history, but in the working out of proletarian policy in any given situation.
Before Marx's time many bourgeois historians and political economists (including James Madison in the United States) had gained some inkling of the class struggle, but it was Marx and Engels who made the whole vital matter crystal clear. In a letter to Joseph Weydemeyer (March 5, 1852), Marx said on this question: "And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society nor yet the struggle between them. Long before _-_-_
^^*^^ Engels adds here, "except in the pre-history of society.''
31 me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. "What I did that was new was to prove: (i) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular, historic phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society"^^14^^---which is a very modest summary indeed of Marx's contributions on this central question.5. THE REVOLUTIONARY ROLE OF THE WORKING CLASS: In his analysis of the class struggle, Marx, as one of his greatest achievements, developed the revolutionary role of the proletariat. In The Communist Manifesto, he said: "Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save themselves from extinction as fractions of the middle class. They are, therefore, not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay, more, they are reactionary.''^^15^^ Marx was here dealing with the period of competitive capitalism. In the period of imperialism, however, the era of the general crisis of capitalism, the proletariat is able to mobilize the poorer peasantry and other petty bourgeois elements behind its leadership. To theorize the worker-peasant alliance was one of the greatest achievements of Lenin.
Lenin says, "The main thing in the teaching of Marx is the elucidation of the world-wide historical role of the proletariat as the builder of a socialist society.''^^18^^ This firm Marxian insistence upon the leadership of the proletariat is fundamental in revolutionary working class policy. Marx's clarity on this has successfully countered persistent attempts of various schools of opportunists to see in the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, or the city petty bourgeoisie the constructive class that the masses of workers should follow. The leading role of the working class was the key to the winning of the future great revolutions in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe.
Already in The Communist Manifesto Marx also began to outline the special type of thinking-fighting-disciplined party necessary for the working class to win finally over the capitalist class. "The Communists . . . are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced 32 and resolute section of the working class parties in every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.''^^17^^
6. SURPLUS VALUE: In the early, progressive stage of capitalism, the bourgeois economists---Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and many others---made much sound analysis of that system. But they could not face up to the revolutionary realities of where capitalism was heading, and in later generations bourgeois economics degenerated eventually into little better than superficial apologetics for capitalism. It remained for Marx, the giant of all economists, to drive home the economic analysis to its revolutionary conclusions.
Especially in his great three-volume work, Capital, Marx made a profound analysis of the capitalist system. Among his innumerable basic contributions, he explained the hitherto unsolved questions of the primitive accumulation of capital, the causes of cyclical crises, the concentration of capital, and many aspects of capitalism hitherto unprobed or obscured by bourgeois economists. But his supreme contribution in the economic sphere was to describe the production of surplus value by the workers and "its appropriation by the capitalists. This laid bare the whole process of capitalist exploitation and exposed the economic causes leading to proletarian revolution. Since then countless bourgeois economists have tried in vain to refute his historic discovery. Mehring thus sums up this central phase of Marxist theory:
``The real source of capitalist wealth was revealed for the first time in the first volume of Capital. . . . Marx showed for the first time how profit originated and how it flowed into the pockets of the capitalists. He did so on the basis of two decisive economic facts: first that the mass of the workers consists of proletarians who are compelled to sell their labor-power as a commodity in order to exist, and secondly that this commodity, labor-power, possesses such a high degree of productivity in our own day that it is able to produce in a certain time a much greater product than is necessary for its own maintenance in that time. These two purely economic facts, representing the result of objective historical development, cause the fruit of the labor-power of the proletarian to fall automatically into the lap of the capitalist and to accumulate, with the continuance of the wage system, into ever-growing masses of capital.''^^18^^
7. THE ROLE OF THE STATE: One of the most basic elements of 33 __RUNNING_HEADER__ SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM
Marxism is Marx's analysis of the state as the instrument of force by which the bourgeoisie enforces the submission of the workers to its domination. The Communist Manifesto says, "The Executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.''^^19^^ Marx slashed into those muddleheads and opportunists who held that the capitalist state was an institution standing apart from and above all economic classes, concerning itself with the welfare of all the people. Marx and Engels traced the history of the state, showing that, with the rise of economic classes, the state ever served the interest of the ruling classes. Engels, especially in his The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, and in his Anti-Duhring, demonstrated that the victorious proletariat will ultimately do away with the state and relegate it "into the museum of antiquities.''
8. CLASS STRUGGLE STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF THE WORKING CLASS: Marx and Engels not only worked out the general principles, but also the fighting methods of the proletariat. In their various books, and especially in their voluminous correspondence, are to be found the basic answers to most of the scores of complex questions of strategy and tactics which, for the past century, have been serious problems for the developing labor movement. Most of labor's later weaknesses on these questions have been due to failure or refusal to learn the lessons of Marx's writings. Inasmuch as we shall see in passing how the three successive international organizations of the working class have dealt with various of these questions, here we can do hardly more than to list a few of them.
Marx and Engels realized very clearly that the working class, fighting against ruling classes that would use every form of violence to retain their class power, would have to be prepared themselves to meet force with force. Marx said, "Force is the midwife of every society pregnant with a new one." Only in Great Britain and the United States, did he, under the circumstances of that time (which, as Lenin later showed, was before the rise of imperialism), consider bourgeois democracy advanced enough to raise the possibility of a peaceful transition by the workers to socialism.^^20^^
Marx and Engels, while realizing the necessity of the working class to make temporary alliances with other classes with whom its interests coincided at the time (even with the bourgeoisie in the struggle against feudalism), laid the greatest stress upon the fundamental necessity of the workers having their own distinct class organizations 34 and policies---a basic lesson which the labor movements in many countries, notably the United States, have by no means fully learned even yet.
Another problem that has plagued the labor movement for a century is how to establish the correct relationship between the struggle for the workers' immediate demands and the struggle for the establishment of socialism. But Marx, in The Communist Manifesto, gave a clear line for this in his basic statement that, "The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.''^^21^^
Marx understood very well (although in his writings he did not develop it at great length) the vital question of the role of the peasantry as potential allies of the revolutionary working class. Illustrating his understanding in this matter, Marx, referring to the revolution of 1848, said, "The whole thing in Germany will depend on the possibility of covering the rear of the proletarian revolution by some second edition of the Peasant War.''^^22^^ One of the basic causes for the eventual failure of the Second International was precisely its inability to grasp this elementary proposition, the basis of which was worked out by Marx.
Marx and Engels also worked out many other basic questions of strategy and tactics. They evaluated the roles in the class struggle of the trade unions and of the cooperative movement. They established a proletarian policy towards war and established the role of the general strike in the fight against militarism. They worked out the elements of proletarian policy in the national question, as it then presented itself to the European labor movement. They demonstrated the international character of the workers' struggle for emancipation, the greatest of all labor watchwords being that of "Workingmen of all Countries, Unitel" the closing words of The Communist Manifesto.
The two great Communist pioneers, Marx and Engels, also swept aside all the existing uncertainty and Utopian speculation about socialism and placed the question upon a scientific basis. They uncovered the economic workings of the capitalist system that was exploiting the toiling masses, that was organizing the working class, and that was making the advent of socialism inevitable. They demonstrated that the workers were the historical "grave-diggers of capitalism," that only the proletariat could lead the respective peoples 35 __RUNNING_HEADER__ SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM
to socialism. Without attempting, as the Utopians did, to trace out every detail of the future society, Marx and Engels showed that it would be the dictatorship of the proletariat and that socialism, with its motto of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work," would be the introductory phase of a still higher social structure, communism, with the principle, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." This basic Marxist analysis has been completely sustained by the one-third of the human race now definitely on the march to socialism and communism.
Together Marx and Engels laid the theoretical and practical foundations of the modern movement for socialism. Marx was the more towering genius of the two, but Engels was also a theoretician of extraordinary stature. Their collaboration was so close that It is impossible to distinguish the precise authorship of respective features of Marxism. Engels was very generous in conceding credit to Marx. Among many such expressions, he said that "the basic ideas of the Manifesto . .. belong entirely and solely to Marx.''^^23^^ And again, he said: "These two great discoveries, the materialist conception of history, and the revelation of the secret of capitalist production through surplus value, we owe to Marx. With these discoveries socialism became a science.''^^24^^.
Engels, besides his collaboration with Marx, personally produced several very valuable books, classics of socialism. He also performed the gigantic task, after Marx's death, of working up Marx's mountain of notes into the second and third volumes of Capital. Lenin thus evaluates Engels: "After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the most remarkable scientist and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilized world.''^^25^^
[36] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Revolution of 1848The revolution of 1848 was one of the series of upheavals by which the capitalist class progressively established its rule in Western Europe and eventually throughout the world. The movement, which Marx called "the Continental revolution," started in France and quickly enveloped Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Belgium, Portugal, and other European countries. England and Ireland also distinctly felt it, and its influence was sharp as far east as Poland and Russia. Repercussions of it took place even in the United States and in Latin America. It was one of the biggest blows ever delivered by rising capitalism against the decadent feudal system.
The basic cause of the broad bourgeois revolution was the pressure of rapidly growing capitalist industrialization, with the equally swiftly expanding working class, against the cramping economic and political fetters of obsolete feudalism. The immediate reason for the revolution was the deep and general economic crisis of 1847, which produced a widespread industrial shutdown, great unemployment, and wholesale mass destitution. Among its other effects, the revolution constituted a major challenge to the newly-organized Communist League, with its famous program, The Communist Manifesto, which had forecast the upheaval. The 1848 revolution was a decisive force in shaping the general European situation, into which, a few years later, the First International was born.
The revolution began in France on February 24, 1848. It started in this classical land of revolutions because there industry was more developed than anywhere else on the Continent, the French bourgeoisie was the strongest and most revolutionary, the working class was the most mature politically and accustomed to insurrectional methods, and the French feudal system, because of successive revolutionary blows since 1789, was the weakest in Europe. In his work, 37 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
The Class Struggles in France (1848-50), Marx has provided the scientific history of the French phase of the revolution.
The Paris workers, rising and fighting under the red flag, overthrew King Louis Philippe, a product of the defeated 1830 revolution. The workers had as ``allies'' the petty bourgeoisie and lesser big bourgeoisie in the struggle against the bankers and big financiers who were allied with the monarchists. The new provisional government which was created hesitated about proclaiming the Republic; whereupon Raspail, a worker leader, warned that they must do this within two hours or by then he would have an army of 200,000 workers battering at the doors of the Hotel de Ville. Before the deadline, therefore, the frightened government hastily plastered the city walls with placards reading, "Republique Francaise; Liberte, Egalite, Fraternitel" The workers also compelled the reluctant government to establish universal male suffrage, to admit workers into the National Guard (hitherto the privilege only of the middle class), to set up vast national workshops (employing 100,000 workers)---shops which were supposed to wipe out poverty---and to organize a commission to study the general question of social reform.
Alarmed at the revolutionary spirit of the workers, the bourgeoisie systematically organized their forces to crush their erstwhile worker allies. The new National Assembly, elected largely with peasant votes, was conservative. The reactionaries mobilized 24,000 men---mostly thieves and other lumpen (slum) proletarian elements--- into the Mobile Guards; they attacked the national workshops, imposing systems of piece-work and otherwise disrupting them. On May 15, a small insurrection, led by Raspail, Blanqui, and Barbes, tried in vain to overthrow the now reactionary government. Finally on June 21, the big workshops were closed altogether. The Government's provocations were all a deliberate scheme to push the workers into a futile general insurrection.
Under these attacks, the workers of Paris rose on June 22 in a fierce insurrection, which Marx describes as "the first great battle . . . between the two classes that split modern society." On the walls ran these slogans, "Overthrow of the Bourgeoisie," "Dictatorship of the Working Class." "The workers, with unexampled bravery and talent, without chiefs, without a common plan, without means and, for the most part, lacking weapons, held in check for five days the army, the Mobile Guard, the Parisian National Guard, and the National Guard that streamed in from the provinces.''^^1^^ But it was a lost cause; 38 the workers were finally beaten and 3,000 of them massacred by the butcher Cavaignac. Thousands more were thrown into prison.
The defeat of the French workers in June 1848 had a profoundly reactionary effect upon the revolutionary situation all over Europe. Generally, the erstwhile revolutionary bourgeoisie fled into the arms of reaction, the feudalists and monarchists, and made common cause with them against the radical working class. The main political effect of all this was to slow down, but not to stop altogether, the march of the bourgeoisie to political power in the several continental countries.
The conservative French National Assembly, on December 10, 1848, elected Louis Bonaparte as President. He seized dictatorial power on December 2, 1851, and a year later had himself proclaimed Emperor, as Napoleon III.^^2^^ This political adventurer was the man who was eventually to lead the French people into the great debacle of the Franco-German war of 1870-71.
The revolution of February 24, 1848, begun in Paris, spread swiftly to Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, and other lands. These countries, like France and for the" same general reasons, were ripe for bourgeois democratic revolution. On March 4, only a week after the revolution began in Paris, the workers and their allies rose in Cologne, Germany, and took charge of the city. On March 13 the people of Vienna chased out Prince Metternich and his government and mastered that important city. And "on March 18 the people of Berlin rose in arms, and after an obstinate struggle of 18 hours, had the satisfaction of seeing the King surrender himself into their hands.''^^3^^ Similar uprisings took place in many other cities. A National Assembly was elected and a ``liberal'' government established. The bourgeoisie was in a position, by resolute action, to make itself master of all Germany and Austria.
Marx and Engels, like all great Communist leaders, were men of action as well as of theory. They not only analyzed the world, but they fought actively to change it. With both France and Germany in revolution, they chose the latter country, where they had the most roots, as their field of operation. Consequently, they hastened from Belgium to Prussia, locating themselves in revolutionary Cologne, in the Rhine area. Among their most active co-workers were Stephan Born, Josef Moll, Karl Schapper, Johann Becker, and Wilhelm Wolff. 39 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
Marx explained later that they went to Cologne rather than to Berlin because, as it was more industrialized and had a more democratic regime, they would have greater freedom of action.^^4^^ The Communist League possessed only a handful of members in Germany, so Marx and Engels had to work through the broad democratic organizations at hand. During the struggle the Communist Party of Germany was organized. Marx became editor of Neue Rheinische Zeitung, which was at first an organ of the liberal bourgeoisie, but which he turned into a journal supporting the workers.
On the eve of the revolution, the democratic parties had met in Offenburg and worked out the program of the liberal bourgeoisie. This included freedom of thought and association, universal and .equal male suffrage, a militia to replace the standing army, a progressive income tax, trial by jury, popular education, labor reforms, and parliamentary government---all within a united German republic.
The heart of this program for the bourgeoisie was to unite fragmentized Germany into one state. In 1834, with the customs union (Zollverein), a long step had been taken in this direction, but the capitalists had further urgent need to get the whole chaos of the many states under one central government. When Germany finally became united in 1871 (without Austria), the new unity was built out of a total of 25 states, four kingdoms, five grand duchies, 13 duchies and principalities, and three free cities, all previously independent states.^^5^^
There being a common interest between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to overthrow the feudal monarchy and to establish a united democratic Germany, Marx and Engels and their followers actively supported this general program. But they did so with the understanding that the bourgeois revolution would be but the introductory stage of a more far-reaching proletarian revolution. Engels, later on, thus explained their policy: "For us February and March [the first phase of the revolution] could have the significance of a real revolution only if these months had not been the termination but, on the contrary, the starting point of a prolonged revolutionary movement which . . . the people would have developed further by their own struggle . . . and in which the proletariat would gradually have won one position after another in a series of battles.''^^6^^ Accordingly, Marx and Engels militantly fought for a democratic republic, for a united Germany (including the German section of Austria), for the specific class demands of the workers, and for all-out support of the revolution in France, Hungary and elsewhere.
40This general line of policy was that of "permanent revolution," a policy which, under Trotsky distortions, was to play such an important role, two generations later, in the great Stalin-Trotsky controversy in the Russian revolution. It was in harmony with the conception in The Communist Manifesto, which declared that "the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution." Engels later admitted that he and Marx had miscalculated in their too early expectancy of the socialist revolution.^^7^^ But they were basically correct nevertheless in developing a socialist perspective in the German revolution of 1848. In view of the revolutionary spirit of the German working class and especially of the workers' February rising in Paris and their headon armed collision with the bourgeoisie in the June counter-- revolution, the question of socialism had been placed on the agenda of history in Europe. In fact, it was to be but a relatively short time until the French working class, in the heroic Paris Commune of 1871, would demonstrate this great fact beyond all question.
The German bourgeoisie in 1848, instead of following up its initial revolutionary advantage by crushing the feudal states, wavered and temporized. "The pretended new central authority of Germany," says Engels, "left everything as they found it.''^^8^^ They were more fearful of the revolutionary workers than they were of feudal reaction. They were afraid that their bourgeois revolution would indeed "grow over" into a socialist revolution. Therefore, essentially as the French bourgeoisie did after the February uprising, the German bourgeoisie allied itself with reaction against the working class. The National Assembly, installed by the liberal bourgeoisie, was afraid to break with the monarchy and kept on the road of compromise until it was dissolved by aggressive reaction.
The bourgeoisie practically abandoned even its basic demand for a united Germany, not to mention a republic. Marx denounced the capitalist class as "without initiative . . . without a universal historical calling, a doomed senile creature.''^^9^^ Without breaking with those middle class elements still willing to fight, Marx and Engels threw their stress upon action by the workers. But as the sequel showed, the proletariat was much too weak and immature politically to take the 41 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
lead and to carry through successfully the bourgeois-democratic revolution which the bourgeoisie itself was so flagrantly betraying, and a socialist revolution was not potential in the situation.
The crushing defeat suffered by the workers in Paris in June 1848 revived reaction all through Germany and Eastern Europe. In November of that year the militant counter-revolution re-conquered Vienna and in the same month dissolved the National Assembly of Prussia in Berlin. The people of Dresden took up arms (with Bakunin participating), and so did those of other localities. The masses awaited a general call to action from the National Assembly at Frankfurt, but this call never came. The bourgeoisie, which had a majority in that Assembly, was busy selling out the nation to the counter-- revolution in its own narrow class interests. By July 1849 the German revolution, begun so auspiciously 16 months earlier, was entirely subdued and the counter-revolution was again in the saddle.
The bourgeoisie did not win the decisive victory in the revolution, as they could have done, but they managed nevertheless to open the doors sufficiently for the future rapid industrialization of Germany. This was what they wanted basically, and having secured it, they promptly betrayed their worker, peasant, and middle-class allies. This treachery was in the nature of the capitalist beast. It was a basic lesson that was to be learned afresh by the working class and the Negro people in the second American revolution (1861-65), and by the workers and other democratic forces in the many other bourgeois revolutions of the future. Another basic lesson stressed by the 1848 revolution was the imperative need for the workers to have an independent party of their own.
With counter-revolution victorious in Germany, great numbers of revolutionists had to leave the country. Masses of them emigrated to the United States, there to play a very important role in the fight against chattel slavery and in building the young labor movement. Marx, Engels, and various other fighters returned to London.
The decade between the defeat of the 1848 revolution and the establishment of the First International was generally a period of political reaction, of rapid industrialization, of extensive growth of the working class, and of lessened revolutionary struggle. In France, Germany, and elsewhere revolutionaries were persecuted, an 42 outstanding example of this being the celebrated Cologne trial of 1852, where nine Communist leaders were accused of high treason. The trial, based on stool-pigeon and provocateur testimony, resulted in the conviction and jailing of seven of these leaders for long prison terms.
The rapid expansion of European industry was especially marked in Great Britain, the leading capitalist country. In these years there was some improvement in the conditions of the English workers. Beer says that "in the period from 1846 to 1866 money wages as well as real wages rose, as a result of the expansion of trade and the repeal of the corn-laws.''^^10^^ This damped down considerably the workers' revolutionary spirit. Webb remarks that in this period, "under the influences of the rapid improvement and comparative prosperity . . . the Chartist agitation dwindled away.''^^11^^ Nevertheless a substantial growth of British trade unionism took place, with trade union councils being established in many cities during the latter 1850*8. In Germany, under much more severe political conditions, the trade unions barely began to sprout.
Upon their return to London from Germany after the revolution, Marx and Engels re-organized the Communist League. But the organization became the victim of factionalism. Marx and Engels made a stand against the adventurist policies of the Willich-Schapper faction, which wanted to organize a hopeless putsch in Germany. Marx warned of the danger of "playing at insurrection." He also collided with the Utopian vagaries of Wilhelm Welding. In 1852 the League split in two and broke up.
During this general period leading up to the formation of the International Workingmen's Association, Marx lived in deep poverty in a small house in Soho, London. Engels was located in Manchester under more favorable conditions. He frequently aided Marx financially, to enable him to carry on his studies and writing. The two were the closest friends and collaborators, not only politically but personally.
The following letter written by Marx a few weeks before the Cologne trial, illustrates the dire conditions under which this great scientist and revolutionist worked and lived: "My wife is sick, Jenny [Marx's oldest daughter] is sick. Lena [housekeeper for the Marx family] is also ill with some kind of nervous fever. I cannot call a doctor as I have no money for medicine. During eight to ten days my family has existed only on bread and potatoes and it is not at all certain that I can get even these tomorrow. It would be very good---and perhaps I 43 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
ought to wish it---that the landlady would throw me out of the apartment. I would then be freed at least from a debt of 22 pounds. Then there are the bills of the baker, the milkman, for meat, etc., which are also pressing me.''^^12^^
This was an extremely productive period for Marx, despite his great handicaps. In 1852, he published in Die Revolution, Joseph Weydemeyer's paper in the United States, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, a masterly analysis of the revolution and counterrevolution in France in 1848-52. From 1852 to 1862, Marx, who had become a regular correspondent for Horace Greeley's paper, the New York Tribune, wrote brilliant articles for that paper on Europe and Asia, and also fundamental analyses of the American anti-slavery fight and the early stages of the American Civil War. In 1859, he published his Critique of Political Economy, one of his basic writings on economics. But his major activity was in writing his monumental work, Capital, the first volume of which appeared in 1867.
[44] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. The Founding of the FirstLike the capitalist system, the labor movement is fundamentally international. As industries and transportation and communication systems surmount all national borders, so does proletarian class consciousness. The spread of capitalism to the various countries and the development of the world market inevitably generates sentiments of internationalism among the workers. This is especially the case as they begin to break with bourgeois conceptions and turn their attention to socialist policies and perspectives. The political maturity of a given labor movement can be measured pretty much by the degree of internationalism animating it.
In the early igth century the young proletariat already sensed a strong need for solidarity on an international scale. The workers had need to know and support each other in their growing economic and political struggles against the voracious capitalists, who, although sharply antagonistic to each other along national lines, nevertheless displayed a strong international unity against the specific demands of the working class. More concretely, the workers had to fight against international strike-breaking, and they also sensed a growing need to struggle against war. The more socialist they became, the more internationalist they grew.
The innate internationalism of the workers was also stimulated by strong international trends among the radical sections of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. In the revolutionary establishment of capitalist domination these classes definitely cooperated across national lines, particularly in the various revolutions of this general period. This was exemplified by the international bourgeois support given the American Revolution in 1776, the French Revolution of 1789, the French Revolution in 1848, and the German, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, and other bourgeois revolutions. Largely intellectuals, these radical bourgeois elements also penetrated most of the workers' 45 __RUNNING_HEADER__ FOUNDING OF FIRST INTERNATIONAL
international movements of the times and tried to use them in their own class interests.
England, the heartland of early capitalism, which had the largest and best developed working class and which gave birth to trade unionism, naturally became the scene of most of the preliminary efforts of the proletariat at international solidarity and organization. Ever since the strong rise of the labor movement in the 1830's, there were many expressions of the growing worker spirit of internationalism. The Chartist movement displayed powerful internationalist trends. Lorwin calls William Lovett, one of its founders, "the first workingman of modern times with an international outlook.''^^1^^ The Exiles' League (1834-36), the Federation of the Just (1836-39) and the Communist League (1847-52), which we have dealt with in Chapter 2, were definitely internationalist and predominantly proletarian in outlook and membership. Their chief activities and centers were in England.
A very important international organization of this period was the Fraternal Democrats, organized in London in September 1844, by groups of English fighters and European exiles. It declared that "the earth with all its natural productions is the common property of all."2 Stekloff says of it that, "as far as its animating ideas were concerned, it was the first international organization of the working class, and in this sense may be regarded as a harbinger of the International."8 Harney, Jones, O'Brien, and other outstanding Chartist leaders, were active figures in this significant organization. Marx and Engels cooperated with the movement. The Fraternal Democrats was internationalist and concerned itself actively with the fights of the workers and other revolutionary developments on the Continent. It definitely prepared the way for the First International. An important feature of this organization was that it initiated an organizational form which was later adopted by the.First International, i.e., the establishment of secretaries for the respective countries. Thus, there were secretaries for England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain. The organization perished in the reaction following the 1848 revolution in Europe.
The next significant international movement, also radiating out from England, was the Welcome and Protest Committee, later known 46 as the International Committee (and the International Association), organized in London late in 1855. This body, too, set up secretaries for the several countries in which it had contacts. Again Ernest Jones and other Chartists were prominent figures in the movement. The Committee held several big mass meetings in celebration of the various European revolutions of the past, and it protested against the outrages of the current reaction in Europe. But by the end of 1859 the International Committee had disappeared.
In France, too, powerful internationalist tendencies manifested themselves among the workers. They had strong international traditions, running back to Babeuf, the noted Communist in the great French Revolution, as well as to fighters.in the 1830 and 1848 revolutions, and also in the many other French people's upheavals. In 1843 Flora Tristan, in Paris, wrote a booklet calling for the establishment of a broad international organization. "The Workers Union," she said, "should establish in the principal cities of England, Germany, Italy, in a word, in all the capitals of Europe, committees of correspondence.''^^4^^ In April 1856 a deputation of French workers went to London, and proposed that there be set up a "Universal League of Workers" to conduct the struggle internationally.
Among the most important activities of all these international groupings was their active support of the movement to abolish Negro chattel slavery in the British Empire, the United States, and throughout the world. There was for decades a strong abolitionist movement in which Chartist trade unionists and Owenites played a very important part. The British and American abolition movements worked in close cooperation. Between 1833 and 1860, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and many other prominent American Abolitionists visited England, where they were given a tremendous mass welcome. George Thompson, English labor-Abolitionist, also came over to the United States and was active in the local struggle. Prior to and during the Civil War, English trade unionists repeatedly held big demonstrations against slavery. In France, too, the working class displayed similar anti-slavery internationalist solidarity against the determined attempts of Napoleon III to bring Great Britain and France into the war on the side of the Confederacy.
These pro-abolition, pro-peace activities, especially of the British workers, led to a letter of thanks from President Lincoln to the Manchester textile workers, who were at the point of starvation because of the cotton blockade. He said that the support constituted "an 47 __RUNNING_HEADER__ FOUNDING OF FIRST INTERNATIONAL instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age in any country.''^^5^^ On March 2, 1863, the United States Senate expressed gratitude to the British workers for their support. And Marx, earlier in the New York Tribune, stated that, "It ought never to be forgotten in the United States that at least the working classes of England, from the commencement to the termination of the difficulty, have not forsaken them.''^^6^^
The foundation of the First International itself took place in a rising wave of proletarian and bourgeois national revolutionary struggle, after the long period of reaction that had followed the European revolution of 1848. Capitalism was growing rapidly all over Western Europe, and so was the working class, both in organization and in fighting spirit. The labor movement, particularly in England, was strengthening itself, the London Trades Council was formed in 1860, and similar bodies were taking shape in other centers. In Germany, the first trade unions were just coming into existence; Ferdinand Lassalle organized the General Union of German Workers, a political organization, in 1863, and August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht were carrying on an active communist agitation, which was to bring about the organization in 1869 of the Social-Democratic Workers Party of Germany. In the United States, also, in the period from 1863 on, the trade unions were growing swiftly. The great economic crisis of 1857, the first of a world-wide character, affected the workers deeply and gave birth to a strong strike movement in 1860-62, both in England and in other countries, including the United States.
Among the many developments in the powerful upsurge of bourgeois democratic national movements in the pre-First International period, there were several which especially aroused the workers of all countries and strengthened their urge for international solidarity. An important one was the sharp rise in the Irish liberation struggle, directed against the English oppressors. Another was a regrowth of strong mass sentiment for the unification and democratization of Germany. Still another was the Italian national revolutionary war of 1859 against Austria. Led by Garibaldi, this war culminated in the liberation and unification of Italy and the introduction of a number of democratic reforms. It caused enthusiasm far and wide among the workers in the capitalist world. Then there was the heroic insurrection in. Poland in 1863. This revolt, drowned in blood by the Russian tyrant, evoked widespread expressions of proletarian sympathy and support. Finally, there was the revolutionary Civil War 48 in the United States, which was going on when the First International was formed. The organized workers in England, Germany, France, and elsewhere, from the outset of this great war, understood clearly that their class interests were decidedly with the North against the slaveholding South, and, as we have already remarked, on many occasions they gave voice powerfully to their strong abolitionist sentiments.
The First International was launched on September 28, 1864, in St. Martin's Hall, London. Prior to this meeting, over 300 workers from France and 12 from Germany had visited the International Exhibition in London in i862,^^7^^ and while there discussed with English trade unionists the project of a workers' international. Also, on July 22, 1863, English and French workers in collaboration had organized a mass meeting in London to protest the suppression of the Cracow insurrection and to demand Polish independence. This led to further talks about an international, and some four months later, George Odger, prominent English union leader, wrote an ``Address'' to the French workers on the need of international labor action. The French did not reply for a year, but when they did, they sent their answer to London by the same workers who had attended the joint meeting there in 1863. It was to receive their report that the famous meeting of September 28 was called in St. Martin's Hall.
The meeting was a large one, heavily attended by workingmen and foreign-born exiles. Professor E. S. Beesly was in the chair, Marx was in attendance. Odger read the address, sent a year previously to the French workers. The address proposed: "Let there be a gathering together of representatives from France, Italy, Germany, Poland, England, and all countries, where there exists a will to cooperate for the good of mankind. Let us have our congresses; let us discuss the great questions on which the peace of nations depends . . .''^^8^^ M. Tolain, one of the French delegates, who was greeted with great applause, read the French answer. After reviewing the hardships faced by the workers, it called upon the workers of all countries to unite.^^9^^ _-_-_
^^*^^ After the formation of the Second International in 1889, the I.W.A. became known as "The First International." Prior to that, it was generally called simply "The International.''
49 __RUNNING_HEADER__ FOUNDING OF FIRST INTERNATIONALThe French then proposed that the new International have its headquarters in London, that the Bee-hive, an English labor paper, should be its official organ, that temporarily a voluntary dues system be established, and that the new body should be provisionally headed by a Central Committee, with sub-commissions in all the capitals of Europe. The proposal was passed by acclamation, and a general committee of 21 was elected to carry out the purposes of the resolution. This committee was authorized to co-opt additional members, as it saw fit.
Early in October, the General Committee held several meetings, at which the title of "International Workingmen's Association" was adopted and general officers were elected. George Odger was chosen President and William R. Cremer, Honorary General Secretary. There were corresponding secretaries chosen for Germany (Marx), America (P. Fox)^^*^^, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and France. The members of the nationalities of the Central Provisional Council, as further constituted, were: ENGLISH---Longmaid, Worley, Leno, Whitlock, Fox, Blackmore, Hartwell, Pidgeon, Lucraft, Weston, Dell, Shearman, Nieass, Shaw, Lake, Buckley, Odger, Howell, Osborne, Carter, Gray, Wheeler, Stainsby, Morgan, Grossmith, Cremer, Dick; FRENCH---- Denoual, Le Lubez, Jourdain, Marrisot, Leroux, Bordage, Bocquet, Talandier, Dupont; ITALIAN---Wolf, Fontana, Setacci, Aldrovandi, Lama, Solustri; Swiss---Nuperly, Jung; GERMAN---Eccarius, Wolf, Otto, Lessner, Pfander, Lochner, Marx, Kant, Bolleter; POLISH---Holtorp, Rybczinski. The first Congress of the I.W.A. was scheduled for 1865 in Brussels.
The General Council at once set about formulating a political program and rules for the I.W.A. L. Wolf, an emissary of Mazzini in Italy, read his program, which would have made the organization into a secret body; but it was rejected, with the opposition of Marx. Weston, a veteran Owenite, also suggested a program, full of confusion, and it, too, was voted down. Finally, a document by Le Lubez, heavily tinctured with Mazzinism, was adopted. Marx was on the subcommittee to edit this confused document, and as he says, he "altered the whole preamble, threw out the declaration of principles, and finally replaced the forty rules by ten.''^^10^^ The document, when finally adopted unanimously, was almost completely the work of Marx, _-_-_
^^*^^ Peter A. Fox, Correspondent for America, 1866-67, was an English journalist, who joined the International at the St. Martin's Hall meeting.
50 except for some petty-bourgeois phraseology about "truth," ``justice'' and ``morality'' that the General Council insisted upon inserting, as Marx complained later. That Marx was finally called upon to write the momentous document testifies to the broad influence of its celebrated predecessor, The Communist Manifesto. "From the first day of its existence, Karl Marx was the intellectual head, the brilliant theoretician and practical leader of the first workers' international.''^^11^^The Inaugural Address^ of the I.W.A., its first statement of program, is one of the greatest documents in the history of the world's working class. It is a splendid example of the application of the principles of communism to the everyday struggles and general perspectives of the working class. The Address declared, "It is a great fact that the misery of the working masses has not diminished from 1848 to 1864, and yet this period is unrivalled for the development of its industry and the growth of its commerce." Those who, years before had prophesied that with the expansion of British industry poverty would be automatically wiped out, had been completely refuted by reality. Government reports showed that for the worker, life was "in nine cases out of ten but a struggle of existence." Actually, official figures showed "that the worst of the convicted criminals, the penal serfs of England and Scotland, toiled much less and fared far better than the agricultural laborers of England and Scotland." And many groups of industrial workers were living below subsistence levels. Meanwhile, the wealth of the landowners and capitalists increased by leaps and bounds.
The Address analyzed the period of reaction that had set in all over Europe after the defeat of the revolution of 1848. It hailed the great victory in 1847 of the Ten Hours' Bill, which the workers had won after 30 years of struggle. "The Ten Hours' Bill," it declared, "was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class." All over Western Europe the governments were being compelled to adopt similar legislation.
The Address heartily endorsed the cooperative movement that was then making progress, but this alone, it said, "will never be able to arrest the growth in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the 51 __RUNNING_HEADER__ FOUNDING OF FIRST INTERNATIONAL
masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries." The Address laid central stress upon political action. "To conquer political power," it declared, "has therefore become the great duty of the working class." The workers have one element of successnumbers, "but numbers weigh only in the balance, if united by combination and led by knowledge." The workers of Europe had paid dearly for their lack of organization.
The Address also stressed the need of the workers having a foreign policy. "If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the people's blood and treasure?" It congratulated the working class of England for saving Western Europe from becoming involved in the American Civil War. The Address sharply declared for a democratic and peaceful foreign policy. "The fight for such a foreign policy," it stated, "forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes." The document ended with the great historic slogan of The Communist Manifesto, "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!''
The Provisional Rules, or constitution of the Association, provided for the organizational measures described above. It begins with a preamble calling for organization, as follows:
``That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule;
``That the economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor, that is, the source of life, lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence;
``That the economical emancipation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means;
``That all efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from the want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country, and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working classes of different countries;
``That the emancipation of labor is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society 52 exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries;
``That the present revival of the working classes in the most industrious countries of Europe, while it raises a new hope, gives solemn warning against a relapse into the old errors and calls for the immediate combination of the still disconnected movements,"
[53] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Trade Unionism, Proudhon,The struggle of the working class, involving the protection of the workers' interests under capitalism, the abolition of the capitalist system, and the establishment of socialism, is a highly complex matter. The revolutionary science of this struggle is Marxism, or, in our days, Marxism-Leninism; which represents the sum total of the lessons learned by the proletariat and its allies in their world-wide, centurylong battle against the exploiting classes. The historical progress of a given labor movement is to be measured directly by the extent to which it has mastered and absorbed the principles of Marxism.
During the course of the class struggle the working class, on its way finally to acquiring a Marxist consciousness, either spontaneously generates or absorbs from hostile classes, many erroneous conceptions about its position in society and the way for it to emancipate itself. Thus originate many movements in labor's ranks, referred to by Marx as "sects," but now generally known in Marxist terminology as ``right'' and ``left'' "deviations." Originally some of these sects, for example, the Utopian Socialists, played a constructive role, but as the labor movement matured and expanded they became reactionary. Usually these ``sects'' or ``deviations'' have had a grain of truth in them. That is, they are based upon necessary working class ideas, organizational forms, or tactics, which by distortion, exaggeration, and misapplication, are twisted entirely out of their real significance. Frequently, the sects also build their own specific conceptions of how to do away with capitalism and to construct socialism. These sects, always helpful to the capitalists and injurious to the solidarity and struggle of the labor movement, in times of revolution can become counter-revolutionary, as the workers were to learn by bitter experience in the decades after Marx's death.
At this point it is well for us to interrupt our chronological history of the First International and to analyze some of the major 54 ideological currents within that organization. It contained several sects and they played decisive roles in the movement.
To eliminate such harmful sects and .to inculcate true principles of working class revolutionary science has always been the basic concern of Marxists, as it also was that of Marx and Engels in the days of the First International. In a letter in November 1871 to Friedrich Bolte, a prominent American member of the I.W.A., Marx said: "The International was founded in order to replace the socialist or semisocialist sects by a real organization of the working class for struggle. The original Statutes and the Inaugural Address show this at a glance. . . . The development of socialist sectarianism and that of the real labor movement always stand in inverse ratio to each other. . . . The history of the International was a continual struggle of the General Council against the sects and against amateur experiments, which sought to assert themselves within the International against the real movement of the working class.''^^1^^
At the time of the foundation of the First International there was relatively only a small handful of Marxists, of those who fully grasped the significance of the revolutionary writings of Marx and Engels. The sectarians of various kinds dominated the young and weak movements in the respective countries, and they were also in large majority at the congresses. The reason the Geneva and other early congresses were able nevertheless to turn out so much good policy was because the great bulk of it was written by Marx himself. At that time the earliest sectarians of all, the Utopian socialists, had just about faded out, as the labor movement, despite many errors, was at last beginning to grapple with real economic and political policies. There were, however, several brands of sects in existence, and future labor history was due to produce many more types.
Throughout the life of the First International its strongest mass organizations were the affiliated English trade unions. The extent of this support was indicated by the fact, among other things, that George Odger and W. R. Cremer, members of the famous trade union "Junta," the unofficial leading committee of the labor movement, were chosen President and Honorary General Secretary of the I.W.A., while many other prominent trade union leaders were also members of the General Council. At one time or another, the bulk of the 55 __RUNNING_HEADER__ TRADE UNIONISM unions in England were affiliated in some measure with the I.W.A. For a decade the International played an important role in English labor affairs.^^*^^
During the period of the I.W.A. the British labor movement was in quite a different mood than it had been during the fiery years of Chartism in the 1840*5. It was a time of rapid capitalist development and of the initial stages of British imperialism. Some improvement took place in the position of the working class, particularly of the skilled workers, and the labor movement lost most of its former revolutionary spirit. Lenin later gathered many quotations from Marx and Engels to the effect that the British labor movement at that time "lacked the mettle of the Chartists," that the British worker leaders were developing into something between a radical bourgeois and a worker, and that the capitalists were attempting "to bourgeoisify the workers.''^^2^^
By 1866 the British unions were well into the time of what Engels called "the forty years winter sleep" of the proletariat. This was the general period of the rise of British imperialism. Rothstein remarks of this era: "There were new leaders, new methods, new interests, new aims, and the traces of the old [Chartism] vanished so quickly that its very memory was all but obliterated in the next generation, and the few survivors, like O'Brien, Harney, and Ernest Jones seemed living anachronisms, almost curiosities.''^^3^^
It was the period of the most pronounced "pure and simple trade unionism," when the unions, mostly of the narrow craft variety and showing little solidarity with each other, did not look beyond the framework of capitalist society and confined their aims to limited economic objectives. They went easy on strikes and built up extensive systems of mutual benefits in the unions. The unions as such took but little interest generally in policies, and when they did (for the voting franchise, against certain repressive laws, etc.), it was under the leadership of the Liberal Party and usually for the limited purpose of freeing the unions from legal restrictions.
Odger, Cremer, and other trade union leaders in the I.W.A., expressed these opportunistic moods. Their line represented bourgeois influence in the labor movement. They did not see in the International an instrument for the emancipation of the workers so much _-_-_
^^*^^ Curiously, however, in their book. History of Trade Unionism, the Webbs devote only a single footnote, p. 235, to the International.
56 as a means to help the British trade unions, especially against the importation of strike-breakers from the Continent. Unlike the Proudhonists and the Bakuninists, however, they never made a militant fight to dominate the I.W.A. But their opportunist ideology was a constant drag on the development of the International, and finally, as we shall see, it resulted in a definite rupture with the organization. Marx and Engels kept up a running battle against this pure and simple trade unionism, or economism, within the International, a deviation which was also later to play (and still does) a very important role in the American labor movement.Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881) was an important leader among the French workers, especially from the middle iSgo's to the Commune of 1871. He had studied law and medicine, but early became interested in politics. After the revolution of 1830, in which he helped put Louis Philippe on the throne, Blanqui cast in his fate with the working class movement. Vaguely he was a communist and an advocate of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He based his policies upon armed insurrection and conspiratorial groups, and he took an important part in the many French revolutions of his period. In 1839, he led an abortive attempt in Paris to overthrow the reactionary government. He was very active, too, in the revolution of 1848. As we shall see, he was also a central figure in the Paris Commune. Jailed several times, and once sentenced to death, he finally died from natural causes.
Blanqui spoke in the name of Babeuf, the early French Communist. He eschewed all economic and political reforms. Blanquism, with its sole stress upon armed insurrection, was a characteristic product of the early French labor movement, which lived under harsh repressive conditions, had a background of militant revolutionary traditions, and worked largely under the influence of the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie. Blanqui knew nothing of building up strong political parties, mass trade unions, and broad cooperatives, and of participating actively in the everyday struggles of the working class for immediate demands. Confined mostly to France, Blanquism hardly threatened to control the International. It was definitely a ``leftist'' influence, however, in that organization, although many of its best fighters eventually became Marxists. Marx had a high opinion of 57 __RUNNING_HEADER__ TRADE UNIONISM Blanqui's revolutionary spirit, but he was no admirer of his conspiratorial policies.^^4^^ As an active political force Blanquism died with the Paris Commune, but remnants of it lingered on, and finally the Blanquist Party, in 1904-05, amalgamated with the French Unified Socialist Party.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) was a printer, self-educated, and highly intelligent. He was the father of modern' anarchism. His influence during the i86o's was very extensive among the French workers, particularly the skilled handicraftsmen in the Paris luxury trades. He also had a big following in Belgium. During the first years of the International his group was very influential in that body. His most important book, The Philosophy of Poverty, was published in 1846, and, says Marx, "it produced a great sensation." The Proudhonists tried persistently to capture the International, for their own purposes.
Proudhon's program proposed the setting up of a vast system of producers' and consumers' cooperatives---"mutualist societies," he called them---which, by constant expansion, would come eventually to supplant the capitalist system. A prominent feature was to be free credit for the cooperatives through people's banks. In 1846, in a letter to Marx, Engels thus sums up the economic side of this plan: "These people have got nothing more or less in mind than to buy up, for the time being, the whole of France, and later on perhaps the rest of the world as well, with the savings of the proletariat and by renouncing profit and the interest on their capital.''^^5^^ With his famous dictum, that "Property is robbery," Proudhon referred to the property of the bourgeoisie, not that of the petty bourgeoisie. Proudhon argued that not only would the economic base of capitalism be liquidated by his cooperatives, but the state as well. The future society would be operated by his "free mutualist associations." This system he named "anarchy.''
This was a petty-bourgeois conception, as Marx and Engels made Clear. Moreover, it represented conservative sections of the petty bourgeoisie, which, being crushed by the rising capitalists, wanted thus to evade the struggle, whereas the radical sections of the bourgeoisie mounted the barricades time and again against its big capitalist and feudal enemies. Proudhon's general idea was that the workers and peasants could not emancipate themselves by struggle against the 58 capitalists and the feudal remnants, but by gradually, through his cooperatives, becoming the owners of the land and the tools with which they worked. As for woman, her place was not in the shops or in politics, but in the home. Proudhon imbibed much of his general conception from Fourier and other great French Utopians who preceded him. The repressive political conditions then existing in France caused many workers and peasants to turn to Proudhon's seemingly easy escape to freedom from the barbarous situation under which they lived.
Proudhon rejected the class struggle in both theory and practice. He was opposed to labor unions, to strikes, to wage increases, and to labor legislation. Only in the last years of his life did he somewhat modify this drastic anti-labor stand. He was also opposed to a political party, declaring that, "The Party is born of tyranny." He maintained that the era of revolutions had passed---unfortunately saying this only two weeks before the revolution of 1848, which Marx and Engels had been predicting. Proudhon held that the state, which was oppressing the toilers and aiding the capitalists, could neither be democratized nor destroyed by a head-on attack; it had to be gradually supplanted by his ``mutualist'' system.
Marx and Engels kept up a running battle against Proudhonism for so years, and, in tune with the developing labor movement, finally smashed it. When Proudhon issued his famous book in 1846, The Philosophy of Poverty, Marx replied the following year, with his celebrated work, The Poverty of Philosophy, in which he tore Proudhon's petty-bourgeois Utopia to shreds. This sharp attack ended forever the personal friendship which had hitherto existed between the two men. In The Communist Manifesto Proudhonism was characterized as "bourgeois socialism" which wants "a bourgeoisie without a proletariat.''
Tolain, Fribourg, and for a time, Varlin, were the principal leaders of the strong Proudhonist groups in France and in the earlier congresses of the International. Marx and Engels found themselves in constant collision with this group's recurring propositions, which were generally designed to cut down all class struggle theory and practice in the International and to turn the world's organized workers away from a perspective of the socialist revolution to an acceptance of the petty-bourgeois capitalism of Proudhon.
59 __RUNNING_HEADER__ TRADE UNIONISMSeveral of the traditional deviations which have afflicted the labor movement in its march forward have related to the role of the cooperative movement. The cooperatives, as Marx pointed out in the Inaugural Address of the I.W.A., are a useful form of proletarian struggle and organization, but they, by themselves, cannot bring about the emancipation of the working class. The idea that they can free the workers springs up spontaneously, however, and this notion has long afflicted the cooperative movement. We have just seen how this illusion manifested itself among the Proudhonists of France. The English cooperatives generated similar pseudo-revolutionary ideas, but not to such a marked degree. Lassalleism, which was a special form of the cooperative movement, was also afflicted with this type of illusion.
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) was born of Jewish parentage in Breslau and he was educated in Berlin University. Becoming a Hegelian and a friend of Marx, he early interested himself in the fight for German national independence and democracy. He became a Socialist and turned his attention to the emancipation of the working class. The way he envisaged this being accomplished was through the building up of a network of government-subsidized cooperatives, which would gradually replace the capitalist system. To insure the government subsidies being realized, Lassalle called for the general franchise for the workers, erroneously assuming that universal men's suffrage would give the workers 90 percent of the seats in parliament. Lassalle outlined his ideas mainly in The Working-man's Programme (1862), and The Open Letter (1863), and to further his program, he founded the General Union of German Workers in 1863, a political organization. Lassalle thus became a pioneer political organizer of the German working class, although, unlike Liebknecht and Bebel, he never really became a Marxist.^^*^^ Marx praised Lassalle for his activities and said he had re-awakened the workers' movement in Germany after its fifteen years of slumber.^^6^^
Lassalle's opportunist line conflicted directly with the building of a broad trade union and political movement of the workers freely using all the weapons available to it, and Marx combated it _-_-_
^^*^^ Lassalle's career was suddenly cut short in 1864, when he was killed in a duel.
60 vigorously as a petty-bourgeois tendency. He declared that Lassalle's movement was nothing but a sectarian organization, and as such hostile to the organization of the genuine workers' movement striven for by the International. Lassalle had been one of Marx's earliest disciples, and he together with Marx and Engels, had fought for a united, democratic German Republic. In maneuvering for his pet project of state subsidies for cooperatives, Lassalle entered into dubious relations with the wily Prussian chancellor, Bismarck, who was always eager to try to demoralize the labor movement. For these dealings, which were later fully confirmed, Marx condemned Lassalle as having betrayed the workers' cause.^^7^^Like Proudhon, Lassalle was opposed to trade unions and strikes as being futile and a waste of the workers' energies and resources. In his time German labor unions had hardly been born. Lassalle undertook to justify his anti-union position on the basis of his so-called "iron law of wages," according to which the workers were unbreakably bound to the barest subsistence levels and any wage raises won by trade unions were supposed to be automatically cancelled out by increases in living costs. Marx made a head-on collision with this petty-bourgeois theory of Lassalle's. His analysis on this general question is contained in his famous booklet, Value, Price and Profit, which is the text of his report to the General Council of the I.W.A. in September 1865.
The substance of Marx's position was to the effect that the workers, by organized economic and political struggle, could improve their living standards---a proposition which in our days, with scores of millions of workers in trade unions, has become obvious, but which in those days was a very important pioneer analysis. Marx showed that "trade union action was capable of raising labor above subsistence level, just as concerted or monopolistic action on the employers' part could depress wages below that level.''^^8^^ Marx thus laid the theoretical basis of the trade union movement. On the specific question of the effects of wage increases, Marx said in his report: "A general rise in the rate of wages would result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but, broadly speaking, would not affect the prices of commodities."9 Marx warned, however, that "the general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise but to sink the average standard of wages." Wage increases are not the way to emancipation. As for the trade unions, Marx criticized them for dealing simply with effects and not with causes. "Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wages for 61 __RUNNING_HEADER__ TRADE UNIONISM a fair day's work!' they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wages system!'"^^10^^
The Lassalleans, of whom, following their leader's death, J. B. Schweitzer was the most prominent, played no great part in-the congresses of the International, from which they generally held aloof to shield themselves from police persecution. They were, however, a decisive force in the German labor movement, as we shall see in passing. The followers of Lassalle were important also among the workers of Bohemia and Austria, and they exercised a great deal of influence among the large numbers of German worker immigrants in the United States.
Michael Bakunin (1814-1876) was born in Tver, Russia, of a rich, noble family. He served in Poland as an imperial officer, but quit in protest against the tsar's tyranny there. An exile, Bakunin became a revolutionary, taking a leading part in the defense of Dresden in 1849. For this he was sentenced to death, but was later handed over to the tsar's government, which sent him to Siberia in 1855. He escaped and returned to Europe in 1861, becoming highly active in Anarchist circles. He died in Berne, Switzerland, in 1876.
Bakunin was a disciple of Proudhon, whom he knew personally. He accepted Proudhon's general conception of the state and of a future society based upon free associations of producers. But he substituted several new concepts in place of Proudhon's. He abandoned the idea of gradually liquidating the state by the growth of mutualist cooperatives, and proposed instead that the state be destroyed by insurrectional attack. He also took a more tolerant attitude towards trade unionism. He came to insist that, short of insurrection, trade union struggles were the only practical fights. The unions, however, should look towards eventual insurrection, and in the future regime they would serve as the basic producing organizations. Bakunin thus became, in fact, one of the fathers of the future strong Anarcho-- syndicalist tendency.
Bakunin called his program, "the anarchist system of Proudhon, extended by us, developed and freed by us of all metaphysical, idealistic and doctrinaire frills.''^^11^^ Bakunin's principal ideas appear in his book, God and the State, which was published in 1882. In this book he ties the state and religion together as the basic sources of 62 authoritarian suppression, both of which must be violently destroyed. The main principles in his general program were: (a) the propagation of atheism; (b) the destruction of the state; (c) the rejection of all political action, as the state can be destroyed only by insurrection. He made a major point of the abolition of the right of property inheritance.
Bakunin represented fundamentally the declassed petty bourgeoisie and peasantry and the workers of the more industrially backward countries of Europe. Anarchism, the Bakunin variety and others, also existed mainly in the semi-feudal Catholic countries, where the Protestant (bourgeois revolutionary) Reformation was not completed and where the ultra-authoritarian Catholic Church saturated every phase of economic, political, and social life. This especially explains the aggressive anticlericalism of anarchism. Bakunin did not stress social classes as such, nor did he understand the class struggle. He wrote of the "poor people," and the "poverty-stricken sections of the population," and he contrasted the "revolutionary spirit" of the lumpen proletariat with the "reactionary spirit" of the labor aristocracy, among whom he included the bulk of the working class.^^12^^ He erroneously considered the pauperized as always being in a mood for insurrection.
Of great vigor and militancy, Bakunin built for himself a large following---in Italy, Spain, Southern France, French Switzerland, Russia, and eventually among the foreign-born workers in the United States. He joined the First International in 1868, and thenceforth led an increasingly bitter struggle for control of the organization. Inevitably he came into direct collision with Marx and the Communists. Thenceforth, the severe struggle between these irreconcilable groups colored the whole life of the International, and finally caused its disruption.
The Marxists agreed in broad principle with the Anarchists that the capitalist state had to be abolished, but they differed radically as to the methods by which capitalism as a system was to be done away with and also as to what kind of a social regime would take its place. Marx collided with Bakunin on three major questions: (a) the political struggle of the working class; (b) the proletarian dictatorship; (c) the proletarian party. Marx especially combated Bakunin's conspiratorial and terrorist line. As Bernstein says, for Bakunin "Will, and not economic conditions, was decisive in changing things permanently. This type of thinking led straight to putschism.''^^13^^ All these 63 __RUNNING_HEADER__ TRADE UNIONISM proved to be life and death questions in the International and, later on, also in the general labor movement.
Bakunin looked with scorn upon all fights for political reforms. He particularly condemned political action aimed at the democratization of the bourgeois state, and he endorsed strikes only in the sense that they were small insurrections with partial objectives, pending the coming of the general insurrection that would end capitalism altogether. On the other hand, Marx had a practical appreciation of the value of both economic and political reforms (wage increases, shortening of hours, regulation of child labor, factory legislation, extension of the franchise, etc.) This was shown by the vast attention paid, with Marx's approval, by the General Council and the I.W.A. congresses to strikes, the building of unions, and the development of various political struggles for partial demands, along with their consideration of major political problems. Yet no one understood better than Marx that working class emancipation could never be achieved by such partial demands. To free the workers is the task of the proletarian revolution, but this must be accomplished, not by a few conspirators, as Bakunin supposed, but by the main body of the workers in action. As Marx repeatedly expressed it, the most basic advantage to the workers of their daily struggles is the class consciousness and organization that they gain from them. The Marxists, as exemplified in The Communist Manifesto itself, had both a minimum and a maximum program; the Bakuninists had only a maximum program. This was the difference between a broad revolutionary mass movement and a narrow pseudo-revolutionary sect.
Bakunin took the position that when the masses dealt the killing blow to the capitalist system, this would be the end of the state automatically, and that it would be immediately replaced by his "free federation of persons, communes, districts, nations." Marx and the Communists also looked forward ultimately to a social regime in which there would be no repressive state government, but they ridiculed Bakunin's conception that this would come virtually overnight with the downfall of capitalism. Already in 1848, in The Communist Manifesto, Marx had made it clear that there would be an intermediate period, the dictatorship of the proletariat. This would be the class rule of the workers; for only on this basis could the counterrevolution be repressed, the capitalist state destroyed, and the classless socialist society, without a state, eventually be established. The immediate aim is the dictatorship of the proletariat; the ultimate aim is a 64 stateless society. The Bakuninists vigorously opposed the whole concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They fought simply for the destruction of the state; the Marxists fought for the seizure of power by the working class. It boiled down to the immediate and final program of the Marxists versus the simple maximum program of the Bakuninists.
Bakunin also carried his extreme anti-authoritarian ideas into the realm of political organization. His general conception was that of a highly decentralized movement, playing upon spontaneity, with the national sections completely autonomous and the International hardly more than a correspondence center. Marx, on the other hand, conceived the International to be the beginning of a solidly organized world political organization of the workers, and the General Council as the germ of ah effective world leadership. Endless bitter quarrels developed between Marxists and Bakuninists over this practical organizational question, as well as over matters of political tactics and ultimate objectives.
Bakuninism made the basic errors of foreshortening and over-- simplifying the revolution, of failing to understand the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, of not understanding the revolutionary role of the working class, of grossly underestimating the importance of the workers' imperative drive for immediate reforms, of trying to make atheism a condition of working class unity in the struggle, and of ignoring the fundamental necessity for a strong political party. Therefore, it had to go down to defeat before Marxism, which was incomparably more realistic in all these respects.
[65] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 6. Consolidation:The I.W.A. meeting in Geneva was the first world labor congress ever held. Therefore, it confronted a host of problems which were unique and difficult to an extent hardly understandable in our era of multiple labor congresses. Originally it was planned to hold the congress in Brussels in 1865; but the date was too soon and because of the reactionary nature of the Belgian government, the city was also unavailable. Instead, in 1865 a preparatory conference was held in London, which finally decided that the Congress should take place September 3, 1866, in Geneva; that is, two years after the St. Martin's Hall meeting.
The basic ideological difficulty confronted by the new International Workingmen's Association, was the multiplicity of ``sects'' composing it, and the greatest organizational difficulty was the lack of working class movements in the respective countries. In most places, the labor movement was barely coming into being. The Rules of the organization provided for the affiliation of "workingmen's societies," a characterization which was interpreted to embrace labor organizations of all sorts. The first congress was, therefore, made up of representatives of trade unions, political organizations (which were mostly small secret groups on the Continent), mutual benefit societies, consumers' cooperatives, educational groups, etc. Save the Lassalle organization in Germany, there were no national labor or socialist parties yet in the various countries. The I.W.A. continued throughout its existence upon this broad, all-inclusive basis.
The congress call was greeted enthusiastically by the advanced workers, and wherever the organizers (voluntary) of the congress went they got a good reception. The most substantial response was among the union workers in England. The Sheffield trade union congress of 1866 endorsed the I.W.A. and recommended that local unions affiliate with it. The London Trades Council took a similar cooperative position, but it refrained from affiliating itself. When the Geneva 66 Congress assembled there were 15 English trade unions represented, with a stated membership of sf,,i'j%.^^1^^
The Proudhonist mutualist groups of France and Belgium also rallied strongly to the congress. And active workers eagerly set to work to enlist the scattered labor groupings of all sorts, such as then existed in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. "Each of the sections of this movement which came into the ranks of the International brought with it whole mountains of petty-bourgeois rubbish, childish illusions, doctrinaire fancies, sectarian impotence and national prejudices"^^2^^---all of which Marx, Engels, and the handful of developed Communists had to combat. There was also a response in the United States, Stekloff reporting a workers' congress in Chicago, on August 20, 1866, as endorsing the new International.^^3^^ The National Labor Union held its founding convention, representing some 60,000 workers, in Baltimore just two weeks before the opening of the Geneva Congress of the I.W.A, Marxists were very active in the formation of the N.L.U.^^*^^ There was strong sentiment of support for the I.W.A., but the congress declared that the time was too short to permit it to send delegates to Geneva. Marx was struck by the close similarity of the labor demands raised by the N.L.U. congress with those proposed by himself for the" Geneva congress.^^4^^ The American Marxists had much to do with this likeness between the two congresses.
In its opening congress, the I.W.A. also strongly attracted revolutionary petty-bourgeois republican elements, who were playing a key role in the recurring bourgeois revolutions. Stekloff reports these elements, mostly intellectuals, joining the organization in considerable numbers in various countries. He says that in France, "Doctors, journalists, manufacturers, and army officers, gave their support. . . . Not a few persons of note in the political world formally appended their names to the rules and constitution of the International.''^^5^^ These elements obviously did not take into account the proletarian character of the new organization and its revolutionary purposes. Neither did the bourgeois press and governments of the time, which paid no great attention to the Geneva congress.
_-_-_^^*^^ Joseph Weydemeyer, leading American Marxist, died of cholera the day the N.L.U. congress opened.
67 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE GENEVA CONGRESS
As the coining years were to demonstrate, the I.W.A., supported all working-class struggles and cultivated all kinds of proletarian organization---economic, political, and educational. Its fundamentally political character was already made quite clear in the two years between the establishment of the I.W.A. in September 1864 and the holding of its first congress in September 1866. For the first time, under I.W.A. leadership, the proletariat began to have an important say in the conduct of international affairs, hitherto the sacred preserve of the ruling classes. This marked a new milestone in social progress.
During this interim period, the General Council of the International paid considerable attention to the national liberation struggle going on in Poland at the time. Mass meetings and conferences were held in various cities to develop working-class and general support for the hard-pressed Polish fighters for freedom. Another major struggle to which the Council gave direct aid was the fight of the British working class for the ballot. For a generation the workers had been struggling for the right to vote, but it was not until 1867 that they finally succeeded in winning it. What the capitalists had been able to refuse to the Chartist movement in 1842 and 1848, they had to concede to the working class two decades later. A lesser reason for this concession was that the British employers, watching how the emperor Bonaparte was manipulating to his advantage the broad suffrage existing in France, no longer had such a deadly fear of the vote as in the Chartist years.
In the period prior to Geneva the General Council, also took a constant interest in the great Civil War then going on in the United States. It participated actively in mobilizing anti-slavery sentiment and in balking the various pro-South maneuvers of the British and French governments. When Lincoln was elected for his second term the Council, on November 29, 1864, sent him a letter, or "Address," of congratulations and appreciation, written by Marx. Through the Ambassador, Charles Francis Adams in London,^^6^^ Lincoln replied with a friendly note. The I.W.A. letter praised Lincoln as a " singleminded son of the working class," and stated that from the onset of the Civil War, "the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class.''^^7^^ On May 13, 1865, the General Council also sent an ``Address'' to President Johnson, which was likewise written by Marx, expressing profound sorrow 68 and indignation at the assassination of President Lincoln. The letter paid a glowing tribute to Lincoln and also called Johnson's attention to the tremendous work of "political reconstruction and social regeneration" confronting his government.^^8^^
On the composition of the General Council, which conducted these militant activities, Marx said in a letter to Joseph Weydemeyer (1818-1866) in the United States: "Its English members consist mostly of the chiefs of the local trade unions, that is, the actual labor kings of London, the same fellows, who prepared the gigantic reception to Garibaldi and prevented Palmerston from declaring war upon the United States, as he was on the point of doing, through the monster meeting in St. James's Hall (under Bright's chairmanship).''^^9^^
In the determined struggle against the pro-slavery activities of the British Government, begun by the trade unions and Abolitionists, and then carried on by the First International, a fight which was led personally by Marx and Engels, the workers laid the basis for one of the major continuing struggles of the world's workers and one which now has more urgency than ever---the fight against war. And, vitally significant, their fight was a successful one. Undoubtedly, the resistance put up by the British working class was a decisive factor in preventing the British government from entering the Civil War on the side of the South, an eventuality that might well have been fatal to the cause of the North.
The 1864 Inaugural Address of the I.W.A., voicing the same opinion as Marx had in his letter to Weydemeyer, stated that, "It was not the wisdom of the ruling classes but the heroic resistance to their criminal folly by the working classes of England that saved the West of Europe from plunging headlong into an infamous crusade for the perpetuation and propagation of slavery on the other side of the Atlantic." In a congressional debate in 1879 Senator Hoar of Massachusetts attested to the correctness of this historic statement by arguing that "it was the angry growl of the workingmen of Lancashire" that had kept the British government from going to war against the United States during the Civil War.^^10^^
The congress in Geneva, September 3-8, 1866, was made up of 60 delegates, representing 22 sections of the I.W.A. From Switzerland there were 20 delegates representing 13 sections, plus 14 others from 69 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE GENEVA CONGRESS
trade unions and various bodies; from France, 17 delegates representing 4 sections, and from Germany 3 delegates (who were living in London) representing 4 sections. Odger, Carter, Jung, Eccarius, Cremer, and Dupont of the General Council were present, but not Marx. The delegates were of various political tendencies, which we have discussed in the previous chapter. This diversity ideologically made the work of the congress difficult, a fact which was accentuated because the delegates were striking out into virtually new territory in handling the business before them. They were laying the first foundations of working class international mass organization and tactics.
Despite these handicaps, however, the congress was highly constructive. Practically everything it did has since stood the test of later labor experience throughout the world. All the resolutions passed by this congress, which formulated the basic demands of the proletariat, and which were written almost exclusively by Marx, entered into the practical minimum programs of all working class parties.
The main points on the agenda were: " (i) To consolidate with the help of the Association, the efforts that are being made in the different countries for the struggle between Labor and Capital; (2) the trade unions, their past, present and future; (3) cooperative labor; (4) direct and indirect taxes; (5) shorter working hours; (6) female and child labor; (7) the Moscow invasion of Europe, and the restoration of an independent integral Poland; (8) the permanent armies, their influence on the interests of the working class.''^^11^^
Marx and Engels understood the I.W.A. to be the start of an international political party of the working class and it was upon this basis that it was built. The congress laid the foundations of its general political program by formally adopting, with but small changes, the Inaugural Address issued by the General Council two years earlier. This gave the I.W.A. an international outlook, a general revolutionary perspective, and an approach to active participation in all the daily struggles of the working class.
The congress also accepted the Rules, as previously written by Marx. The International was based on local branches, which were united in Federal Councils in the respective countries. Affiliations of trade unions, educational societies, etc., were also accepted. Each organization, large or small, was to send one delegate to the congress. The General Council was elected by the congress and was responsible to it. The Council was to carry out the congress decisions and to give 70 political guidance to the whole movement. Dues were set at 30 centimes (three pence) annually---from the outset the financial problem was severe, the International, during the years 1865-66, had received in income only about $285. At the congress an effort was made by the French delegation to restrict the I.W.A. membership solely to proletarians (which would have excluded Marx and other experienced political leaders), but this was voted down, mainly at the instigation of the British delegates.
One of the major achievements of the congress was to work out a clear line on the question of trade unionism. In the various countries, there was much confusion in this general matter, ranging from those conservative unionists in England, who saw in the unions merely instruments for winning minor economic concessions, to the Proudhonists in France who looked upon trade unions in general as a needless burden and a danger to the working class. The congress recognized the great value of trade unions in the daily struggle, it saw them also as a powerful educational force for the working class,, and it considered them of fundamental importance in the fight for proletarian emancipation. Marx had long considered trade unions as "the basic nuclei of the working class." The trade union resolution, written by him, stated: "If trade unions have become indispensable for the guerrilla fight between Capital and Labor, they are even more important as organized bodies to promote the abolition of the very system of wage labor.''^^12^^ The resolution urged the unions to pay more attention to political action than they were doing, and also to draw the masses of unskilled and agricultural workers into their ranks. The conception of trade unionism worked out at the pioneer Geneva congress still remains, by and large, that of Marxists the capitalist world over.
In connection with the trade union question, much attention was paid to the matter of international strike-breaking. This especially affected the English unions, and also those in the United States. Repeatedly during their walkouts, English strikers had to face scabs brought over from Belgium, Holland, and France. The congress alerted the workers to this danger and sought to develop a strong international solidarity to check it.
Another vital piece of pioneer work done by the congress was to clarify working class policy basically regarding cooperatives. This type of organization was relatively new at the time and much confusion existed as to its potentialities, especially among the followers of 71 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE GENEVA CONGRESS
Proudhon and Lassalle, who considered their brand of cooperation as the sole path to proletarian emancipation. The resolution, following in general the policy laid down previously in the Inaugural Address, while stressing the importance of cooperatives, especially producers' organizations, declared that by themselves they could not bring about the workers' emancipation. The Proudhonists, who advocated their panacea upon all occasions, managed, however, to induce the congress to vote for the establishment by the International of a mutual credit bank, a project of which little or nothing more was heard after the congress adjourned.
An important action of the congress was its endorsement of the legal 8-hour workday as an immediate political objective to be fought for. The workers in the capitalist countries were at the time fighting mainly for the lohour day, and the congress action gave them a higher goal also to strive for. In the United States, as early as 1836, demands had been put forth in the labor press for the 8-hour day13 and in 1842, the ship carpenters of Boston established it in their work. The founding convention of the National Labor Union in 1866 made this one of its major issues. The slogan also had a history in England. The action of the Geneva congress raised the question of the 8-hour day to the status of a basic international demand from then on, and in oncoming decades it was to assume the greatest importance.
The congress demanded the abolition of night work for women and the regulation of the work of women and children in industry. The French Proudhonists, declaring that woman's place was in the home, condemned outright the employment of women in industry.14 The congress did not demand the complete abolition of child labor, but its regulation. Youthful workers were divided into three age groups---9 to 12, 12 to 15, and 15 to 18---with different working periods for each group.^^18^^ The basic idea was to combine industrial training and general education. In the question of taxation, which was on the agenda, the congress supported the system of direct, rather than indirect, taxes.
Refuting the position of those opposed to legislative action (who were to have generations of sectarian political descendants), the congress, regarding labor protective legislation in general, declared that, "by compelling the adoption of such laws, the working class will not consolidate the ruling powers, but, on the contrary, it will be turning that power which is at present used against it, into its own instrument.''^^16^^
72The matter of the workers' attitude towards religion also came before the congress, at the instance of the French delegation. The matter, however, was brushed aside by the delegates and no definite action on it was taken. Here again, the congress gave a correct lead on elementary labor policy to oncoming generations of worker fighters. The question of religion as such is, of course, of real concern to a Marxist Communist Party and the working class, but it could only have been a divisive issue in a broad mass organization, such as the I.W.A. Therefore, trade unions and other general mass economic and political bodies, while fighting against reactionary policies of the churches, have traditionally wisely refrained, as the Geneva congress did, from involving themselves in the philosophical or doctrinal aspects of religion. The churches would be only too eager to split the working class on the basis of religious belief.
Dealing with the armed forces of the respective nations, the con-= gress went on record for the abolition of standing armies and for the establishment of people's militias---therewith giving another basic lead in policy to the developing world labor movement. The congress also sharply condemned the menace of Russian tsarism in Europe and called for "the reconstitution of Poland upon democratic and social foundations," "through enforcing the right of self-- determination.''
[73] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 7. Growth: Lausanne andThe period following the Geneva congress of 1866 was one of growth and political progress for the First International. It was a time of rising working-class struggle, particularly on the economic field. The sharp economic crisis of 1866 and its consequences provoked a wave of strikes during the next years in England, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and other countries. In these strikes the adherents of the International were very active, as a glance at the current minutes of the General Council reveals.
The best known of the numerous strikes at this time was that of the Parisian bronze workers in February 1867. These workers had formed a union of some 1,500 members, whereupon the employers locked them out. The International came promptly to their aid. Under the lead of the General Council, the English unions sent more than £1000 to help the strikers. "As soon as the bosses saw this," said Marx, "they gave in.''^^1^^ This was a real victory for the bronze workers, and their union leaped to 4,000 members. "The effect of this was immense," remarks Postgate. "Trade unions sprang up all over France, and the economic struggle grew acute." The prestige of the International soared everywhere in Western Europe. This was well expressed by Assy, leader of the Creusot strikers in France, who, when brought to trial and asked if he were a member of the International, replied: "No, but I hope to be allowed to be.''^^2^^
Other important European strikes were those of the London tailors, Geneva building trades workers, French silk workers, and the Charleroi coal miners. All these were occasions for strong rallies of support from the forces of the International. Most of the strikes resulted in victories for the workers. Especially was the solidarity 74 effective in the case of English strikers. Postgate says that, "the supply of blacklegs [scabs] dried up at its source, and those already brought over were induced to desert.''^^3^^ The strike of the Geneva building trades, resulting in a partial victory for the workers, attracted widespread international attention. And in far off America, the National Labor Union, in the rising trade union movement following the Civil War, led numerous important strikes.
The I.W.A. not only gave active strike leadership, but also paid close attention to the political movement in the various countries. This struggle, too, was on an ascending scale, particularly in the fight for immediate legislative reforms. In North Germany, where the workers had secured the vote after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, the forces led by Liebknecht and Bebel participated .for the first time, on February 12, 1867, in the national elections to Parliament. The suffrage was in general a new weapon in the hands of European workers and its potentialities were as yet only beginning to be understood. In France, where in 1868, Emperor Napoleon III caused laws to be .passed conceding the general male franchise and freedom of the press, the workers were making widespread use of their new liberties. Particularly in the broad political demonstrations of November 1867, the Paris workers displayed their rising militancy. In countries of more democracy, some achievements were to be registered, notably the passage in England of the Reform Act of 1867, which (later extended to Scotland and Ireland), gave urban English men workers the votehowever, leaving the rural proletariat and the women voteless. And in the United States there was a victory in the issuance of an Executive Order by President Grant in 1869 virtually establishing the 8-hour day in government institutions, which was made a law by Congress on May 18, 1873.*
The major general political campaign of the I.W.A., however, in the period 1866-69 was its fight against the looming danger of war. In 1866, the six weeks' war between Prussia and Austria broke out, resulting in the complete defeat of the latter. The General Council denounced this as a reactionary war, neither side of which was entitled to worker support. At this time war tension was developing fast between France and Germany. War clouds were also looming between the United States and Great Britain, as an aftermath of the Civil War. 75 __RUNNING_HEADER__ LAUSANNE AND BRUSSELS
The General Council called upon American workers to protest against this threatening war.
From its beginnings, the International had sharply expressed itself against capitalist war. As we have seen, the General Council militantly fought against English participation in the American Civil War and condemned the Austro-Prussian war. The Geneva congress also dealt with war under its order of business respecting standing armies, and later both the Lausanne and Brussels congresses adopted antiwar resolutions.
The Brussels resolution was the more specific. After denouncing war as a great menace to the workers, it says: "The Congress of the International Workingmen's Association, assembled at Brussels, records its most emphatic protest against war; it invites all the sections of the Association, in their respective countries, and also all working class societies, and all workers' groups of whatever kind, to take the most vigorous action to prevent a war between the peoples, which today could not be considered anything else than a civil war, seeing that, since it would be waged between the producers, it would only be a struggle between brothers and citizens; the congress urges the workers to cease work should war break out in their respective countries."**
This resolution marked the beginning of the eventful long controversy in the international labor movement over the question of whether or not the general strike could be used effectively to halt war. The issue was to be raised again and again in international congresses. Marx, who opposed the concept, characterized as ``nonsense'' the formulation in the Brussels resolution.^^8^^
The anti-war discussion raised the question of the relationship of the I.W.A. to the League of Peace and Freedom, a petty-bourgeois pacifist organization. The League scheduled a peace congress for Geneva on September 9, 1867, right after the adjournment of the I.W.A. congress in Lausanne. In a letter to Engels on September 4, 1867, Marx sharply condemned "the windbags" of the League. Nevertheless, the Lausanne Congress (I.W.A.) accepted the League's invitation and sent three delegates---Guillaume, De Paepe, and Tolain--- to attend its congress, there to read the Lausanne anti-war resolution. The following year, at Brussels, the I.W.A., again receiving a similar invitation from the League, rejected it and asked its members to join the International. This the League refused to do, however, lingering along to an unsung end.
In these economic and political struggles the International was 76 laying the very foundations of the modern labor movement. At this time, in 1867, a great stride forward ideologically was also taken by the world's workers. This was in the publication, by Marx, of the historic Volume One of Capital. In this profound analysis of the capitalist system especially there is fully developed Marx's revolutionary theory of surplus value. A year later, the I.W.A. officially praised and endorsed Marx's great work and urged all members to study it.
The Lausanne congress of September 2-8, 1867, the second of the I.W.A., consisted of 71 delegates---among them 38 Swiss, 18 French, 6 German, 2 British, 2 Italian, i Belgian, and 4 members of the General Council (Carter, Dupont, Eccarius, and Lessner). Many sections, lacking funds, did not send delegates. The British "pure and simple" trade unionists mostly stayed away. Each section of the I.W.A. was entitled to one vote. Although keeping in close touch with what was going on, Marx did not attend the congress. For him, these were years of overwork, illness, poverty, and undernourishment.
The French and Swiss "mutualists," or Proudhonists (see Chapter 5), were very active at the congress. As Mehring remarks, "they came well-prepared" and they made their opportunist and confusionist views felt throughout the gathering. Specifically, they managed to get resolutions passed deprecating strikes and endorsing their pettybourgeois panaceas of people's banks and free worker credits.
An important and constructive action by the congress was the adoption of a resolution to the effect that all the means of transport and exchange should be owned by the state. This action, says Stekloff, "was the first concrete formulation of the idea of collective ownership of the means of production and exchange, and it foreshadowed the fierce struggle which was subsequently to rage around this question in the International.''^^7^^ A motion to nationalize the land, lacking support, was referred to the next congress.
Another important resolution, one which also foreshadowed later bitter struggles in the International, related to the fight for political reforms within the framework of the capitalist system. The point on the agenda read: "Is not the deprivation of political freedom a hindrance to the social emancipation of the workers, and one of the main causes of social disorder? How is it possible to hasten the re-- 77 __RUNNING_HEADER__ LAUSANNE AND BRUSSELS establishment of political freedom?" The congress finally resolved by unanimous vote that, "considering that deprivation of political freedom is a hindrance to the social progress of the people and to the emancipation of the proletariat, [it] declares: i. that the social emancipation of the workers cannot be effected without their political emancipation; a. that the establishment of political liberty is absolutely essential as a preliminary step." This section of the resolution, which was somewhat confused in other respects, agreed with the general position that had been developed previously by Marx.
A major question discussed, too, by the congress, as we have seen, related to the current danger of war. After Lausanne, this basic issue was destined to be a permanent point on the agenda of the world's workers in all their congresses.
The third congress of the International was held in Brussels, September 6-15, 1868. The holding of the congress in this city was in itself a political event of real importance, showing the growing strength of the International, for Belgium was one of the most reactionary countries in Western Europe. The congress, the largest ever held by the International, was made up of 99 delegates, including 55 Belgians, 18 French, 7 Swiss, 5 British, 5 Germans, 2 Italians, i Spanish, and 6 from the General Council (Eccarius, Jung, Lessner, Lucroft, Shaw, and Stepney). Marx was not in attendance. The British still made up a majority of the General Council, but they displayed little interest in bringing a sizable delegation to the respective congresses.
The political center of the Brussels congress was the anti-war resolution previously referred to. Among other important matters dealt with, the question of strikes was reviewed and, after much discussion, the strike was recognized as a legitimate and inevitable weapon of the workers. Cooperatives were also re-endorsed, but with sharp criticism of the petty-bourgeois business spirit often shown in their operation.
On the question of machinery in industry, the congress, while stating that the workers must have a say regarding its introduction into factories, also registered a concession to the mutualists by declaring that, "only by means of cooperative societies and through the organization of mutual credit will the producer be able to gain possession of machinery." The Proudhonists also scored in the matter of 78 mutual credit for workers. Despite strong opposition, they put the International again on record for the establishment of workers' exchange banks, which were "to free labor from the dominance of capital." "On this matter," says Stekloff, "the Proudhonists secured their last victory in the International.''^^8^^
The Proudhonists suffered a major defeat, however, at the congress over the general attitude of the I.W.A. towards property, specifically property in land. Representing primarily the interests of the small shop-keepers and peasants, the mutualists strongly opposed the nationalization of the land, a question which had been referred from the Lausanne congress. However, at Brussels, by a vote of 130 to 4, with 15 abstentions, the congress adopted a resolution calling for not only the nationalization of the railways, but also of arable land, forests, canals, roads, telegraphs, etc. This was a decisive defeat for the mutualists. Despite the various deviations towards Proudhonism made at its three early congresses, the I.W.A., as Stekloff remarks, was always fundamentally a collectivist organization. This was largely because of the clear leadership given by Marx in its Inaugural Address and in many of its resolutions and practical policies. The •communist, or collectivist, sentiment had been on the increase since the first congress in Geneva, and in Brussels it registered itself decisively. Thenceforth, the Proudhonists were to play a very minor role in the I.W.A. The first strong international opposition to Marxism in the labor movement had gone bankrupt.
Upon the founding of the International in September 1864 the capitalists of Europe displayed only a mild interest in the organization. The bourgeois press barely noted its establishment. The idea of an international organization of the workers was such a novel proposition that it was easy to underestimate its potentialities. Some of the more sober bourgeois elements, as the Liberals in England, the followers of Mazzini in Italy, as well as the reactionary Bonapartists in France, even believed they could make political use of the I.W.A.
But the bourgeois elements were soon undeceived, once the International got into action. Especially so on the industrial field. The early years of the I.W.A., as remarked, were a time of many strikes, and the International undoubtedly gave strong leadership and encouragement to them. This startled the employers, who for the first 79 __RUNNING_HEADER__ LAUSANNE AND BRUSSELS time confronted a real international solidarity among the workers of various countries. They were particularly disturbed when they saw an end being put to their international use of strike-breakers in Europe---a practice which they were never again able to revive on a significant scale.
The reactionary press was not slow to blame all the strikes and the political struggles of the period upon the International. They built it into a sort of political hobgoblin. Jaeckh says that, "The years from Geneva to Basle made the International a frightful secret power in the eyes of the bourgeoisie and the bearer of an approaching revolution in the eyes of the awakening proletariat.''^^9^^ Thenceforth, the press widely practiced a campaign of slander and distortion against the I.W.A., misrepresenting its every act.
In France the police of Napoleon III proceeded against the members of the International, who were mostly Proudhonists. The government claimed that the International, by engaging in political activities in France, had laid its members open to prosecution. Consequently, from March 1868, to June 1870, three mass convictions of I.W.A. members took place in Paris. These involved such well-known leaders as Tolain, Varlin, Frankel, Chemale, Malon, Landrin, and many others. They got varying sentences, up to one year in prison.10 The International was outlawed in France. This was the beginning of the reactionary attack which, a few years later, finally illegalized the I.W.A. all over Europe.
As a result of its economic and political activities, the International grew apace in the several countries. Nor could the increasing police persecution halt its progress. In this growth I.W.A. strike leadership was very important. In England the 1869 Trades Union Congress urged all unions to affiliate with the I.W.A., and many trade unions, appreciative of the work of the International, did so. In France, in 1869, there were an estimated 200,000 members of the International.^^11^^ Lozovsky says that, "In all corners of France local unions, resistance societies, mutual aid societies, political groups, men and women workers on strike affiliated to the International Workingmen's Association.''^^12^^ In Belgium, following the coal and iron strikes there, "more than twenty" I.W.A. branches were formed in industrial centers "and some of them had several hundred members." And 80 Stekloff states that a big increase in I.W.A. strength followed the successful strikes in Switzerland. "In Geneva alone, the number of members of the International grew by thousands. In addition several fresh trade unions affiliated.''^^13^^ However, no reliable total figures of membership at this time are available.
In the United States, the International also had a strong following in the young trade union movement. The National Labor Union, from its foundation in 1866, was sympathetic to the I.W.A. Sylvis (1828-1869), Trevellick, Jessup, Cameron, and others of its leaders were especially alarmed at the danger of the importation of strikebreakers from Europe and they wanted I.W.A. assistance. The scab menace had been accentuated by an Act of Congress of 1864, which permitted "employers to import laborers under contract and to check off transportation costs from wages.''^^1^^* In 1867 the N.L.U. convention voted to have Richard F. Trevellick go as a delegate to the Lausanne congress of the I.W.A., but because of the lack of funds he was unable to attend. In 1868 J. G. Eccarius, I.W.A. General Secretary, invited the N.L.U. to send a delegate to the Brussels congress,^^15^^ but the N.L.U. replied that it was financially unable to do so. In 1869, however, the N.L.U. did finally get to send a delegate to the I.W.A. The finances of the International itself also were on a very low level. Usually the General Secretary's meager salary and often the headquarters' rent were unpaid. The workers of the world were yet to learn the important labor discipline of solidly financing their movements through well-kept dues systems.
In this period not only was I.W.A. trade union membership growing, but also its political organization. The workers generally were taking the first tentative steps into independent political activity, breaking the tutelage of the left sections of the bourgeoisie. Sections of the International, made up of individual members, in contrast to the bloc membership of the trade unions, multiplied in many West European countries. A start was also made in the United States. In October 186*7, tne Communist Club of New York, founded in 1857 by F. A. Sorge and others, became a section of the International, and in 1869, the German General Workingmen's Union (Lassallean tendency) also affiliated to the International.^^16^^
Meanwhile, distinct tendencies were beginning to develop for the formation of national workers' parties, which in later years were to become the basis of all labor political internationalism. The most important development in this respect was the political movement 81 __RUNNING_HEADER__ LAUSANNE AND BRUSSELS
being cultivated at the time in Germany under the leadership of Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, which was to culminate in 1869 as the first mass Social-Democratic party. In the United States strong tendencies were also being evidenced towards independent working class political action. At its 1866 and 1867 conventions the National Labor Union went on record for the formation of a national labor party, and in 1868 steps were taken to put the short-lived National Labor Reform Party into the field. In England, however, the workers, although very active in trade union struggles, were showing very little sign as yet towards the formation of a Social-Democratic or Labor party. They still continued their alliance with the Liberal Party, a mis-connection based on the current swift upward development of British capitalism.
[82] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 8. Bakuninism:The fourth congress of the First International |ook place September 6-12, 1869, in Basle. The movement was definitely on an ascending scale. The wave of strikes was continuing, involving Welsh coal miners, Normandy textile workers, Lyons silk workers, Geneva building trades, and many other groups in England, Belgium, France, Holland, Switzerland, and the United States. In all these struggles adherents of the International stood in leading posts. Consequently, the I.W.A. continued its rapid growth. In 1870, the French police estimated the International's membership as: France 433,785; Switzerland 45,000; Germany 150,000; Austria-Hungary 100,000; Great Britain (250 branches) 80,000; Spain 2,72'S.^^1^^ Fantastic newspaper estimates ran as high as 7,000,000 members. The real membership was far less than such figures, but no official statistics are at hand. In many localities a workers' press was rapidly developing. On the European continent there were in 1870 some 29 journals supporting the International.^^2^^
The Congress was made up of 76 delegates, as follows: France 26, Switzerland 22, Germany 10, Belgium 5, Austria 2, Spain 2, Italy i, United States i, and 7 members of the General Council. Again Marx was not present. The American delegate was W. C. Cameron, representing the National Labor Union. With very considerable exaggeration claiming to represent 800,000 members, Cameron told the congress, "Your friends in the new world recognize a common interest between the sons of labor the world over, and they trust the time is drawing nigh when their ranks shall present a united front.''^^3^^ Cameron was especially interested in I.W.A. action to prevent the importation of scabs into the United States, and he succeeded in having an immigration bureau established by the International, but it played no great role.
All this indicated the strong support in the N.L.U. for affiliation to the International. After listening to Cameron, the N.L.U. 83 __RUNNING_HEADER__ BAKUNINISM: THE BASLE CONGRESS
convention of 1870 "declared its adhesion to the principles of the International Workingmen's Association and expect at no distant date to affiliate with it.''^^4^^ But nothing came of this. Sylvis, a strong internationalist, had died in July 1869, and this was a heavy blow to N.L.U. affiliation. The General Council of the I.W.A., on August 18, 1869, sent a letter of condolence to the N.L.U., signed among others by Marx, highly praising Sylvis as a fighter for labor and mourning his loss.^^5^^ In December 1869, the newly-formed Colored National Labor Union also voted to send a delegate to the 1870 congress of the I.W.A., but, as we shall see, this congress never took place.^^6^^
An important development at the Basle congress of the International was the appearance there of a strong German delegation of ten members, among them Liebknecht, Rittinghausen, Becker, and Hess. They represented the Social-Democratic Workers Party, the first genuine Socialist party to affiliate with the International. This organization, led chiefly by Liebknecht and Bebel, had been formed at Eisenach, Germany, a month earlier, in August 1869, after several years of preparatory work. The new party was generally called the "Eisenachers.''
Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826-1900), was born in Giessen, Germany, and was a teacher. He early became a republican and took an active part in the German Revolution of 1848. Jailed and exiled from Germany several times, he worked for 13 years in London with Marx, becoming a developed Communist. Liebknecht returned to Germany in 1861, and at once became active in the young labor movement. He became the outstanding leader of the German working class. A coworker with Lassalle, Liebknecht, father of Karl Liebknecht, wrote many pamphlets and books, and was long a member of the Reichstag.
August Bebel (1840-1913) was born near Cologne, Germany, the son of a non-commissioned officer in the Prussian army. He became a wood turner, and affiliated himself to the Lassalle organization. In close association with Liebknecht, Bebel became a Marxist. Both of them actively opposed the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. A brilliant orator, Bebel won a wide following. His most noted book is Women and Socialism. Together with Liebknecht, he was instrumental in bringing about the amalgamation of workers' organizations at Eisenach, which was the beginning of the German Social-Democracy. For 84 over forty years Bebel stood at the head of the German Social-- Democratic Party.
The revolutionary spirit of the young Socialist party was illustrated by a public speech made by Liebknecht in 1869, for which he was sent to jail. He said: "Socialism is no longer a question of theory, but simply a question of power. It cannot be settled in Parliament, but only on the streets, on the battlefield, like every other question of power.''^^7^^
The launching of the Social-Democratic Workers Party at Eisenach did not, however, unite the German working class. Lassalle's organization, the General Union of German Workers, with its panacea of state-subsidized cooperatives, still persisted, under the leadership of Schweitzer, who had become head of the organization upon the death of Lassalle. Between the two groupings were bitter quarrels, with Marx frequently intervening against Schweitzer as a "sectarian." The Lassalleans, who had a considerable following in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and the United States, held aloof from participating in the International.^^8^^
Another most important event at the Basle congress was the coming of Bakunin as a delegate (see Chapter 5 for his general background and program). Bakunin first met Marx in 1864, and promised his support to the International. Instead of giving this backing, however, he set about building a separate organization in Italy. He later went to Switzerland, there joined the bourgeois League for Peace and Freedom, and was elected a member of its central executive committee. In 1868 he split off from the League, but in place of joining the International, he and his friends established the International SocialDemocratic Alliance, commonly known as the "Alliance.''^^9^^
In the Alliance, Bakunin developed his ultra-revolutionary program. It declared an immediate, all-out war against God and the state; demanded the abolition of all religious cults and the establishment of a rule of science; "the political, economic, and social equality of the classes" [not their abolition]; the abolition of the right of inheritance; the rejection of "every kind of political action except such as aims immediately and directly at the triumph of the cause of the workers in their struggle with capital," and the "voluntary universal association of all the local associations.''^^10^^ To achieve this program, 85 __RUNNING_HEADER__ BAKUNINISM: THE BASLE CONGRESS Bakunin put the main stress upon the intelligentsia, the student group, and the lumpen, or degenerated, proletariat. He condemned almost the whole working class as being a conservative labor aristocracy.
Sparing no words, Marx strongly attacked the Bakunin program. He called it "an olio, podrida of worn out platitudes, an empty rigmarole, a rosary of pretentious notions to make the flesh creep, a banal improvisation aiming at nothing more than a temporary effect."11 And with even more vigor, "His program was a hash superficially scraped together from the Right and the Left---EQUALITY OF CLASSES (!), abolition of the right of inheritance as the starting point of the social movement (St. Simonist nonsense), atheism as a dogma dictated to the members, etc.''^^12^^
In general, the Alliance developed strength in the less industrialized countries---Italy, Spain, France, French Switzerland, etc., where its predecessor, the Proudhonist movement, had been strong and it also branched out into Russia and the United States. The times were propitious for such a movement as Bakunin's. The general political situation in Europe was highly unsettled, the capitalist class gradually pushing aside the political rubbish of feudalism in its march to power, with the rapidly growing working class tentatively fighting its way to a class program and organization. With the workers generally still very undeveloped ideologically and inexperienced in class struggle tactics, it was easy for many of them to believe in Bakunin's short-cut methods to emancipation.
Bakunin and his co-workers, noting the rapid growth of the International among the masses and sensing that it would be a fruitful field for their agitation, applied in December 1868, for the admission to the International of their Alliance as a whole. To this, however, the General Council refused to agree. Proposing that his Alliance members should come into the I.W.A. as sections, Bakunin also agreed to liquidate the Alliance. In reality, however, it continued to exist and function in various countries. It was a semi-secret body, with an inner controlling organization of especially trusted militants.
Bakunin came to the congress as a member of the French delegation, specifically representing the silk workers of Lyons. A militant and very capable fighter, he lost no time in making his presence felt. Bakunin, however, found himself voting with the Marxists on the 86 question of the right of society to make the land collective property. The remnants of the Proudhonists had again raised this elementary question, so important to them, only to be voted down overwhelmingly. Another important question upon which there was no marked factional division in the congress dealt with trade unionism. The congress unanim®usly adopted a resolution which strongly stressed the need of the trade unions and of international ties between them. The resolution charged the General Council, to work for "an international organization of the trade unions"---a goal which was not to be achieved for a full half century.^^13^^ In presenting the committee's report, the French delegate, Pindy, outlined a picture of the trade unions eventually constituting the structure of the new society after capitalism. With this report, another sect, or ideological deviation, that was to become very troublesome---anarcho-syndicalism---was Born into the International.
The major clashes between the Marxists and Bakuninists in the congress took place over two points. The first occurred when the Swiss delegates, with the support of Liebknecht and other Germans, proposed that the congress go on record in favor of direct legislation by the people (initiative and referendum). This contravened one of the basic principles of the Bakuninists---that of no partial political reforms---and they attacked it violently. The matter was eventually laid over for further discussion, but in the press of business it never came up again. The incident created much factional tension in the congress.
The second big clash came over the question of the right of inheritance. This was one of Bakunin's favorite tenets, and he submitted it in resolution form to the congress, demanding that the delegates go on record for the immediate and complete abolition of the right of inheritance. The liquidation of this right was in fact presented virtually as the revolution itself. In The Communist Manifesto, written over 20 years earlier, Marx had placed the question in the sense that the proletariat after gaining power, "will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class. ..." As means to the accomplishment of this expropriation and. social reorganization, the Manifesto then proposed ten transitional measures, of which the third on the list was the "Abolition of all right of inheritance." The General Council presented its report to the congress along this general line. It pointed out that the right of inheritance, being an outcome and not 87 __RUNNING_HEADER__ BAKUNINISM: THE BASLE CONGRESS the cause of the capitalist system, could not be made the starting point for the abolition of capitalism and that any attempt to do so would be both wrong in theory and reactionary in practice. After a long and bitter debate, the vote was: General Council resolution: for 19, against 37, abstentions 6, absent 13; Bakunin resolution: for 32, against 23, abstentions 13, absent 7." This victory for Bakunin made his Alliance thenceforth the rallying center for all oppositional elements in the International.
Although the matter did not come officially before the Basle congress at this time, the Irish question was playing an important role in the life of the International. It became the occasion for the development of policy concerning the relations between colonial countries and oppressing powers, which, down to the present day, has the greatest importance for the world labor movement.
For seven hundred years the Irish people had been waging a defensive struggle against the determination of the English ruling classes completely to subjugate Ireland. During the centuries this had led to many uprisings, some of the more important of which in later times were those of 1641, 1798, 1848, and 1867. And Ireland was fated to experience several more, including those of 1916 and 1921, before it was finally able to achieve, in 1923, its present partial and disrupted independence.^^15^^ The Irish question was especially catapulted into political attention during the period we are dealing with in the aftermath of the killing of a policeman in Manchester during an attempt by the Fenian organization to rescue Irish political prisoners. For this, three Fenian leaders---Allen, Larkin and O'Brien---were executed on November 23, 1867.
Since the days of the Chartists, Marx had associated himself with the demand for Irish independence. In 1866 he had the General Council send a delegation to Sir George Grey, Secretary for State, to protest against the outrages being practiced upon the Irish people, but the delegation was not received.^^16^^ And in 1869 he was instrumental in having the General Council actively support the current movement for the amnesty of Irish political prisoners.^^17^^ Odger, Applegarth, and other conservative English trade union leaders very equivocally supported Marx's general line regarding Ireland. Marx said that, following the discussions late in 1869, "the task of the International is 88 everywhere to put the conflict between England and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with Ireland.''^^18^^
In his long handling of the Irish question, Marx became convinced that "Ireland is the bulwark of the English landed aristocracy," and that "Ireland is therefore the great means by which the English aristocracy maintains its domination in England itself." He pointed out the deadly weakness of labor caused by the split between Irish and English workers over the Irish question, stating that the English worker "cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker," and that "the Irish worker pays him back with interest in his own coin." Marx concluded, and the General Council so decided, that "The special task of the Central Council in London is to awaken the English workers to a realization of the fact that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is no question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own emancipation.''^^10^^
The basic policy that Marx worked out on the Irish question obviously is essentially valid in our own times in the struggle of the colonial peoples, backed by the workers in the capitalist countries, against imperialism. (See Chapter 34.) Half a century later, Lenin praised this policy highly. In an article on the self-determination of nations, Lenin showed that the policy of Marx and Engels on the Irish question furnished a powerful example, which has retained its highly practical significance up to the present day, of the attitude which the proletariat of oppressing nations must adopt towards nationalist movements.^^20^^
The ten months between the Basle congress and the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war were a period of high hopes and steady growth for the International. In its various documents and congress resolutions the organization had succeeded in developing the basis of a general program; it had entrenched itself in practically every country of Western and Middle Europe; and the labor movements in the various countries were surging ahead, having definitely reached the stage of national organization in at least three lands---Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. The fight between the Bakuninists and Marxists, after the clash at the Basle congress, was flaring up in Switzerland, but this was not yet serious enough to cripple the I.W.A.
89 __RUNNING_HEADER__ BAKUNINISM: THE BASLE CONGRESSIt was a period of strong revolutionary hope and expectancy in the ranks of the International. There was a bourgeois revolutionary ferment in Italy, Spain, France, and other European countries, and the workers were in a mood of rising militancy. The Bakuninists believed that the social revolution was knocking on the door, and they had the deepest scorn for everything in the nature of reform. At this time, especially in the late i86o's, Marx also anticipated early major proletarian revolutionary developments, but, a keen realist, this did not prevent him from encouraging every struggle of the workers for immediate demands on both the economic and political fields. The substantial growth of the International greatly, stimulated the current widespread hopes for a revolution led by the workers.
After Basle the war clouds between France and Prussia began to thicken. Both Bonaparte and Bismarck wanted war, and they each maneuvered to get it. The adventurer Bonaparte, realizing the shaky position of the Second Empire, no doubt calculated that the way to infuse it with a new lease on life would be through a successful war of aggression against his German neighbors to the East; that this would give him control of the west bank of the Rhine. The wily Prussian chancellor, Bismarck, also planned and prepared for the war. In line with his policy of "blood and iron," he schemed to help himself to the territory of France, knowing full well that through a war against that country he could unite the scattered German statelets into one all-inclusive German state. The latter was historically a progressive bourgeois task, which in the Revolution of 1848 the German capitalists could have accomplished but left undone.
Bismarck's strategy was to throw upon Bonaparte the responsibility for initiating the war, which the German chancellor succeeded in doing. By falsifying a conciliatory telegram from Wilhelm I to Bonaparte, Bismarck provoked. France into declaring war. On July 19, 1870, the two governments got their wish, and the war began. The struggle was destined to have profound political consequences. By unifying Germany, it transformed that country into the leading power in Europe, destined before long to outstrip England in industrial production; and by bringing about therewith a powerful growth of the German proletariat, the war also eventually put the organized German workers, for half a century, in the leadership of the world labor movement. An immediate effect of the war was to speed up the operation of a chain of events, in connection with the Paris Commune, which were finally to lead to the break-up of the First International.
[90] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 9. The Paris Commune (1871)The General Council of the I.W.A. had long been warning the workers against the danger of a Franco-German war and when the gathering conflict suddenly burst forth, the Council four days later, July 29, 1870, put out a manifesto calling for international solidarity of the workers. Written by Marx, the manifesto laid the blame for the war upon the rulers of both France and Germany. While it said that Germany had been placed on the defensive in the war, with reactionary Russia looming on its eastern frontiers, it warned the German workers against the danger of the war becoming one of conquest. Marx also stated that whatever the outcome of the war, it would mark the end of the Second Empire in France, as it did.
In the various countries the workers displayed high qualities of internationalism. In Germany, Liebknecht and Bebel voted in parliament against the war credits, and went to jail for it (the Lassalleans, however, voted for the credits), and big meetings of German workers were "happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched out to us by the workmen of France.''^^1^^ In France a similar international spirit prevailed, the workers pledging their "indissolijble solidarity" with the workers of Germany.^^2^^ Among the immigrant workers in the United States also, the General Council's anti-war manifesto was circulated far and wide, and joint meetings of French and German workers were held to protest the war.^^3^^
Meanwhile, the war had disrupted the organizational procedure of the International. The next congress had been set for Paris, on September 5, 1870; but in view of the prevailing political persecutions in France, the congress place was later shifted to Mainz, Germany. The outbreak of the war, however, forced the cancellation of this arrangement.
The war was brought to a swift climax by the better-prepared German forces. The French armies suffered one catastrophic defeat after another. In six weeks the field phase of the war was over. On 91 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE PARIS COMMUNE
Septemher 2, 1870, at Sedan, Bonaparte unconditionally surrendered himself and his army.
When news of the Sedan debacle reached Paris the people rose and, on September 4, 1870, they overthrew the Bonaparte regime and set up a republic. The new Assembly, elected February 8, 1871, was made up, however, of about two-thirds Royalists and one-third bourgeois Republicans, with a few petty-bourgeois radicals thrown in to make things more palatable to the working class. This whole development spurred the Bakuninists into action, and during the next several weeks they tried vainly to carry through successful uprisings in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Brest, and other cities against the new government. The Blanquists also pushed for an insurrection. For a few hours, on October 31, 1870, Blanqui was in control of Paris, but he had to give it up.
On September 9, 1870, the General Council of the I.W.A. issued another manifesto, also written by Marx.^^*^^ In this document Marx pointed out that the so-called war of defense on the part of Germany had become definitely a war of conquest, the determination of Bismarck to seize the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine having become clear. Marx warned 'that if this were done, it would surely lead eventually to another "defensive war" as it, in fact, did with terrific force in 1914. The manifesto urged the German workers to oppose the proposed annexation and to demand an honorable peace with France. It warned the French workers to be on guard against the treacherous French bourgeoisie and to use every opportunity to strengthen their own class forces. In general, Marx and Engels felt that the time was unripe for a revolutionary overthrow of the reactionary republican government, such as both Bakunin and Blanqui were striving for.^^4^^
The German army was at the walls of Paris, investing the city. Bismarck hesitated to attack Paris, however, because reportedly there were some 200,000 well-armed troops (an exaggeration) within it, and he well knew the revolutionary fighting spirit of the Parisian proletariat. The Paris troops, mostly the National Guard, made up _-_-_
^^*^^ In 1869 Engels quit his business in Manchester, England, where he had been since 1864, and thenceforth he worked closely with Marx, largely financing the latter.
92 chiefly of workers, had elected a Central Committee of 25 members, on February if,,^^6^^ and it largely controlled besieged Paris. The National Guard was especially on the alert against a coup d'etat by the Thiers government, which, fearing the revolutionary proletariat, was eager to turn the city over to the Germans. The government signed an armistice (surrender) on February 26, in which it agreed to give up Paris.With the aim of forcing rebellious Paris to surrender, Thiers, at three o'clock in the morning of March 18, had his troops under General Vinoy attempt to seize the 250 cannon of the National Guard. The plan was succeeding until besieged, famine-stricken Paris woke up and went into action. With women taking the lead, the people, by fraternization and direct attacks, halted the seizure. By eleven o'clock Thiers' troops were completely defeated and the city was in the hands of the people. Two government generals were killed in the fighting. The red flag floated on the Hotel de Ville, and the Central Committee of the National Guard was acting as the provisional government.6 "The proletarians of Paris," declared "the Central Committee, "amidst the failures and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs.''^^7^^
The basic organized forces which led in the insurrection were the Blanquists. They were said to number 4,000 organized armed men, with a large body of sympathizers.^^8^^ Blanqui himself was arrested by the government the night before the uprising, on March 17, and was held in jail all through the life of the Commune. The Marxist Internationalists, who were still few in numbers in Paris, had not planned for an uprising, but when it began they took a very active part in it.
Based on universal male suffrage, the Commune was a legislative and executive body. All its members were subject to recall. The general model was Paris, and the revolutionary plan was to have such communes throughout all the cities, towns, and hamlets of France. All were to send representatives to the National Delegation in Paris. Marx says, the system "brought the rural producers under the intellectual lead of the central towns in their districts, and secured to them, in the working men, the natural trustees of their interests"^^9^^---a clear recognition of the leading revolutionary role of the proletariat.
93 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE PARIS COMMUNEThe fundamental weakness of the Commune was that the workers had no party and no program; the revolution and the government coming out of the struggle were all improvised. What should have been done, already on the i8th, was for the Central Committee acting in the name of the people, to arrest the Thiers government leaders, who were in Paris that day, and then march upon Versailles, the seat of the reactionary government. That government's forces were greatly demoralized by the insurrection, and Thiers later admitted that if an attack had been made promptly they could not have withstood it. Unfortunately, however, they were allowed precious time to reorganize their forces, a fact which became disastrous later on for the Commune. The Central Committee temporized and had conscientious objection to launching a civil war,^^10^^ while in fact the Thiers reactionaries, by their attack on Paris, had already opened the civil war. The Central Committee, uncertain of its own authority, prepared for the holding of local elections. Meanwhile, short-lived insurrections were taking place in other French cities---Lyons, Saint Etienne, Creusot, Marseilles, Toulouse, and Narbonne. Bakunin entered into the revolt in Lyons and wrecked it.^^11^^
The elections of March 26, supplemented by further voting on April 15, elected 92 Councillors, who constituted the Commune of Paris. An Executive Committee of nine was chosen, made up of the heads of the various departments: War, Finance, Subsistence, Exterior, Labor, Justice, Public Services, Information, and General Security. The Blanquists and Neo-Jacobins held a majority in the Commune; there was also a considerable group of Proudhonists, some eighteen Marxist Internationalists, and a few of miscellaneous opinion. The Commune was based on a revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and the city petty bourgeoisie, with the workers in the lead. By this time, most of the big bourgeoisie had fled the city, leaving the factories standing idle, with 300,000 workers unemployed.
On April 19 the Commune published its first statement of program. This stayed within the framework of a bourgeois democratic revolution. The program demanded, "The recognition and the consolidation of the Republic, and the absolute autonomy of the Commune extended at all places in France, thus assuring to each the integrity of its rights, and to each Frenchman the full exercise of his faculties and aptitudes as a man, a citizen, and a producer." It then went on to specify needed civil rights. It said further that, "The political unity, as desired by Paris, is a voluntary association of all local 94 initiative, the free and spontaneous cooperation of all individual energies with the common object of the well-being, liberty, and security of the people.''^^12^^ The stress upon local autonomy was partly a reaction against the crass dictatorship under the Second Empire and partly a reflection of the anarchist (Proudhon, Bakunin) ideas then widely current among the French working class.
In its manifesto of September 9, 1870, written by Marx, the General Council of the I.W.A. had warned the French workers of the "desperate folly" of an attempt at that time to overthrow the new bourgeois republic. But when the insurrection took place, Marx, as a real revolutionist, gave it every possible support. Writing to Kugelmann three weeks after the revolution began, Marx declared that "the present rising in Paris---even if it be crushed by the wolves, swine, and vile curs of the old society---is the most glorious deed of our Party since the June insurrection in Paris.''^^13^^ He declared that the Parisians were "storming heaven.''
Long afterward, Lenin compared favorably Marx's attitude to Plekhanov's in a similar situation. Plekhanov, who opposed the 1905 revolution in Russia, shamefully declared after the heroic struggle that, "They should not have resorted to arms.^^14^^ But Marx, although he had opposed the revolt beforehand, gave it militant support once it began. On May 30, 1871, two days after the fall of the Commune, he put out an address in the name of the General Council, in defense of the Commune, one of the greatest of all Marxist works, The Civil War in France. This historic document was endorsed by all the Council members, except Odger and Lucroft, English labor leaders, who resigned rather than sign it. Marx signed it as the Corresponding Secretary of Germany and Holland, and Engels for Belgium and Spain.
Under the direct inspiration and leadership of Marx and Engels, the various sections of the International gave all possible aid to the embattled Commune. In Paris the Internationalists were very active. Stekloff lists among them, all elected members of the Commune: Varlin, Malon, Jourdes, Avrail, Pindy, Assy, Duval, Theiss, Lefrancais, Frankel, Longuet, Serail, and Johannard.^^16^^ They were active not only in the Commune committees but also in the growing civil war. They were responsible for much of the constructive legislation and action 95 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE PARIS COMMUNE
developed by the Commune. The many revolutionary European exiles in Paris also actively participated and were given high posts in the Commune, Dombrowski, a Pole, becoming military commander of Paris.^^16^^
In England the rank-and-file workers hailed the Commune, even though their opportunist trade union leaders in the General Council, save Applegarth, turned tail on the great revolutionary struggle. In Germany both the Eisenachers and the Lassalleans supported the Commune, in the face of a strong reactionary capitalist opposition. And in the United States the Commune evoked support far and wide among the working masses, notwithstanding the utter misrepresentation of it made by the bourgeois press, and the constant attempts of the American Ambassador to France, Washburn, to destroy it.1T The Workingmen's Advocate and other labor papers printed the statements of the General Council. Among the prominent American figures who justified the Commune was General Ben Butler, and on August 15, 1871, Marx told the General Council that Wendell Phillips, the Abolitionist and friend of labor, had become a member of the International. For many years afterward the memory of the heroic Paris Commune was a vivid tradition in American working class circles.^^18^^
The Paris Commune suffered from many weaknesses and handicaps, including internal dissensions among the various factional groupings and isolation from the rest of France. The lack of a clear-cut program and a solidly organized political party also hung like a millstone around the neck of the Commune from the first to the last. Moreover, the Commune, which existed only 72 days, had to operate in the face of a developing civil war. Although fighting for its life desperately, the Commune nevertheless had many constructive achievements to its credit, enough to write its name imperishably in the revolutionary history of the world's working class and for it to stand out as a veritable light-house to guide the workers along the way to socialism.
Among its major political decisions, the Commune proclaimed the separation of Church and State, abolished subsidies to the Church, did away with the standing army in favor of a people's milita, stripped the police of political attributes, made all functionaries strictly responsible to the electorate, setting 6,000 francs per year as the top limit for salaries, elected and controlled all judges and magistrates, established free and general education, burned the guillotine, and tore down the 96 Vendome column as a symbol of militarism. There were also many economic-social measures adopted---the abolition of night work in bakeries, the cancellation of employer fines in workshops, the closing of pawnshops, the seizure of closed workshops, which were to be operated by workers' cooperatives, the organization of relief for the enormous mass of unemployed, the establishment of a bureau of labor statistics; it also rationed dwellings and gave assistance to debtors. All this work was infused with an intense spirit of internationalism, and the Committee had as its flag the red banner of the world revolutionary movement.
Besides its achievements, the Commune suffered from many mistakes and shortcomings. One of these of major importance, already mentioned, was the failure at the outset to push the war vigorously against the reactionary Versailles government. Another was a too tolerant attitude towards the internal enemy, which hindered the hunt for bourgeois spies and traitors, with which Paris reeked, and also left the door open for serious treachery and disruptive action among the officer corps. Also the Commune did not try energetically enough to reach out to the other parts of France and especially to win the peasantry to its cause---a most serious weakness. Another error was the failure to publish the secret state archives dating back to 1789, which fell into the hands of the Commune and were full of the corruption and rottenness of the secret police, the diplomats, the capitalists, and their politicians. Its publication would have been a heavy blow against reaction and an invaluable document.^^19^^
But the most curious mistake was the failure of the Commune to confiscate the three billion francs held by the Bank of France. Instead, the Blanquist and Proudhonist leaders, forgetting their erstwhile pledges and voting down those who wanted to seize the bank, dealt diplomatically with the bank functionaries for loans. All told, the Commune heads got only some 16,700,000 francs; 9,400,000 of which belonged to Paris anyhow, the rest being a loan of 7,290,000 francs---a loan which the bank director first had Thiers endorse before he would make it.^^20^^ The seizure of the bank would have dealt a heavy blow to the shaky Versailles regime.
By the beginning of April the civil war was raging. The Communards, or Federalists, fought a brave but losing battle. The Thiers forces, on the basis of monstrous lies and distortions, had lined up 97 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE PARIS COMMUNE
most of peasant France against the Commune. Bismarck also released 100,000 French peasant prisoners-of-war to help the Versailles government.^^21^^ On May 21 the Versailles troops entered Paris and for eight days a bloody struggle took place, with the Communards backing up street by street in the face of heavy odds. On May 28 their last resistance was wiped out in Pere la Chaise cemetery and in Belleville and various other working class districts. The Commune was crushed.
The next few days were days of ruthless butchery. General de Gallifet and his fellow murderers cold-bloodedly shot down at least 30,000 working class men, women, and children. About 45,000 more were arrested. Of these some 15,000 were executed or sent to prison, and hundreds more were exiled to New Caledonia.
The slaughter was far worse even than after the defeat of the June insurrection in Paris in 1848. Tens of thousands of Communards also had to flee the country to Switzerland, to England, and most of all, to the United States. To provide assistance for these exiles was a big job for the I.W.A. in Europe. It was one of the Communard exiles, Eugene Pettier, who in June 1871 penned the immortal words of the great battle song of the world's workers, The International.
Behind the barricades, in the bloody struggle and in the spectacular political trials which followed it, the women Communards especially covered themselves with glory. Louise Michel and Elisabeth Dmitrieff were but two noted fighters among thousands of heroines. Before the court, Michel proudly declared, "I belong entirely to the revolution and I wish to accept the responsibility for all my deeds."22 Convicted, she spent ten years in prison exile.
The reactionary rulers of Europe exulted over the wholesale massacres in Paris. They poured in messages of congratulation to the monster Thiers, and they put in motion repressive measures designed to wipe out socialism in their own countries. In France, particularly, says Lenin, "The bourgeoisie were satisfied. 'Now we have finished with socialism for a long time,' said their leader, the blood-thirsty dwarf, Thiers, after the bloodbath which he and his generals had given the proletariat of Paris. But these bourgeois crows cawed in vain. Six years after the suppression of the Commune, when many of its fighters were still pining in prison, or in exile, a new workers' movement rose in France.''^^23^^
98The Paris Commune taught many great lessons to the world's workers, which are still valid today. Above all others, Lenin understood and drew these lessons most completely. Outstanding among them is the indispensable need of the workers in all countries for a strong, clear-seeing, and disciplined Communist Party, as Marx so strongly insisted, to lead them along the long and difficult road to socialism. Even in a situation where the capitalist government was so rotten that the power fell into the hands of the workers practically without a struggle, as in Paris on March 18, 1871, still the workers could not go on, even from there, without a strong political organization. This was one of the decisive lessons of the Commune, and it completely repudiated the Bakunin contention that a political party was not necessary and that mass spontaneity would suffice.
Another elementary lesson of the Commune was that it provided the basic form of the new society that is to replace capitalism, as Marx pointed out. The close relationship of the organizational form of the Commune and that of the future Russian Soviets is unmistakable. Yet for almost half a century the real significance of the Commune was virtually lost sight of, even by Marxists, until finally Lenin retaught them its meaning.
Of fundamental importance, too, was the clear demonstration given by the experience of the Paris Commune that, after the workers had defeated the capitalists and won political power, they would have to set up a state of their own, although a new type of state, in order, by armed force, to hold in repression the counter-revolutionary forces of capitalism and also to organize to lay the basis of the new society. The Commune also taught, that the "withering away of the state" would be a much more protracted process than was generally contemplated by Marxists, though this lesson, too, was practically ignored for decades. Especially was all this in sharp contradiction to the Bakunin anarchist nonsense that mere spontaneity would provide sufficient organization once capitalism had been overthrown.
The Commune also made clear that the way to power for the workers of Europe in the existing circumstances was by the forceful overthrow of the prevailing ultra-reactionary political regimes, which denied the workers every semblance of democracy. But Marx-did not make a dogma of this important fact. He also recognized, as indicated in Chapter 2, that in Great Britain and the United States, where 99 __RUNNING_HEADER__ THE PARIS COMMUNE
there were more advanced types of bourgeois democracy, the possibility existed at that time (in the pre-imperialist period) for the workers to make a peaceful advance to socialism.
The Commune taught, too, that the bourgeoisie would not hesitate to betray the nation in its own class interests. As the feudal reactionaries in the great French Revolution of 1789 had joined with enemies abroad to fight revolutionary France, so did the reactionaries of 1871 join hands with Bismarck against the Commune.
Another lesson of the Commune, greatly stressed by Marx and also later by Lenin, was the fact that the workers, once in power, could not adapt the bourgeois state to their revolutionary needs. In his letter to Kugelmann, April 17, 1871, Marx said, "If you look at the last chapter of my Eighteenth Brumaire, you will find that I say that the next attempt of the French Revolution will be no longer, as before, to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to the other, but to smash it; and this is essential for every real people's revolution on the Continent.''^^24^^ This was precisely what the Commune was doing in building its new type of workers' state. The general conclusion was later on to be of great importance in the fight against the opportunists, who believed that the workers could transform the capitalist regime bit-by-bit into socialism.
A most vital lesson taught by the Paris Commune, was the practical living demonstration it gave of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this respect, the Commune was a brilliant demonstration of the soundness of the position of Marx, who already in The Communist Manifesto, 24 years earlier, had definitely outlined the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. By the same token, the Commune repudiated the contentions of the anarchists, who were inveterate enemies of rule by the working class, which is the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Commune was not made up exclusively of workingmen. In fact, as Lissagaray and Jaeckh point out and as Lenin agrees, "the majority of the government consisted of representatives of petty-- bourgeois democracy.''^^25^^ Many of these were revolutionary intellectuals. Of the 92 members of the Commune, only some 25 were workers, and not all of these were members of the International. Nevertheless, with the Parisian working class in full action, the influence of the proletariat predominated. Marx thus puts the situation: "The majority of its members were naturally workingmen, or acknowledged representatives of the working class.''^^26^^
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HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
The Commune also did not have, as we have remarked above, a definitely socialist program. Nevertheless, its socialist trend was implicit. Marx says, "Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators.''^^27^^ He also states that its decisions "bore distinctly a proletarian character." Lenin characterized the Commune "as a popular workers' government," and he declared, that "The Commune tried to carry out what we now call 'the minimum program of socialism.' "^^28^^
The Commune was, indeed, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx said, "It was essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing against the expropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labor," and he also said that "The glorious workingmen's revolution of the i8th of March took undisputed sway in Paris.''^^29^^ Later on, Engels, addressing German "Social-Democratic philistines," declared, "Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat.''^^30^^
The Paris Commune, despite its ultimate overthrow, was the first real revolutionary success of the World's working class. It made the initial dent in the capitalist system, which the great Russian revolution, half a century later, was to follow up by smashing a vast, irreparable breach through the walls of world capitalism. Lenin said that, with all its errors, the Commune was "the greatest example of the greatest proletarian movement of the nineteenth century.''^^31^^
10. The Split at the
Hague Congress
(1872)
Following the downfall of the Paris Commune, the International found itself under increasing persecution in various European countries. The Commune had given the ruling classes a real fright and they were resolved, if possible, to prevent a similar recurrence. The bourgeois press everywhere launched a wild attack against the International. At the Hague congress of the I.W.A. Marx said that, "all the floodgates of calumny which the mercenary bourgeois press had at its disposal were suddenly thrown open and let loose a cataclysm of defamation designed to engulf the hated foe. This campaign of calumny does not possess its match in history. . . . After the great fire in Chicago, the news was sent around the world by telegram that this fire was the hellish act of the International.''^^1^^
In 1871 France passed a law making it a crime to belong to the International and it demanded that all countries should turn over to it the Communard exiles as common criminals. In the same year Holland made an appropriation of 3,000,000 gulden to check the spread of communism. In Germany, Bebel and Liebknecht, who had protested against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and declared their solidarity with the Commune, were arrested and sentenced to two years in a fortress. In Spain, Italy, Belgium, and elsewhere hysterical police persecutions were heaped upon the Internationalists. Early in 1872 the Spanish government appealed to other governments to cooperate in suppressing the International.^^2^^ The Pope added his voice to the cry for revenge, and in 1873 Russia, Germany, and Austria-- Hungary signed a mutual agreement to fight the International. They tried also to involve England, but failed.^^3^^
THE INTERNAL CRISIS
More dangerous to the International, however, than this police persecution was the internal crisis that ever more deeply involved the organization after the end of the Commune. The substance of this
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was the growing battle between the Marxists and Bakuninists; between the Alliance, led by Bakunin, and the forces behind the General Council, led by Marx. As we have seen in the previous chapter, the Marxists could well claim that the Commune had endorsed their general political line, but the Bakuninists argued violently to the contrary. They insisted that the spontaneous uprising of the workers of Paris and other French cities repudiated Marx's conceptions and generally supported the philosophy of spontaneity propagated by Bakunin. The Bakuninists were encouraged to re-double their factional activities, and they did succeed in building up their strength in a number of countries. They were especially strong in the Latin countries---Spain, Italy, Portugal, French Belgium, and French and Italian Switzerland. Their main city center was Geneva, and Bakunin maneuvered to have the headquarters of the International transferred to that place. The Commune experience practically obliterated politically the Proudhonists and the Blanquists of France, but it gave the Bakuninists everywhere a new lease on life.
In the larger countries, strongholds of the International, the internal crisis sharpened. In France the whole labor movement was prostrate after the downfall of the Commune. In Germany quarrels between the Marxists and Lassalleans, together with government persecutions, threw the labor movement into disarray. In the United States the friendly National Labor Union was in rapid decline. And in England, which had been Marx's chief support in the International, there was also internal trouble. All the trade union leaders except one, in protest against Marx's support of the Commune, resigned from the General Council, while other opportunist union leaders, adopting the characteristic oppositionist method of fighting the General Council, set up a British Federation of the I.W.A. in order to break the direct contacts of the General Council with their unions. This bad situation was aggravated when Eccarius and Hales, successive General Secretaries of the I.W.A., split with Marx.
THE LONDON CONFERENCE
Under these difficult and threatening conditions, the International held a special general conference in London, September 17-23, 1871, to substitute for the congress that had been scheduled for Mainz, Germany, in the previous year. To protect the French delegates, the conference was held privately. In attendance were 23 persons, 17 of
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them members of the General Council. Marx was the representative for Germany, Engels for Italy, N. Utin for Russia, and Eccarius for the United States.^^4^^ According to Postgate, the International, counting all factions, then had a press of 58 papers, including three in the United States.
The main business before the London conference was the imminent split in the International. Things had already arrived at the point where with the Jura Federation of Switzerland (Bakunin's headquarters) there were two rival organizations in the field. And Jaeckh says the following about the factional situation in Spain: "In most cities there were, beside the sections of the Alliance, also sections of the International, without any contact between them." And he thus describes the Bakunin organization in Italy, which was saturated with Mazzini republicans: "All pretended sections of the International were led by lawyers without clients, by doctors without patients and without knowledge, by students of billiards, by travelling salesmen and other office people, and especially by journalists of the small press and of more or less doubtful callings.''^^6^^ The London conference could do little about the bad situation beyond supporting the line of the General Council.
Drawing one of the main lessons of the Commune, the conference stressed the great need of the workers in the various countries to organize political parties and to engage in political action. It also congratulated the Social-Democratic Workers Party in Germany for its recent electoral successes. All this, of course, was deadly poison to the Bakuninists. The conference set the date of the next congress of the I.W.A. for the coming year.
The Bakuninists refused, however, to abide by the decisions of the London conference. On November 12, 1871, they held a formal congress at Sonvillier, Switzerland. One of the delegates was Jules Guesde, later to play a central role in the development of the French Socialist Party. The congress, made up of Alliance elements, was a direct challenge to the authority of the General Council. It issued a statement, addressed to all sections of the International, denouncing the Council as corrupt and dictatorial, condemning its program of political action, and demanding that an immediate congress be held.^^6^^ The ideological controversy had developed into an organizational split.
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HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
THE CONGRESS AT THE HAGUE
The fifth congress of the I.W.A. was held in The Hague, beginning on September s, 1872. Marx and Engels, for the first time, both attended in person, Marx having previously written to Sorge and Kugelmann that he considered the congress to be "a life and death matter for the International," and so it turned out. Bakunin himself was not present, but his people, led by James Guillaume, were there in force, and all prepared for a showdown.
The split situation manifested itself immediately at the congress, and three days were spent on the difficult problem of the verification of credentials. Of the 65 delegates finally seated, roughly 40 supported the main line of the General Council, and about 25 the opposition. The Marxists' supporters were: Members of the General Council 16, Germany 10, France 6, Switzerland 3, United States 2 (Sorge, a Marxist, and Deurure, a Blanquist), and Spain, Bohemia, Denmark, and Sweden i each. The supporters of Bakunin were: Belgium 7, England 5, Holland 4, Spain 4, Switzerland 2, and France i. The Italians, Bakuninists, boycotted the congress.
The factional situation was not fully a clear ideological line-up, some of the supporters of both sides being swayed by other considerations than the main issues confronting the congress. Important in this respect were the English delegates, including Eccarius and three other members of the General Council. Pure and simple trade unionists, mainly, they did not share the anarchist views of Bakunin, but they nevertheless voted against the Marxists.
In its series of resolutions, the congress dealt primarily with four questions: the role and powers of the General Council, the headquarters location of the I.W.A., the political line of the International, and the status of Bakunin's Alliance. Let us deal with these separately.
THE POWERS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
The Bakuninists made a central issue of this question. Worshippers of spontaneity and extreme local autonomy, their proposal was that the General Council should be nothing more than a correspondence bureau and a collector of statistical data. They violently opposed the idea of the Council applying the decisions of the congresses and acting as the general political guide of the International. Some wanted to abolish the General Council altogether.^^7^^ The Marxists, on the
SPLIT AT HAGUE CONGRESS 105
other hand, insisted upon the need for a considerable international centralization policy and discipline. In view of the severe internal crisis, the congress sustained the latter view, voting by 40 to 4, with 11 abstentions, to grant wider powers to the Council in order to enable it to apply more effectively the decisions of the congresses and to establish discipline. These enabled the Council "temporarily to expel, until the next congress, a division, section, Federal Council, committees and federations of the International,"^^8^^ which might refuse to abide by I.W.A. decisions.
The charges by the Bakuninists that the General Council practiced a dictatorship were unfounded. In fact, ever since the inception of the International the Council had served more as a theoretical than a direct political and organizational center. In a letter to Kugelmann, Marx thus explains its theoretical tasks: "It was not its function to sit in judgment on the theoretic value of the programs of the various sections. It had only to see that those programs contained nothing directly contradictory to the letter and spirit of the Statutes.''^^9^^ The great achievements of the Council (i.e. of Marx) were in the field of theory and political policy. The Council also did not initiate strikes or specific political movements in the various countries, but rather supported them once the national sections had gotten them under way. But even this restricted central leadership was far too much for the anarchist Bakuninists, with their exaggerated conceptions of spontaneity. It was only when the life of the I.W.A. was finally at stake that it adopted strong centralization.
THE QUESTION OF POLITICAL ACTION
In the aftermath of the Paris Commune there was a strong trend towards political action in various countries. The workers sought thus to translate into reality one of the most elementary lessons of the historic struggle. In line with this sound trend, the Marxists had re-- introduced into the Hague Congress for endorsement what was substantially the resolution of the London conference of 1871 on the matter. The resolution declared: "In its fight against the collective forces of the possessing classes, the proletariat can only act as a class by organizing its forces into an independent political party, working in opposition to all the old parties formed by the possessing classes. Such an organization of the proletariat as a political party is indispensable in order to achieve the triumph of the social revolution, and above all,
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to attain its ultimate goal, the abolition of classes.''^^10^^
This resolution provoked an intense debate. The Blanquists, through their chief spokesman, Vaillant of France, maintained that "If the strike is one weapon in our revolutionary fight, the barricade is another, and is the most powerful weapon o£ all." They wanted to amend the resolution to this effect. The Bakuninists, with Guillaume as their leader, attacked the resolution head on and with it The Communist Manifesto, as expressing bourgeois politics. "The difference between the positive policies of the majority faction and the negative policies of the minority faction was set forth in the following two axioms: the majority aims at the conquest of political power; the minority aims at the destruction of political power.''^^11^^ The congress voted 29 to 5, with 9 abstentions, in favor of the Marxists' resolution.
THE INTERNATIONAL REMOVES TO NEW YORK
The sensation of the Congress was a proposal, presented by Engels, to remove the headquarters of the International to the United States, to New York. The resolution, written in French, reads: "We propose that for the years 1872-73 the seat of the General Council shall be transferred to New York, that it shall be composed of the following members: the Federal Council of North America: Cavanagh, St. Clair, Getti, Carl, Laurel, F. L. Bertrand, F. Bolte, and C. Carl. They will have the right to co-opt but the total numbers shall not exceed 15."--- Signed by Marx, Engels, Sexton, Longuet, Dupont, Serralier, Wroblewski, Barry, McDonnell, Lissner, Le Moussu, at The Hague, September 6, i872.^^12^^
This resolution caused a very sharp fight in the congress. The Bakuninists made a battle against it, and so did the Blanquists who in general had been supporting the Marxists in the congress. Sorge, the chief I.W.A. leader in the United States, also opposed the proposition, but was eventually won over to it. After a complicated struggle, with other proposals to locate in Barcelona and Brussels, Engels' motion was finally carried by a vote of 30 to 14, with 13 abstentions. Declaring the International lost, the Blanquists dramatically quit and took no further part in the congress. The new General Council was elected on the basis that its members must reside in the United States. It consisted of Cavanagh, St. Clair, Laurel, Fornacieri, Leviele, Deurure, Carl, Bolte, Berliand, Speyer and Ward. Sorge was elected General Secretary.
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107
As Engels made clear in his speech introducing the resolution, the removal of the International to New York was dictated by hard necessity. The situation, both within and without the organization, had become such that it was impossible for it to function effectively in Europe. The biggest danger was that it would be captured by the Bakunin anarchists and used to further their sectarian cause, which would have been a disaster to the young world labor movement. There was also the possibility that the General Council would be taken over by the Blanquists, many of whom, refugees from the Commune, had located in London. Under these difficult circumstances, there was nothing practical left to do other than to move the general headquarters to America, where, in the young American labor movement, the International might find a strong base.
THE EXPULSION OF THE BAKUNINISTS
Even as the Hague congress assembled, the split in the International was a reality. This was demonstrated by the holding of the anarchist congress of Sonvilliers, by the dual movements that this opposition had set up in several of the Latin countries, by the reckless bitterness with which the factional fight was being conducted, and by the obvious intention of Bakunin to dominate the movement at any cost. The formal expulsion of the Bakunin leadership at The Hague merely recognized officially the division that was already virtually an accomplished fact in the International.
In preparation for dealing with this matter the congress, at the outset, appointed a committee of five, which included Marx, Engels, and other leaders of both factions, to consider the situation regarding the Alliance, which was working within the International, and also to weigh the charges that had been made against the General Council by various Bakuninist federations. It was according to the majority report of four of the five members of this committee that, towards the conclusion of the congress, the expulsions were carried through.
At the meeting of the General Council on March 5, 1872, Marx had submitted a long report reviewing -the whole course of the fight against the Bakunin group, later published in pamphlet form as The Pretended Secessions in the International.™ The committee, on the basis of this report and of extended hearings and investigations, declared that the Alliance, with rules and purposes contrary to those of the International, existed as a broad factional grouping within that
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HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
organization. It was developed that the Bakuninist federations were dominated by secret cliques of "national brothers" and that the Alliance generally was in the hands of about 100 "international brothers." The committee held that Bakunin and others, by their whole course of conduct, had made themselves ineligible for further membership in the organization.
The majority of the committee therefore recommended that Bakunin, Guillaume, Schwitzguebel, Malon, Bousquet, and Marchand be expelled. Charges against other Bakuninist leaders were dropped, upon their assurance that they had quit the Alliance. The minority report re-stated the Bakunin line, insisting upon the right of the national federations to full autonomy and challenging the right of the General Council to interfere in any way with them. The congress, which by this time had dwindled to only 43 delegates, voted to expel Bakunin and Guillaume. Schwitzguebel was not expelled, whereupon he resigned.
THE AFTERMATH OF THE SPLIT
Following the congress a mass meeting was held in Amsterdam, addressed by Marx, Sorge, and others. Marx reviewed optimistically the work of the congress.^^14^^ He especially stressed the fact that the congress, rejecting the a-political line of the anarchists, had " proclaimed the necessity that the working class shall attack the old and crumbling society on both the political and the social fields." He warned, however, that in so doing, "special regard must be paid to the institutions, customs, and traditions of various lands; and we do not deny that there are certain countries, such as the United States and England, in which the workers may secure their ends by peaceful means. If I mistake not, Holland belongs to the same category. Even so, we have to recognize that in most Continental countries force will have to be the lever of the revolution." Marx hailed the great example of the Paris Commune, and declared that, "It fell because there did not simultaneously occur in all the capitals, in Berlin, in Madrid, and the rest, a great revolutionary movement linked with the mighty upheaval of the Parisian proletariat.''
On the crucial question of the removal of the headquarters to New York, Marx stated: "The Hague Congress has removed the seat of the General Council from London to New York. Many, even of our friends, are not best pleased at this decision. They forget that the
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United States is pre-eminently becoming the land of the workers; that year by year, half a million workers emigrate to this new world, and that the International must perforce strike deep roots in this soil upon which the workers are supreme.''
In a letter to Sorge a year later, Marx said: "According to my view of conditions in Europe, it will be thoroughly useful to let the formal organization of the International withdraw into the background for a time, only, if possible, keeping some control over the center in New York in order to prevent idiots like Ferret or adventurers like Cluseret getting hold of the leadership and compromising the cause. Events themselves and the inevitable development in complexity of things will ensure the resurrection of the International in an improved form.''^^15^^
Certainly Marx and Engels had few illusions as to the significance of the removal to America. But Riazanov remarks, "It was presumed that the transfer of the International would be but a temporary one."16 However, it did not turn out that way. The I.W.A. headquarters never returned to Europe, and The Hague gathering was its last real international congress. An attempt was made to hold an I.W.A. congress, the sixth, in Geneva, in 1877, DUt ll was a failure. Only a few delegates appeared and they represented what was a disintegrating movement. The removal to New York was generally understood to amount to the liquidation of the International as a world organization, and it was just that. During its four years of life in the United States, the I.W.A. functioned more as a national than an international organization. Meanwhile, the European Anarchist forces continued their work, trying in vain to carry on the International in their own image and likeness.
11. The Anarchist
International (1872-1877)
The Bakuninists refused to recognize the Hague congress decisions, which expelled Bakunin and other Anarchist leaders for carrying on disruptive activities within the International. Instead, declaring that the I.W.A., by these decisions and by moving to New York, had virtually liquidated itself, they went right ahead with their own organization, claiming that it was, in fact, the International Workingmen's Association. Consequently, for the next several years there were two Internationals in existence, both with the same name and both presumably representing the workers of the world.
The two organizations carried on a bitter warfare against each other. The Marxist position was stated in the pamphlet, The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Workingmen's Association, written by Engels and Paul Lafargue, and the Anarchist position was outlined in the booklet, A Complot against the International Workingmen's Association, prepared under Bakunin's direction.
THE SAINT-IMIER CONGRESS
A few days after the close of the fifth congress of the I.W.A. at The Hague in September 1873, the opposing Anarchist forces held a congress in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. It was, in fact, a continuation and extension of the conference of the Jura Federation at that place. The international congress of the Anarchists lasted through September 15-17. Stekloff lists the participating delegations as follows: Spain 4; Italy 6; Switzerland 2; France 2, and the United States i, the delegate Lefrancais representing the American sections 3 and 22, which had broken away from the leadership of the Marxists.^^1^^ This group assembled in congress, claimed to be and acted in the name of the International. It was the old Alliance in a new garb.
The Anarchists in the Saint-Imier congress, no longer hampered by the presence of Marxists, formally rejected the decisions of the
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Hague congress and began to shape their new international in the image and likeness of Bakunin. The congress "categorically denied the legislative right of all congresses, whether general or regional, and recognized that such congresses had no other mission than to show forth the aspirations, the needs, and the ideas of the proletariat in the various localities or countries, so that such ideas may be harmonized and unified. ... In no case can the majority of a congress . . . impose its will upon the minority." This was the "center of correspondence and statistics" theory so fervently advocated by Anarchist delegates in congresses of the International, now written into reality. At a later congress the Anarchists, for a while, abolished the General Council altogether.
The Saint-Imier congress declared that "the autonomy and independence of the working class sections and federations constitutes the essential condition of the emancipation of the workers." It declared also, "That the destruction of every kind of political power is the first task of the proletariat." It rejected all forms of political organization and action, declaring "That the proletarians of all lands, spurning all compromises in the achievement of the social revolution, must establish, independently of bourgeois politics, the solidarity of revolutionary action.''^^2^^
The workers now had to make a choice between the rival Internationals. The Belgian federation soon afterward went with the Anarchists, and so did the Dutch. A section of the British took a similar stand, although being at bottom opportunist trade unionists, they were more interested in carrying on a factional struggle against Marx than they were fascinated by Anarchist doctrines of decentralization, autonomy, and spontaneity. The federations which in the main declared for the Marxist International were the French, German, Austrian, Polish, Danish, Hungarian, and American---a situation which led Jaeckh to conclude, "Thus, the majority of the federations remained with the old International.''^^3^^
But these retained affiliations were more formal than real. The removal of the International to New York convinced the Marxists of Europe that its days were over. Consequently, the Germans and other Marxists, quickly losing further interest in the International, began to turn their attention to the new strong trends toward building up the labor movements and political parties in their respective countries. This is why the Marxist attempt at an International congress in Germany in September 1873 proved such a failure.
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HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
DOWNWARD COURSE OF THE ANARCHISTS
The real life of the Bakuninist international was between the years 1872 and 1877. Such moves as the Anarchists made upon an international scale after the latter date were hardly more than dying convulsions. During these five years the Bakuninists held several international congresses of their so-called I.W.A. Among them were gatherings in Geneva in 1873, Brussels in 1874, Berne in 1876, and Verviers (Belgium) in 1877. The final issue of their official organ, Bulletin de la Federation Jurassienne, appeared on March 15, 1878.
In July 1881 the Anarchists, at a congress in London, launched a strong effort to revitalize their cause internationally. This resulted in the so-called "Black International." But it was all a shot in the water, the movement failing to take hold again in Europe. It did, however, have considerable repercussions in the United States. In its early stages the Anarchist I.W.A. attracted few American supporters, although Foner reports that, "As far back as 1875, a small group of German Socialists in Chicago had formed an armed club which came to be known as Lehr und Wehr Verein."*
Serious consequences developed in the United States, however, in connection with the London 1881 movement, the International Association of Working People. This Black International movement attracted considerable support among the foreign-born workers, especially in the Chicago area. These workers, who were mostly non-- citizens, employed at the lowest paid jobs, subjected to terrorism in the shops, and the worst victims of recurring economic crises, were influenced by the Anarchist propaganda.^^5^^ A contributing factor was the opportunist policy then being followed by the leadership of the Socialist Labor Party, which refused to organize the workers for economic struggle. The culmination of the movement was the Chicago Haymarket tragedy during the great 8-hour movement of 1886, in which, as a result of a mysterious bomb explosion at a mass meeting on May 4, four workers' leaders---Albert R. Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel---were barbarously framed-up and executed, another, Louis Lingg, "committed suicide," the police said, and several more were given long prison sentences.
There were also skeleton international Anarchist congresses in 1891, 1893, and 1896, but they were merely small sectarian gatherings.
The Anarchist international, during its several years of life on a descending plane, conducted very few mass struggles. The most important of these were revolutionary attempts in Spain and Italy in
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113
and 1874. In Spain the Anarchist international had a strong following. In Barcelona, their chief stronghold, they claimed some 50,000 members.^^6^^ The country was in a revolutionary ferment, which finally resulted in the establishment of the Spanish Republic in 1873. Due to their apolitical prejudices, the Anarchists took no organized part in this popular movement. In the mass ferment they did, however, develop a general strike in a few cities, which turned out to be a failure.^^7^^ In Italy, which was also a Bakuninist stronghold during the unsettled political situation of the early i87o's, the Anarchists organized no less than 60 local putsches in two years. Their most serious undertaking was an attempted uprising in Bologna in July, 1874; but this failed completely.
KROPOTKIN SUCCEEDS BAKUNIN
Overtaken by bad health and depressed by the defeats he had suffered in his grandiose plans of revolution, Bakunin withdrew from activity in the middle i87o's. To the end he remained bitterly hostile to Marxism. In his letter of farewell to the workers of Jura, he declared that the socialism of Marx, no less than the diplomacy of Bismarck, represented the center of reaction against which the workers had to carry on a tireless struggle. Marx, on the other hand, challenged Bakunin's sincerity, and characterized him as an enemy of the working class. In 1919 papers were found in the Russian tsarist police archives which cast a bad light on Bakunin. They showed that while in prison in 1851 he had written to the tsar from the standpoint of, as he called himself, "a penitent sinner," with the aim of securing a mitigation of his imprisonment.^^8^^ Bakunin died on July i, 1876, in Berne, at the age of 62.
In the Anarchist movement at the time there were a number of outstanding figures, including Admenar Schwitzguebel of Switzerland, Enrico Malatesta of Italy, Domela Nieuwenhuis of Holland, James Guillaume and Elisee Reclus of France, Cesar de Paepe of Belgium, Johann Most of Germany, and various others; but the Anarchist leadership mantle of Bakunin fell upon the shoulders of a comparative newcomer in the field of international struggle, Kropotkin of Russia.
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was a prince, a member of one of the well-known noble families in tsarist Russia. Among his many activities in Russia, he was a noted geographer. He became interested in the revolutionary movement, and in 1872 joined the International
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in Switzerland, affiliating himself with the Bakunin wing. As a result of his activities, Kropotkin served several years in prison, mainly in Russia and France. He died in the Soviet Union, an honored citizen, but a confirmed opponent of the Bolshevik regime. Of his many books, the most valuable is, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.
Kropotkin called himself a Communist-anarchist. He carried forward the Bakunin conception of a spontaneous insurrectional revolution and the automatic establishment of a society based altogether on autonomy. He was an enemy of proletarian political parties, of political action, and of the dictatorship of the proletariat. To him the main enemy was the state, not the capitalist class. According to Kropotkin, in their revolutionary period the capitalists also had fought, not the feudal system but the state. Said he, "Think of the struggles the bourgeoisie itself had to carry on against the state in order to conquer the right of constituting themselves into commercial societies.''^^9^^ Bakunin was a man of action and participated in uprisings, but Kropotkin, who was active during a more stable period of capitalism, perforce devoted himself almost exclusively to research, theory, and propaganda.
WHY THE ANARCHIST MOVEMENT SHRANK
The basic reason for the failure of the Anarchist International and for its demise, in a period when the working class was making great progress in many countries, was its theoretical unsoundness: its incurable foreshortening of the perspective of the revolution; its misconception of the class struggle; its false interpretation of the role of the state; its ignorance of the reality of the dictatorship of the proletariat; its understress upon organization and overstress upon mass spontaneity; and its lack of understanding of the need for practical everyday class struggle under the capitalist system. Under the burden of this load of confusion and illusion the Anarchist movement could not possibly succeed.
With the Anarchist International placing all its hopes upon insurrection and practically ignoring the everyday struggles of the workers, the Anarchist movement tended to shrink into a narrow sect on the sidelines of the class struggle. The workers in various countries, growing in numbers and class consciousness, were beginning to build broad trade unions, political parties, and cooperatives, and to conduct struggles for partial demands of various sorts---the franchise, wage and
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115
hour improvements, factory legislation, etc. But the Anarchists, with their eyes fastened fundamentally on their panacea, the insurrection, and despising all partial demands as deceptions for the workers, remained for the most part outside of and even opposed to the broad stream of working-class life, struggle, and development. They took but little part in strikes and they sabotaged the growing electoral struggles of the workers. This whole course brought out clearly the fundamentally sectarian character of the Anarchist movement.
The elemental move of the European masses of these years towards political action, as the proletariat grew swiftly in numbers and progressively won the franchise, was particularly disastrous for the Anarchists. It undermined the foundations of Bakunin's anti-- politicalism, which were based on the facts that, in the main, the workers in the Latin countries did not have the ballot; and also that, in any event, in these countries the proletariat was relatively small and could not look forward towards constituting an electoral majority of the voters. This applied also to Russia, where from the iSyo's on, the terroristic People's Will group, considerably influenced by Anarchist ideas, was active for a decade.
The sectarian isolation of the Anarchists was accentuated by the fact that the capitalist system in Europe and the United States, after the late i86o's, largely stabilized itself, and for the next few years thereafter, during its period of rapid development, was much less vulnerable to working-class insurrection. This general course of capitalist development was a body blow to the Anarchist movement, which based everything upon the perspective of early insurrection. It profoundly increased the disastrous, isolating consequences of Anarchist sectarianism. The decline of the Anarchist international was inevitable.
Anarchism, as Stalin points out,^^10^^ puts its stress upon the individual "whose emancipation, according to its tenets, is the principal condition for the emancipation of the masses." This conception put the Anarchists crosswise of the class struggle. On the other hand, "The cornerstone of Marxism, however," says Stalin, "is the masses, whose emancipation, according to its tenets, is the principal condition for the emancipation of the individual." This conception put the Marxists fully into the stream of the class struggle. "By its advocacy of individual terror, it [Anarchism] distracts the proletariat from the methods of mass organization and struggle. By repudiating the dictatorship of the proletariat in the name of `abstract' liberty, Anarchism
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deprives the proletariat of its most important and sharpest weapon against the bourgeoisie, its armies, and all its organs of repression.''^^11^^
The pressure of the masses to organize and to fight for their immediate demands, not only exerted itself externally upon the Anarchist movement, but also from within. Consequently, the Anarchist congresses were constantly torn by disputes over practical and theoretical questions---one of the most notable of such discussions being that over de Paepe's proposal.in the 1874 congress in Brussels to endorse what amounted to a people's state. All this confused and paraly/ed the organization and intensified its theoretical bankruptcy. There was also a constant desertion of leading figures---Jules Guesde (France), Carlo Cafiero (Italy), Caesar de Paepe (Belgium), G. Plekhanov and Paul Axelrod (Russia), and many others, to the camp of Marxism.
The downfall of the Anarchist international was caused, concretely, by its incorrigible belief in the immediacy of the proletarian revolution. Marxists, too, as was freely admitted later by both Marx and Engels, erred considerably in this general direction. This was a natural mistake to make in a revolutionary period which, between the years 1859 and 1871, produced the Austro-French, AustroPrussian, and Franco-German wars, the American Civil War, and several minor wars; when Austrian absolutism was overthrown, united Italy came into being, there was a long revolution in Spain, the Paris Commune was established, serfdom was abolished in Russia, and throughout Europe a broad workers' movement was rapidly developing.^^12^^ The difference between the Marxists and Anarchists, however, was that the Marxists, thanks to their scientific theory, were able quickly to correct their error in this respect; whereas the Anarchists, loaded down with bourgeois idealism, were not able to readjust to the new situation. Consequently the Anarchist movement shrivelled into an isolated sect, while Marxism went ahead to become the dominant ideology of the world's working class.
THE DISINTEGRATION OF ANARCHISM
The Anarchist movement, during the 1870*5 and i88o's, not only declined organizationally and in general influence among the working masses, but it also, as a result of its practical failure, disintegrated theoretically. The movement, being in a sort of political cul de sac, started to degenerate into several more or less mutually conflicting theoretical tendencies and groupings. One of these inner-sect sects
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was the so-called ``philosophical'' or ``individualist'' Anarchists. They traced their political lineage back to Zeno in ancient Greece (400 B.C.), and their bible was Max Stirner's (Kaspar Schmid, 1806-56) The Ego and His Own. They tended to become petty-bourgeois "cafe revolutionists," radical Bohemian chatterers and phrase-mongers about the revolution which they were only hindering. This trend still lingers on.
There also developed for a time strong terroristic tendencies among the Anarchists. The terrorists were desperate elements who, seeing the hopes of mass insurrection fading, sought by the assassination of leaders of states to apply their doctrine of "propaganda by the deed," and thus to spur the sluggish masses into motion by the daring acts of heroic individuals. Consequently, the Anarchists were blamed, rightly or wrongly, for the various bomb-throwings and assassinations of public figures that took place during the decades up to 1900 and beyond. Among these were the armed attacks upon the German Kaiser in 1878, the Haymarket bombing of 1886 (almost certainly a police frameup), the attempted killing of Frick during the Homestead steel strike of 1892, the bombing of the French Chamber of Deputies in 1893, the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia (1881), of President Carnot of France (1894), of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (1898), of King Humbert of Italy (1900), and of President McKinley of the United States (1901). The Anarchist terroristic tendency was smothered out by the folly of its own acts.
A third Anarchist tendency developed, and this is by far the most important in the general philosophy of Anarchism. That is, the Anarchist-minded workers, more practical by far than the petty-- bourgeois Anarchist intellectuals, adapted Anarchism to the trade union movement. This adaptation, however, involved a considerable watering down of Anarchist principles; for trade union discipline, even in autonomous Anarcho-syndicalist unions, collides with Anarchist ideas of individualism; and the Anarcho-syndicalists' conception of the future society, which would in fact amount to a trade union state, directly contravenes Anarchist anti-statist conceptions. The workers thus produced the important Anarcho-syndicalist tendency, which was later to play a significant role in many countries, and with which we shall deal more fully later. The beginnings of this Syndicalist trend, which is Anarchist trade unionism, were to be seen far back in the earliest congresses of the First International, and the tendency became more pronounced with the growth of the international labor movement. It became the main current of disintegrating Anarchism.
12. The First International in the U.S.A. (1872-1876)
In accordance with the decision of The Hague congress in September 1872, the headquarters of the General Council of the I.W.A. were shifted from London to New York, in October of that year. F. A. Sorge was the general secretary, and Frederick Bolte was secretary of the Federal Council, Central Committee of the North American Section, organized in 1870. As its official organ, the General Council published the Arbeiter Zeitung, the first number of which appeared February 8, 1873.
THE AMERICAN SITUATION
Late in 1872 the United States was in the concluding phase of the industrial boom which followed the end of the Civil War. The victorious capitalists, now busily stealing the natural resources of the country, were enlarging their factories, creating industrial monopolies, and subjecting the workers to unprecedented exploitation. Having broken the power of the Southern slaveholders, the Northern industrialists consolidated themselves completely in control of the government.
Pressed by the aggressive capitalists, the workers were in a fighting mood, which was greatly intensified by the outbreak of the deep-going economic crisis of 1873. The National Labor Union, for reasons indicated above, had just about passed out of the national picture; the Knights of Labor, although in existence since 1869, was still small and weak, and the formation of the A.F. of L. in 1881, was nine years off in the future. But the organization of local and national trade unions was proceeding, various labor and farmer parties had been formed, and the country was building up to the great railroad strike of 1877, one of the bitterest class struggles in the history of the United States.
By 1872, Foner reports, "there were about 30 sections and 5,000
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members of the First International in the United States,"^^1^^ with local organizations in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Newark, Springfield, New Orleans, and Washington, D. C. As we have seen, the United States had played no small role in the life of the First International. American delegates attended the respective congresses, and the American question frequently figured in the work of the I.W.A. Examples of this were the various letters between the General Council and Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, the fight of European workers, under Marxist leadership, to keep their countries from joining with the Confederacy in the Civil War, the close relations between the International and the National Labor Union. The American section was, in fact, far from being the least important of the organizations of the First International.
THE I.W.A. IN THE AMERICAN CLASS STRUGGLE
Although the transfer of the General Council to New York had been looked upon askance by the American Marxist leaders, it nevertheless, for a time, stimulated the American movement. The numbers of sections and members grew. The I.W.A. leader in the United States, F. A. Sorge (1827-1906), was a music teacher, a native of Saxony, a participant in the 1848 revolution in Germany, a co-worker with Marx, and a clear-headed and tireless fighter.
True to the line of the I.W.A., the American Marxists took an active part in the daily struggles of the workers, in the building of unions and the carrying on of strikes. These activities were enhanced with the arrival of the General Council in the United States. The Marxists had led the great October i, 1871, New York demonstration for the eight-hour day, with banners reading, Gompers tells us: " Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must." And Commons thus cites a local labor paper: "Especially cordial was the reception of the Internationals led by the trade unionists at the final counter-march of the procession, and deafening cheers greeted the appearance of their banner (the red flag) on the stage at the mass meeting. . . . Equally significant was the participation of the colored (Negro) organization for the first time in a demonstration gotten up by English-speaking unions (the German unions have treated them as equals already years ago)"^^2^^
The Marxists were also active leaders in the huge demonstration of the unemployed in Tompkins Square, New York, on January 13,
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1874. This meeting, a protest against starvation conditions among the jobless, was the largest labor gathering yet held in the United States. The police broke up the meeting violently, injuring many workers. Similar demonstrations were held in Chicago and other big cities.
During these years many prominent labor men were members of or supported the I.W.A. Among them were J. P. McDonnell, editor of the Workingmen's Advocate, and Adolph Strasser and P. J. McGuire, who later became famous as founders of the American Federation of Labor. Samuel Gompers, who for years was president of the A.F. of L., was also closely associated with the International, if not actually a member. In his autobiography he recalls many trade union leaders of the times who were members of the I.W.A., and says that, "Unquestionably, in those days of the 'seventies,' the International dominated the labor movement of New York City." Significantly, he adds that "New York City was the cradle of the American labor movement.''^^8^^ Gompers used to claim that he learned German in order to be able to read The Communist Manifesto and other works of Marx.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE "SECTS"
As in Europe, the International in the United States had to fight constantly against internal tendencies to prevent the development of a broad working class movement. This fight became especially sharp after the arrival of the General Council in New York. These distorting and crippling influences, of course, had their own specific American features. The most stubborn, enduring, and injurious of them was the tendency of the foreign-born workers, principally Germans, to stand aside in a sectarian manner, from the life and struggles of the broad masses of the native American workers. This was manifested by reluctance to learn the English language, to acquire American citizenship, and to become members and leaders in native organizations and fights of the workers. This harmful tendency, which the General Council did not much improve, was to endure, in a declining degree, for two generations, down to the early days of the modern Communist Party. Engels especially carried on a guerrilla warfare against this narrow practice.
One of the worst of the many bad effects caused by this sectarianism was a gross neglect of the Negro question. Located mostly in the big northern cities, the Marxists were generally known as being
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friendly to Negro workers, defending their right to work and to belong to trade unions. But the I.W.A. paid little or no attention to the bitter struggle of the Reconstruction Period then being conducted by the Negro people and their white allies in the post-war South against militant counter-revolution.
The I.W.A. Marxists also took a sectarian attitude towards the strong woman's suffrage movement of the period. This weakness, in fact, ran generally throughout the work of the whole First International. The American Marxists, while fighting generally for the rights of women in industry, in law, and elsewhere, did not stress their right to vote. The current idea, expressed in the platform of the Workingmen's Party of the United States (1876), was that "the so-called woman question will be solved with the worker question"---a sectarian formulation which largely isolated the Marxists from the current vigorous woman's movement. Similar narrow sectarianism also isolated the I.W.A. from the farmer movements which were beginning at this time to develop in the Middle West.
The I.W.A. in the United States also had to fight against bourgeois liberals, who tried to capture the organization and to re-write its program. These alien elements were led by the two well-known sisters, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin. Originally they had an organization, "New Democracy," advocating a program of woman's suffrage, sex freedom, spiritualism, and a universal language. They also proposed "voluntary socialism," to be established by a general referendum. In 1870 they disbanded their organization and joined the International. Highly militant and a brilliant speaker, Mrs. Woodhull soon organized Sections 9 and 12 in New York, mostly composed of native Americans, of which she became the leader. The sisters also published their own journal, Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly*
The Marxist workers promptly collided with these petty bourgeois intellectuals. The matter was referred to the General Council in London, and receiving an adverse decision on their demand that Section 12, instead of Section i, should be the leading section in America, the Woodhull forces brought about a split in November 1871. Thereafter two Federal Councils were in existence.
The London General Council, in March 1872, ordered the expulsion of Section 12 and the holding of a new national convention. But the Woodhull group rejected the decision, met in Philadelphia on July 9, 1872 with 13 sections present, mostly American-born, and organized the American Confederation of the International, generally
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known as the "Spring Street Council." The regular I.W.A. met a few days later, also in Philadelphia, with 25 delegates from 22 sections and 900 members. At The Hague congress, the Woodhull group was again defeated and it refused also to accept the I.W.A. decision.5 The movement was petering out at the time the General Council arrived in the United States.
Victoria Woodhull was an outstanding personality in the militant woman's rights movement of the time, but obviously she had no place in the workers' International. She was a fighter and declared characteristically: "If the very next congress refuses women all the legitimate results of citizenship we shall proceed to call another convention expressly to form a new constitution and to erect a new government. We are plotting revolution; we will overthrow this bogus republic." Elizabeth Cady Stanton, praising Mrs. Woodhull's speeches and writings, called her "the leader of the woman's suffrage movement in this country.''^^6^^ She ran for President in 1872 on the ticket of the Equal Rights Party. She eventually failed in an attempt to capture the National Woman's Suffrage Association, much as she had failed to take over the I.W.A.
THE MARXISTS AND 'THE LASSALLEANS
One of the major fights of the Marxists against sectarianism in the I.W.A. was against Lassalleism. Utopian socialism (save in the Bellamy movement in the iSgo's) had about died out when the I.W.A. came on the scene. Proudhonism and Blanquism had little following among the workers in the United States, because there had as yet been little Latin and Slavic immigration. Bakuninism, except as'noted later in the i88o's, was also a negligibe factor. But many of the vast numbers of the German immigrant workers believed in Lassalleism, which they brought along with them from Germany.
For several years the Lassallean deviation was a major issue and a matter of serious conflict in the American Section of the International. Section One of the I.W.A., the General German Workers Association of New York, had been originally organized by Lassalleans. Generally this group deprecated trade unions as useless, in view of Lassalle's "iron law of wages." They stressed political action, however, with the general objective of the workers finding their way to emancipation through producers' cooperatives subsidized by the government. The fight between Marxists and Lassalleans in the United States reflected
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the bitter struggle then going on between corresponding elements in Germany.
The fight between the two groups in the United States turned primarily around the question of trade unionism and electoral political action. Incidentally, Gompers supported the emphasis placed upon trade unions by the Marxists, as against Lassallean neglect of the unions. At its national convention in 1874 the I.W.A., while strongly supporting working class political action, adopted a statement of principles "rejecting all cooperation and connection with political parties formed by the possessing classes," and declaring that, "The Federation will not enter into a truly political campaign or election movement before being strong enough to exercise a perceptible influence.''^^7^^ This resolution was aimed at the opportunistic political conceptions and activities of the Lassalleans. After 1872 the General Council was in the thick of this fight, which constantly became more severe and paralyzing to the organization as a whole.
INTERNAL CRISIS AND POLITICAL PROGRESS
By 1874 the I.W.A., rent with quarrels, was in deep crisis. The General Council had virtually lost contact with the remnants of the European sections, only the United States, Germany, and Austria paying any dues at all. The American organization, with a declining membership, had split in New York and Chicago. These splits which gave birth to two new organizations---in Chicago, in January 1874, the Labor Party of Illinois, and in New York, in May 1874, the Social Democratic Working Men's Party of North America. These were mainly under Lassallean influence and they had little success.
The second national convention of the American Section of the I.W.A., held in Philadelphia, beginning on April n, 1874, tried in vain to cure the internal crisis. It transferred the functions of the Federal Council to the General Council, and it elected a new General Council, thus making that body virtually an American committee. It adopted the general statement of policy, referred to above, to correct the errors of program being made by the Lassalleans. Members of the new General Council were Sorge, Speyer, Henninger, Huss, Novack, Voss, and Prestacheiz. Sorge was general secretary.^^8^^
The internal quarrels sharpened, however, following the Philadelphia convention. A bitter fight broke out over the Arbeiter Zeitung, which resulted in a lawsuit and the suspension of the paper in March
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1875. Shortly after the Philadelphia convention, the General Council suspended Section One of New York, the strongest in the organization. In the struggle Sections 5, 6, and 8 in New York quit, and Bolte and Carl were expelled by the General Council. On August 12, 1874, Sorge made a motion that the General Council should adjourn for a year. Consequently, it did not meet again until June i, 1875. The internal struggle resumed then, however, and on September 25, Sorge, weary of the eternal factionalism, resigned his post as general secretary of the International and Carl Speyer was elected in his stead.* During 1875, there was something of a pickup of the I.W.A., with an increase in membership and in the number of sections, especially with the affiliation of the United Workers of America (Irish), led by J. P. McDonnell. But this spirit did not check the general downward trend of the organization. In February 1876 the General Council, therefore, decided to hold a congress of the International in Philadelphia during the coming July, with its liquidation in mind.
Things were not as bad, however, as the disintegrating tendencies in the International would seem to indicate. What was taking place basically was that the American Section of the I.W.A., like the sections in Europe, was giving birth to a national Marxist party. This was in line with the whole evolution of the International at this time. The movement was not decaying, but painfully passing to a higher stage. As for the I.W.A. generally, it had practically ceased to exist as an international organization.
As the International declined organizationally in the United States, new tendencies toward unity developed among the ranks of the Socialists and potential Socialists. The Marxists had largely reestablished their political leadership in the two erstwhile split-off parties---the Illinois Labor Party and the Social Democratic Party of North America---and they also played an important part in the general labor congress held in Pittsburgh, April 17-18, 1876. Unity sentiment became general in Socialist ranks. This was greatly accentuated by the amalgamation of the Marxist and Lassallean parties at the Gotha congress in Germany in May 1875, an event which exerted a profound effect generally among German workers in the United States. Commons sums up the American socialist situation thus: "By
* The general secretaries of the First International were: W. R. Cremer (1864- 66), R. Shaw (1866-67), Peter Fox (1866), J. G. Eccarius (1867-70), John Hales (1870- 72), F. A. Sorge (1872-74), and Carl Speyer (1875-76).
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the middle o£ 1875, the secessionist movement, both in Chicago and the East, had travelled a considerable distance back to the original ideas of the International. The time was ripening for a reunion of the factions of the Socialist movement.''^^9^^
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL
Although the General Council, as best it could, had notified the European sections about the Philadelphia congress and invited them to send delegates, only one foreign delegate, from the Social-- Democratic Party of Germany, showed up when the seventh and last I.W.A. congress assembled in Germania Hall, Philadelphia, on July 15, 1876. The other ten delegates there, among them Sorge and Otto Weydemeyer, were Americans. Without much discussion, the meeting proceeded to liquidate the International. The three-point resolution adopted, declared that "The General Council of the International Workingmen's Association is dissolved," that the Federal Council of the North American Section stands commissioned to maintain and develop present international connections, and that the Federal Council is commissioned to call an international congress when conditions so warrant.^^10^^ Sorge and Speyer were appointed as a committee to preserve the documents of the International and to issue a statement on the dissolution of the I.W.A., appended below.
On July 16-19, following the I.W.A. Congress, the North American Federation of the I.W.A. also met in convention.* There were present 13 delegates, representing 17 sections, and 635 dues-paying members. After electing delegates to the coming Socialist unity congress, due to convene in a few days, the North American Federation also dissolved itself.
Immediately after this, during July 19-22, also in the same Philadelphia hall, as previously planned, the various Socialist groupings assembled and formed the new Marxist organization, the Workingmen's Party of America. It was based primarily upon organizational unity between the forces of the dissolved I.W.A., headed by Sorge and Otto Weydemeyer, and of the Lassalleans, led by Adolph Strasser and P. J. McGuire. Phillip Van Patten was elected general secretary,
* Altogether, the North American Section held three national conventions: July 6, 1873, New York; and April 11, 1874, and July 16, 1876, in Philadelphia.
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and J. P. McDonnell became editor of the party's English organ, The Labor Standard. These steps definitely organized the American Marxist party, which, through the Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Party, has existed continuously ever since, down to the Communist Party of today.
Thus, in this series of three connected conventions, there was culminated within one week's time the historic evolution that was taking place among socialist ranks generally throughout the world: namely, the dissolution of the First International and the establishment of Marxist political organizations on a national basis.
The historic statement regarding the dissolution of the First International, as prepared by Sorge and Speyer, reads as follows:
``FELLOW WORKING MEN:
``The International Convention at Philadelphia has abolished the General Council of the International Workingmen's Association, and the external bond of the organization exists no more.
`` 'The International is deadl' the bourgeoisie of all countries will exclaim, and with ridicule and joy it will point to the proceedings of this convention as documentary proof of the defeat of the labor movement of the world. Let us not be influenced by the cry of our enemies! We have abandoned the organization of the International for reasons arising from the present political situation in Europe, but as a compensation for it we see the principle of the organization recognized and defended by the progressive workingmen of the entire civilized world. Let us give our fellow workers in Europe a little time to strengthen their national affairs, and they will surely be in a position to remove the barriers between themselves and the workingmen of other parts of the world.
``Comrades, you have embraced the principle of the International with heart and love; you will find means to extend the circle of its adherents even without an organization, You will find new champions who will work for the realization of the aims of our association. The comrades in America promise you that they will faithfully guard and cherish the acquisitions of the International in this country until more favorable conditions will again bring together the workingmen of all countries to common struggles, and the cry will resound again louder than ever:
`` 'Proletarians of all countries, unite!' "u
13. The Role of the First
International (1864-1876)
Under the leadership of Karl Marx* and following the general path of its predecessor, the Communist League, the First International laid the basis of the modern labor movement, both theoretically and organizationally (see Chapter 2). Its fundamental achievement in this broad respect was the popularization and practical application of the proletarian philosophy and world outlook, scientific socialism, as worked out by Marx and Engels. Concretely, it produced working class policy towards the capitalist state and the state in general, it evaluated the roles of the trade union movement, of the cooperatives, of the democratic franchise, and it analyzed profoundly the status of women. It developed the basic functions of the workers' political party, and it established the attitudes of the proletariat toward the peasantry, towards war, and towards the national question. It evaluated the technique of armed insurrection, the relationship between immediate demands and the proletarian revolution, the perspective of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and it began the cultivation of corps of trained Marxist leaders in the various countries.
In working out all these policies and programs, the First International produced a series of imperishable labor documents, written mostly by Marx, including the I.W.A. Inaugural Address, and the Rules of the Association, as well as that great evaluation of the Commune, The Civil War in France. During this period Marx also produced Volume I of Capital and other important works.
Together with this theoretical work, the First International gave practical form and reality to the international strivings and impulses of the world's workers. For the first time, and most effectively, it taught the workers the basic lessons of international solidarity. It gathered together the scattered, primitive, and fragmentary labor movements of the period and joined them into an organized world
* Engels was not directly active in the First International until its concluding stages in Europe.
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force that struck terror and foreboding into the hearts of exploiters in all countries. It was the pioneer of labor internationalism. At the founding congress of the Second International in 1889 Liebknecht declared that "the I.W.A. is not dead---it is continued in the powerful labor movements of the various countries and lives on in them. It also lives on in us. This congress is the work of the International Workingmen's Association.''^^1^^
The I.W.A., in the several countries, led the many important strikes and political struggles of its era; it actively built trade unions, and it did the pioneering work in founding what afterwards became broad socialist parties in many countries. But above all, in this mass work, the I.W.A. was the inspiring force behind the Paris Commune. Engels was historically correct in calling this great event, "the child of the First International." And not the least, in its support of the Irish, the Polish, and other oppressed peoples, the International laid the basis for future great national liberation struggles.
IDEOLOGICAL DESTRUCTION OF THE SECTS
The Marxist leadership of the First International fought tirelessly and effectively against the many -current sectarian tendencies that aimed to misdirect the workers' efforts into channels alien to their class interests. Marx especially shattered the illusions around Utopian socialism of various types, the radical bourgeois republicanism of Mazzini, the petty-bourgeois socialism of Proudhon, the leftist phrasemongering and conspiratorial tactics of Bakunin, and the pure-- andsimple trade unionism of the Odgers and Applegarths. By the time the First International passed from the scene, most of these ``sects'' had been theoretically defeated, but new and far more dangerous ones, which in our day still have to be fought---opportunist trade unionism, political revisionism, and syndicalism---were beginning to take shape. The First International laid the firm basis for the hegemony of Marxism, of scientific socialism, in the thinking, the organizations, and the policies of the world labor movement.
In meeting the monumental difficulties of pioneering theoretical and practical policies for the working class, naturally, many mistakes were made by Marx and Engels. Not only have the workers' enemies seized upon these errors, but it eventually became the fashion for many writers in the Second International---Kautsky, Mehring, and others---to dwell upon them ad nauseum. Regarding such attacks,
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Lenin says: "Yes, Marx and Engels erred much and erred often in determining the closeness of the revolution," particularly with regard to the 1848 revolution in Germany and France. But, concludes Lenin, and this is the main thing to keep in mind, "such errors of titans of revolutionary thought, who tried to raise and did raise the proletariat of the whole world above the level of petty, commonplace, and trifling tasks, are a thousand times nobler, more sublime, and historically truer and more valuable than the trivial wisdom of official liberalism, which sings, shouts, appeals and jabbers about the vanity of revolutionary vanities, the futility of revolutionary struggle, and the charm of counter-revolutionary `constitutional' rot. . . .''^^2^^
THE CAUSES FOR THE DISSOLUTION OF THE I.W.A.
The basic reason why the First International disappeared from the world political arena was that capitalism at that time was entering into a new phase of development, raising up new tasks for the working class, tasks which the First International, under the given circumstances, was in no position to fulfill. The main period of the I.W.A. (1864-1872) "lay at the dividing line between two epochs. The International arose at the very end of the first of them, which had begun with the great bourgeois revolution in France in 1789, and which ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This, said Lenin, was the 'epoch of prosperity of the bourgeoisie, of their complete victory. This was the rising curve of the bourgeoisie, the epoch of the bourgeois democratic movements in general, of bourgeois national movements in particular, the epoch in which the absolutist feudal institutions which had outlived their time were rapidly destroyed.' "s It was a period of the consolidation of growing capitalism upon the ruins of absolute feudalism.
The new epoch which was opening up was a period of expanding capitalism, developing into imperialism. It began with "the heroic rising of the Paris Communards and ended with the great October victory of the Socialist Soviet Revolution in Russia in 1917. This was, on the one hand, the epoch of the rule and decline of the bourgeoisie, of the transition from the progressive bourgeoisie to reactionary and ultra-reactionary finance capital, the growth of capitalism into imperialism and the domination of the latter ... it was the epoch in which the proletariat began slowly to gather its forces and later to begin victoriously the world proletarian revolution."* The main
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tasks of the working class in the industrialized countries during the earlier decades of this period were, rather than the carrying through of revolution, to build the mass trade unions, to organize national workers' socialist parties, and to carry on a broad Marxist educational work.
Lenin says: "The First International finished its historical role and yielded place to an epoch of infinitely greater growth of the labor movement in all the countries of the world, namely an epoch of its expansion, of the creation of socialist proletarian mass parties on the basis of the individual national states.''
NEW TIMES AND NEW TASKS
As it was constituted, the First International could not carry out these specific tasks of the new era. This had to be primarily the job of the young and growing movements in the respective countries. The experience of the I.W.A. had gone to show that its component parts were not yet developed enough to set up a strong Marxist international leadership. Although a mortal blow had been struck at several of the "sects," they were still strong enough to do much harm. The I.W.A. was built directly upon the mass labor movements, not upon socialist parties as such, and these mass movements in the several countries were still very far from being predominantly Marxist. In England the movement was dominated by opportunist trade unionists; in the United States it was traveling the same path; in Germany and Austria it was still steeped with Lassalleism; and in the Latin and Slavic countries the Bakunin, Blanquist, and Proudhonist tendencies were still vital. Indeed, as we have seen, it was precisely these various sectarian tendencies that had forced the dissolution of the First International.
Trained Marxists were still very few in the several countries. Of the current German socialist movement, which was the most advanced of all, Riazanov says: "The writings of the German socialists during the first half of the '703, even the brochures written by Wilhelm Liebknecht, who was a student of Marx, show the deplorable state in which the study of Marxist theory was at that time.''^^5^^ If in spite of these adverse conditions, the First International for so many years was able nevertheless to give such outstanding leadership, this was due fundamentally to the towering genius of Marx, who wrote all the decisive policy documents of the organization.
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The new period confronting the young world socialist movement, therefore, demanded new methods and organizations. The movements in the various countries went ahead clarifying and building themselves with the skillful advice of Marx and Engels. But the latter, instead of being the official heads of the world labor movement, as in the days of the First International, were now its unofficial mentors and guides. Their leadership, however, was hardly less powerful. Through the years they remained in the closest touch with the developing movements in Germany, England, France, the United States, and various other countries, as their great volume of international correspondence eloquently indicates. All this was laying the basis for a new organized international movement, which was not long in forthcoming.
Enemies of socialism, whether sailing openly under the pirate flag of capitalism, or sneakingly under the besmeared banner of opportunist Social-Democracy, never tire of telling the working class that the First International was a failure and that it collapsed because of the wrong ideology of Marx. But this is a monstrous lie. The First International was a tremendously constructive force. It laid the very foundation of the world labor movement. The irrefutable proof of the soundness of its general program is the fact that when the working classes of Russia---and later of China, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, and Albania---really set out to establish socialism in their countries, they turned back to the lessons of Marx and the First International, which had long since been discarded by the reactionary heads of the Second International. One-third of the world marching directly on the road to socialism and communism is the complete answer to the slanderers of Marx and the First International.
PART II: THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL, 1889-1914
14. The Period between the Internationals (1876-1889)
The thirteen years between the dissolution of the First International in 1876 and the foundation of the Second International in 1889 were in general a period of rapid growth and expansion of world capitalism. The capitalist system was developing from its competitive stage into the early phases of imperialism. Despite periodic crises, every decade or so, which temporarily paralyzed the system and threw millions of workers into unemployment and destitution, industrialization went ahead with seven-league boots in Western Europe and North America, and it made a beginning in Asia. This growth of industry did not proceed at an even pace, but at widely varying tempos in the several countries. The industrial development involved not only the traditional countries of capitalism---England, France, Germany, the United States, and others---but also many new lands. Japan was beginning its spectacular industrial development, and in Russia the number of workers employed in the large mills and factories and on the railroads increased from 706,000 in 1865 to 1,433,000 in 1890, indicating a substantial growth of Russian industry.^^1^^ This was a time of the birth and growth of industrial and financial trusts in all the capitalist countries, the beginnings of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. Of all this, however, more in Chapter 18.
Generally, the period was one of relative stability in foreign relations, the longest and most complete ever known to world capitalism. • The major capitalist powers had concluded, with the Franco-German war of 1870-71, the long series of national wars that wracked capitalism during the previous decades, and they were not yet embarked upon the big imperialist wars that were to come. By force and violence, they had established their national boundaries, frontiers which with few major changes in Europe, were to last for about 35 years, or until the outbreak of the imperialist Russo-Japanese War of 1905, followed by the Balkan War of 1912 and World War I in 1914. By the same
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token, during these years prior to 1905 the respective capitalist powers enjoyed a relative internal stability, there being an almost complete absence of the great revolutionary insurrectional movements which had marked the foundation period of European and American capitalism from 1789 to 1871, outstanding examples of which were the revolution of 1830 in France, the revolution of 1848 in France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary and elsewhere, the American Civil War of 1861, and the Paris Commune of 1871.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT
In the leading capitalist countries this was a time of enormous increases in the number of wage workers. It was also one of minor advances in the living standards of the working class, particularly with respect to the skilled workers. The big capitalists of the major nations, notably England, were already embarked upon the policy of corrupting the labor aristocracy with minor concessions, and in this way they were splitting and paralyzing the fighting solidarity of the workers.
Although this was not a period of working class insurrections and bourgeois revolutions it was nevertheless one of many strikes, unexampled in size, discipline, organization, and duration. This was true of France, Germany, and Belgium, but especially so of the United States, with its violent general railroad strike of 1877, and its historic national eight-hour day strike in 1886. Among many other strikes, England had its epoch-making dock strike of 1889. In Russia, too, the workers were beginning to organize and strike. In the space of five years (1881-86) there were in that country as many as 48 strikes, involving 80,000 workers---all of which were violently repressed. The revolutionary Russian proletariat was entering upon the international labor scene.
During the interim years between the First and Second Internationals, there was, correspondingly, also a big expansion of the trade union movement throughout capitalism. By 1889 the English trade unions had reached the unprecedented total of some 1,500,000 members; in the United States the Knights of Labor, which had topped 600,000 members, had just about run its course and the American Federation of Labor had been established eight years previously, and in all the industrial countries trade unionism was taking root. The epoch of the broad expansion of labor unionism was well under way.
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The interim period between the Internationals was also marked by the foundation of socialist parties in the respective countries. The first was in Germany, which had been established in 1869. This was followed in rapid succession by the organization of socialist parties in Holland 1870, Denmark 1871, Bohemia 1872, United States 1876, France 1879, Spain 1879, England (group) 1880, Russia (group) 1883, Norway 1887, Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden 1889. Dates of parties organized later were, Australia and Finland 1890; Poland and Italy 1892; Bulgaria, Hungary and Chile 1894; Argentina 1896, Japan 1901, Serbia 1903, Canada 1904, China 1911, and Brazil 1916. The pioneer socialist parties for the most part grew out of the old federations and groups of the First International. Far more countries were thus embraced by this new international movement than during the period of the I.W.A.
Many of the new parties, like the trade unions, had to face various forms of persecution by the governments. Outstanding in this respect was the experience of the German Social-Democratic Party. Taking advantage of two assassination attacks made upon the German Kaiser (with which the Socialists had nothing to do), Chancellor Bismarck tried to destroy the party by outlawing it under the notorious antisocialist laws. The period of illegality lasted from October 1878 until the end of 1890, during which time socialist organizations and meetings were prohibited, many leaders were banished and jailed, and the party press was banned. As the other side of his program, Bismarck conceded a skeleton system of social insurance as sops to the workers. The party held its congresses abroad and there also it printed its underground papers. Despite the persecution and trickery of Bismarck, however, the party grew, increasing its national vote from 493,000 in 1878 to 1,427,000 in 1890. The trade unions also grew from about 50,000 to 280,000. These successes not only forced Bismarck to resign, but caused the German government to lift the ban against the Socialists. This big victory inspired the whole international movement. Referring to Bismarck and his reactionary law, Engels said, "If we were paying the old boy, he couldn't do better work for us.''^^2^^
THE GOTHA COMPROMISE
An event of great ideological importance at the outset of this general interim period between the two Internationals was the amalgamation of the Marxist and Lassallean parties in a congress at Gotha,
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Germany, May 25, 1875. For several years prior to this date these two groups had been at daggers' points, with the result that German labor could make but little progress. At the unity congress the Lassalleans were in a majority, having 71 delegates, representing 16,538 members, as against 56 delegates and 9,121 members for the Marxists.^^3^^ Despite the weak stand taken by the Marxists in the negotiations, this unification was the beginning of the end for the Lassallean trend in the international labor movement.
After the dissolution of the First International Marx and Engels had continued their direct political leadership of the developing labor movement. With their great wealth of experience, understanding and training, and their extraordinary knowledge of all the major European languages (they even mastered Russian in their later years), they were brilliantly equipped for such leadership. The ensuing years were marked by a stream of letters from the two great leaders to the respective young and growing parties, and by the visits of many Socialist leaders from the various countries, seeking the advice and counsel of Marx and Engels. Naturally, the latter did not neglect such a vital development as the amalgamation of the Marxists and Lassalleans in Germany. Quite the contrary. Although the Gotha program, as adopted, comprised only a few pages, in analyzing it Marx wrote an extensive booklet. This turned out to be one of the greatest of Marx's analytical and programmatic works.
Marx scathingly criticized the Gotha agreement, which was an early example of the tendency of German Social-Democrats, in the name of party unity, to blur over questions of principle. Marx crucified virtually every phrase in it. In what became his famous booklet, Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx condemned its faulty economics, its wrong attitude regarding the state, its surrender to Lassalle's (Malthusian) conception of "the iron law of wages," its adoption of the futile panacea of state aid for cooperatives, its failure to make a definite demand for the eight-hour day, its underplay of internationalism, etc. Engels said that "almost every word in this program . . . could be criticized.''^^4^^
Another brilliant example of international leadership given at this time was Engels' classical reply a few months later to the blind Professor Eugene Duhring of Berlin University. The latter had recently joined the Social-Democratic Party and was setting out to re-write the party's program from top to bottom in a bourgeois direction. Engels' reply was a fundamental presentation of the Marxist
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position on philosophy and science. It became a great Marxist classic.6 That there were already at this time strong opportunist trends in the German party was manifest from its leadership's reaction to these two historic corrections and teachings by Marx and Engels. Marx sent his Critique of the Gotha Program to Liebknecht, Mehring says, but "the only result of this powerful letter was to cause the addressees to make a few minor and comparatively unimportant improvements in their draft.''^^6^^ Actually, Bebel, who was in jail at the time, did not get to hear of the document until many years afterward. It was suppressed for 16 years and was not published until i8gi.^^7^^ And Engels' profound criticisms of Diihring, which were first printed in 1877 in the party's central organ Vorwarts, aroused such a storm of criticism from official circles that Engels narrowly escaped formal censure.
CONTINUING INTERNATIONAL TENDENCIES
During the period between the two Internationals there was a continuous and growing pressure for cooperation and organization internationally among the various workers' parties and trade unions. The first general expression of this sentiment was the Universal Socialist Congress of Ghent, Belgium, in September 1877. There were 42 delegates, including Liebknecht and Kropotkin. De Paepe represented the Utopian Oneida Community of New York. Disputes occurred between the Marxist and Bakuninist factions over questions of the state, collectivism, political action, insurrection, and various other matters. An important proposal was for the founding of a broad international trade union congress. The Anarchists were but a small minority and generally the Marxist point of view prevailed. Hopes entertained by some for an amalgamation of the two tendencies proved futile. During the congress the Marxist delegates caucussed by themselves and decided to set up an international bureau in Belgium, but the plan never materialized.
Another Socialist congress was held in October 1881, in the little town of Chur, near Zurich. The Anarchists did not attend. Liebknecht was present, and the American delegate for the Socialist Labor Party was P. J. McGuire, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. The question of forming a new international occupied much attention of the delegates, but without positive results. Stekloff says, "the Chur congress itself came to the conclusion that a federation of socialist forces was not yet practicable.''^^8^^ Nor could an inter-
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national journal be established. The young Socialist parties were still too weak for real international organization.
Repeated proposals were made also during the late seventies and early eighties to re-establish the International, but both Marx and Engels felt such a move to be premature. During 1883 and 1886 international labor conferences were held in Paris, and one took place in London in 1888. The reports to those gatherings showed a rapid growth of Socialist parties and trade unions throughout western Europe, and the labor movement in the United States was blazing along in the forefront of the world's fighting workers. The need of the workers for international solidarity was imperative. The time had finally ripened for the reconstitution of the International on a new basis, and the movement was to come to fruition in the historic congress in Paris in 1889.
THE DEATH OF KARL MARX
On March 14, 1883, the world proletariat lost its greatest leader. Karl Marx died at the age of 65. He passed away peacefully in the afternoon, dozing in his arm chair, at 41 Maitland Park Road, Haverstock Hill, London, where he had been living for some years past. The immediate cause of death was an internal hemorrhage, apparently originating in a tumor in one of his lungs. For years he had been in steadily worsening health, largely caused by overwork and poverty. His dwindling vitality had been further weakened by the shock of the death of his devoted wife Jenny in December 1881, and of his daughter, also named Jenny, in January i883-^^9^^ Thus passed the greatest of all political thinkers, the man who wrote the handwriting on the wall for the world capitalist system.
Known to his intimates as "the Moor" because of his dark complexion, Marx lived simply, and he was also interred with simplicity. Only a few of his close relatives and friends were present---besides Engels, Friedrich Lessner and Lochner, comrades from the days of the Communist League; his two sons-in-law, Paul Lafargue and Charles Longuet, Liebknecht from Germany, and the two eminent scientists, Carl Schorlemmer, the noted chemist, and Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, outstanding biologist. He was buried on March 17, in Highgate Cemetery, London, where a small stone now stands in his memory. Marx's old-time friend and comrade-in-arms, Frederick Engels, spoke the following words of appreciation over the grave of the immortal battler for human freedom:
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``Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history; he discovered the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat and drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, religion, art, etc.; and that therefore the production of the immediate material means of life and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the forms of government, the legal conceptions, the art and even the religious ideas of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which these things must therefore be explained, instead of vice versa as had hitherto been the case.
``But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist method of production and the bourgeois society that this method of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem in trying to solve which all previous investigators, both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping in the dark.
``Two such discoveries would be enough for one life-time. Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every single field which Marx "investigated---and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially---in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries.
``This was the man of science. But this was not even half the man. Science was for Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force. However great the joy with which he welcomed a new discovery in some theoretical science whose practical application perhaps it was as yet quite impossible to envisage, he experienced a quite other kind of joy when the discovery involved immediate revolutionary changes in industry and in the general course of history. For example, he followed closely the discoveries made in the field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez.
``For Marx was before all else a revolutionary. His real mission in life was to contribute in one way or another to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the forms of government which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the present-day proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, of the conditions under which it could win its freedom. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival. His work on the first Rheinische
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Zeitung (1842), the Paris Vorwaerts (1844), the Brussels Deutsche Zeitung (1847), the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-9), the New York Tribune (1852-61), and in addition to these a host of militant pamphlets, work in revolutionary clubs in Paris, Brussels and London, and finally, crowning all, the formation of the International Workingmen's Association---this was indeed an achievement of which Marx might well have been proud, even if he had done nothing else.
``And consequently Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his times. Governments, both absolutist and republican, deported him from their territories. The bourgeoisie, whether conservative or extreme democrat, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him. All this he brushed aside as though it were cobweb, ignoring them, answering only when necessity compelled him. And now he has died---beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow-workers---from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of Europe and America---and I make bold to say that though he may have many opponents he has hardly one personal enemy.
``His name and his work will endure through the ages!''^^10^^
15. The Founding of the
Second International (1889)
The congress which established the Second International opened in Paris on July 14, 1889, on the looth anniversary of the fall of the Bastille in the great French Revolution. Called by the German and organized by the French Marxists, it brought together 391 delegates from 20 countries, four of the delegates being Americans. It was by far the largest international gathering in world labor history. The congress was held amid a great blaze of enthusiasm. Across the hall stretched banners reading, "In the name of the Paris of 1848 and of March, April and May of 1871, in the name of the France of Babeuf, Blanqui, and Varlin, greetings to the socialist workers of both worlds.''^^1^^
But there was a second ``international'' labor congress held in Paris at the same time. This was the meeting of the "possibilists," or opportunists (who aimed to achieve socialism within the framework of bourgeois legalism), organized by British trade union leaders and the Paul Brousse group in France. Strong efforts were made in both congresses to bring about an amalgamation, but these failed both before and during the congress. Henry M. Hyndman and others made especially energetic efforts to coalesce the two forces, with Engels opposed. Two years later, at the 1891 congress in Brussels, the groups became united.
The Marxist congress brought together many of the most notable men and women in the world Socialist movement---those who were destined to lead world labor for the next generation and to become both famous and infamous as the Second International unfolded its historic course. Among them were Keir Hardie of England; Liebknecht, Bebel, Eduard Bernstein, Georg von Vollmar and Clara Zetkin of Germany; Jules Guesde, Lafargue, Vaillant and Longuet of France; Anseele and Vandervelde of Belgium; Andreas Costa and Cipriano of Italy; Victor Adler of Austria; Domela Nieuwenhuis of Holland; Pablo Iglesias of Spain; George Plekhanov of Russia.^^2^^ Gompers of the United States, who had been invited to attend, sent greetings to
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the two congresses, urging that they join forces. Abe Cahan and Max Pine were delegates from the New York United Hebrew Trades. Small numbers of Anarchists were at both meetings.
The Marxists' congress in Paris attracted world attention and created enthusiasm among the workers of all countries. The toilers were at last to possess an organization capable of waging successful struggle against capitalism and of one day finally abolishing it altogether. It was to be the re-creation of the First International, but upon a far broader and stronger basis. In the congress itself the new world movement was hailed as the continuation of the old International Workingmen's Association of glorious memory. Presidents of the congress at its opening were Vaillant, a Communard, and Liebknecht, a veteran Socialist.
THE WORK OF THE CONGRESS
A great deal of the time of the congress was taken up listening to reports from the various countries represented. The general picture unfolded was that of a young, vigorous, expanding, optimistic world labor movement. The trade unions were growing in Europe and America, nearly every important country now had a Socialist Party, and Socialists were beginning to be elected to parliaments in Germany, Denmark, and elsewhere. It was altogether a very promising situation.
Due to the many reports of the respective parties, not much time was spent in discussing the several resolutions that were adopted. These included one on the abolition of standing armies and the arming of the peoples. Another was a specific endorsement of the eighthour day, which had first been brought to the attention of the world's workers at the 1866 congress of the First International. Another resolution dealt with the question of political action, "by means of the ballot box" and on the basis of no compromises or alliances with other parties. This brought forth opposition from the small group of Anarchists, who opposed political action in general and who were, therefore, excluded from the congress. A resolution was adopted, supporting the general proposition of the Swiss government for the establishment of international labor legislation. A proposal of the French delegation to endorse the general strike as "the beginning of the socialist revolution," meeting strong German opposition, was voted down by the delegates.
The most notable decision made by the congress, however, was
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the establishment of May First as a day for international labor demonstration. This proposal, made by the French delegate, Lavigne, was in support of the A.F. of L. proposed general strike for the eight-hour day set for May i, 1890. The congress resolution reads: "The congress decides to organize a great international demonstration, so that in all countries and in all cities on one appointed day the toiling masses shall demand of the state authorities the legal reduction of the working day to eight hours, as well as the carrying out of other decisions of the Paris congress. Since a similar demonstration has already been decided upon for May i, 1890, by the American Federation of Labor at its convention in St. Louis, December 1888, this day is accepted for the international demonstration. The workers of the various countries must organize their demonstrations according to conditions prevailing in each country." At later congresses this decision was repeated, and May Day was established as a regular institution. Thus was born the great fighting holiday of the world's workers.^^3^^
THE MARXIST ORIENTATION OF THE CONGRESS
The Paris congress demonstrated that Marxism had become dominant in the world labor movement, particularly in its political wing. During the thirteen years since the dissolution of the First International, in the host of new working-class organizations that had developed, the followers of Marx were generally looked to for leadership. Under the guidance of Marx and Engels the number of Marxists had greatly increased and their press had multiplied. This situation was a fundamental advance over the period of the First International, when the Marxists, relatively only a handful in numbers, constantly had to fight for their political life against various militant sects and deviations. This Marxist hegemony did not mean, however, that the several sects that had plagued the life of the First International had been completely extinguished---but at least most of them had been reduced to manageable proportions. The Proudhonists were now largely a memory; the Blanquists were but a minor faction in France; the Lassalleans were on their last legs in Germany and Austria; and the Bakuninist Anarchists---those of them who had not become syndicalists---were pretty much an isolated sect.
The largest numbers of Marxists were in Germany, and already the Social-Democratic Party of that country had established its political leadership in the Second International, a leadership which was
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to endure virtually unchallenged until the formation of the Communist International in 1919. As Lenin remarked later, the German working class was for almost half a century "the model of socialist organization for the whole world.''^^4^^ German capitalism was expanding rapidly, and the party and the trade unions were growing swiftly. Since the time of the First International many new Marxist writers had developed in the various countries (usually not without serious theoretical shortcomings). Chief among these writers was Karl Kautsky of Germany. Kautsky (1854-1938), whose father was a Czech and his mother a German, was born in Austria. After the passing of Engels, he became the outstanding theoretical leader of the Second International. Shortly following the Paris congress of 1889, Kautsky wrote the wellknown Erfurt program of the German Social-Democratic Party, which served for many years as a model for other Socialist parties. This program, while ignoring the basic demand for a German democratic republic and passing over the vital question of the dictatorship of the proletariat and also the manner of the abolition of the capitalist system, otherwise followed the general line worked out in the great writings of Marx and Engels.
Existing in a more revolutionary period, the First International at its congress always had to deal with the question of the revolution, either because of actual political developments or under pressure of the strong ultra-leftist sects of the times. But the Second International in 1889, working in a period of relatively calmer capitalist development, did not feel the proletarian revolution to be so urgently knocking at its door, although many Marxists (like the then sectarian Hyndman of England) expected the European revolution to be an accomplished fact before the end of the igth century. The congress, while identifying itself with the ultimate revolutionary perspectives of the First International, devoted itself basically to such urgent immediate tasks of the current class struggle as the fight against militarism, for the eight-hour day, the extension of the workers' franchise, the enactment of factory legislation, and, of course, the building of the trade unions, cooperatives, and workers' socialist parties.
THE RIGHT DANGER
The bane of the First International had been the strong and impatient, pseudo-revolutionary sects, the ultra-leftists who sought to push the workers into untimely life and death struggles with the cap-
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italist class. The curse of the Second International, as it turned out, came from the opposite political direction---from the right opportunists who, paralyzing the fighting initiative of the workers, wanted to reduce the labor movement to the status of a petty-bourgeois auxiliary of the capitalist system. The ultra-lefts were a very minor factor. The right tendency, which eventually was to dominate and ruin the new International, was in evidence, in at least two sharp respects already at the foundation congress.
The first of these right manifestations was the fact that the `` possibilists'' were strong enough to dare to hold their separate congress and thus to challenge the leadership of the revolutionary Marxists in the world labor movement. During the time of the First International , there was an incipient right wing (as well as strong leftist groups), represented by the opportunist English trade union leaders--- Odger, Cremer, Applegarth, and others---and by the unaffiliated Lassallean movement in Germany. It did no little damage to the International, as we have seen in passing. The bold arrogance of the Paris congress of the ``possibilists'' in 1889 showed how much this dangerous right tendency had grown in the intervening years. The ``possibilists'' congress failed of its immediate objectives, but its very existence was a sinister portent of grave dangers ahead.
The second manifestation of the right tendency occurred within the Marxist congress itself. This went practically unnoticed, but it was none the less dangerous for that. This was the failure of the delegates to set up an international center to carry on the work between congresses. As the course of events was to show, the new International for a dozen years had no international leading committee, no world headquarters, no international journal, no regular constitution, no definite political program, no disciplined carrying out of decisions, and not even a formal name.
In all these respects the Second International fell far behind the First International, which, as shown in previous chapters, had a welldeveloped international organization---a General Council, a constitution, a paper, a program, and a name. In fact, the Second International lagged behind even the Anarchist conception of an international organization. The insistent demand of the Proudhonists and Bakuninists had been that the International center should be a correspondence and statistical bureau, but the Second International, at its foundation and for a decade afterward, did not even reach this minimum of world organization.
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It would, of course, have been out of place for the Second International to set up such a strong world center as the First International did at The Hague congress of 1872, in its life and death struggle with the Bakuninists; but not to establish any center at all was to understress greatly internationalism and to overstress heavily national organization and action. This was all the more dangerous, as it turned out in the eventual great clash of 1914, because the possibility of a war collision among the world powers was already beginning to generate, and the supreme danger for the workers in the coming period was that of the labor movement in the various countries yielding to the rising national pressures of the bourgeoisie.
ORIGINS OF RIGHT OPPORTUNISM
The right opportunist tendency in the Second International, which was later to cause such havoc to the world's workers, had two main sources. First and most dangerous of all, it was developed among the skilled workers and labor bureaucracy in the trade unions, whom, through wage concessions, the employers undertook to use against the great mass of the working class, by crippling its strikes, by keeping its unions small and divided, and by fighting against class consciousness and independent working-class political action. The second source of right opportunism was in the large number of pettybourgeois intellectuals who sought to make careers by leading the political organizations of the workers, by filling the various city, state, and national government posts as representatives of the workers. They constantly strove to reshape labor policy into mild reform programs of importance to the petty-bourgeoisie and the capitalists. Generally, during the life of the Second International these two currents of opportunism worked freely together; the working-class opportunists functioning mainly, but not exclusively, in the trade unions, and the petty-bourgeois intellectuals operating mostly in the political field. Both groups based themselves on the labor aristocracy and both tended to subordinate the interests of the working class as a whole to those of the capitalist class.
At the time of the founding of the Second International right opportunism was furthest developed in the British labor movement. This was primarily because, during this period, Great Britain was the leading imperialist power and there the employers were most widely applying the internal imperialist policy of corrupting the labor
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aristocracy and their leaders, primarily on the basis of super-profits wrung from the colonial peoples. The crippling effects of this material and ideological corruption were very pronounced, as Marx, Engels, and others had long before pointed out. Rothstein says "The 8o's and go's of the last century represent the lowest point in the class consciousness of the English workers; action, even in the shape of innocent Labor candidatures .as in the middle 70'$, was definitely abandoned; individual workers voted either for Liberal or Tory, the very word `revolution' elicited a scornful shrug Of the shoulders, if not direct abuse.''^^5^^ Already in 1879 Engels wrote to Bernstein: "It must be acknowledged that at this moment there does not exist in Britain a real working class movement in the Continental sense."6 And this in the land which a generation before had produced the great Chartist movement.
The political line of the employers and of their agents, the conservative labor bureaucrats, was to keep the working class under the tutelage of the Liberal Party; but when in 1880 the Marxists, led by Henry M. Hyndman, formed a group which in 1889 became the Social Democratic Federation, the bourgeoisie had to shift its political policy a bit. This was made manifest by the formation in 1884 of the Fabian League, headed by Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, and other petty-bourgeois radical intellectuals. The main purpose of this organization was to castrate Marxism and to render innocuous independent political action of the working class, all of which was of great service to the capitalists. Preaching a vague, evolutionary socialism, the Fabians attacked every principle of revolutionary Marxism. In view of the non-Marxist ideology of the workers in Great Britain, the Fabians were openly anti-Marxist. Pearse, the Fabian historian, says that the first achievement of the Society was to break the spell of Marxism in England.^^7^^
Sidney Webb and his co-workers set out to make it "as easy and matter of course for the ordinary and respectable Englishman to be a socialist as to be a liberal or a conservative.''^^8^^ Webb remarks, "It was indispensable for socialism in England that it should be consistent with the four rules of arithmetic, with the Ten Commandments, and with the Union Jack. There should be no confiscation.''^^9^^ Webb also said: "The founder of British socialism was not Karl Marx, but Robert Owen, and Robert Owen preached, not 'class war,' but the doctrine of human brotherhood.''^^10^^ Fabianism, with its vague socialist objectives, was a petty-bourgeois reform movement, harmless to the capital-
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ist system. It spread its influence rapidly among the conservative trade union leaders of the i88o's, and in fact it still dominates the ideology of the British Labor Party.
In the United States opportunism was also sinking its roots in the labor movement. Characteristic examples of reactionary labor bureaucrats at this time were Terence V. Powderly and P. M. Arthur, head of the Railroad Engineers; and the Gompers A.F. of L. leaders, already avowed anti-Socialists, were laying the basis of their ultracorrupt bureaucracy of the next decades. In France, too, the existence of the Broussist ``possibilist'' movement testified to the beginnings of right opportunism in that country. It was only to be a few years until the brazen attempts of the French bourgeoisie to corrupt the Socialist leaders in France would rock the Second International from one end to the other.
In Germany, of the big capitalist states, opportunism was least developed at this time. There the Marxists were most firmly in control of the workers' movement, both in its trade union and political aspects, and the Party was the most proletarian of any in its composition.^^11^^ The right wing was still relatively small and uninfluential. This was primarily because Germany, with its autocratic, semi-feudal government, was only then becoming a strong capitalist power, and its ruling class had not yet fully developed the characteristic policy of corrupting the labor aristocracy and trade union and political bureaucracy.
The German Social-Democratic Party was still illegal under the anti-Socialist laws---a situation which cultivated the Party's militancy and scared away numerous petty-bourgeois opportunist careerists--- and the trade unions were also operating under various severe legal handicaps. In later decades the German labor movement, with the rise of German imperialism, became heavily corrupted and was the chief poison source of right opportunism in the Second International; but in 1889 it was still the strongest Marxist center in the world, and the whole International looked to it for leadership.
16. Brussels, Zurich, and
London
(1891-1896)
The Second International held its second, third, and fourth congresses, respectively, in Brussels (August 1891), Zurich (August 1893), and London (July 1896). These years were in general a period of rapid capitalist development in Europe and the United States. Industrialization was growing fast, monopoly capitalism and imperialism were already rapidly becoming dominant, the big powers were dividing up Africa among themselves. England was heavily exporting capital. It was a time of sharpening international tensions among the great states and of increasing class struggle in the respective capitalist countries.
It was correspondingly a period of rapid growth of the Second International and of the workers' trade unions, cooperatives, and political parties that it comprised. The whole structure of international labor had received a strong impetus from the lifting of the antiSocialist laws in Germany on January 25, 1890, by a Reichstag vote of 169 to gS.^^1^^ Among the many outstanding strikes of this period was that of 200,000 British coal miners in 1893. In the United States the class struggle was especially fierce, the period being marked by such bitter strikes as those of the steel workers (Homestead) in 1892, the New Orleans general strike of 1892, the big coal strike of 1893, the national railroad strike (A.R.U.) in 1894, and the several strikes of the western metal miners of the early iSgo's. All these big American strikes reached the acuteness of virtual local civil wars.
GROWING RIGHT OPPORTUNISM
In this period the Second International generally held to a Marxist position, but a most significant and sinister characteristic of the three congresses with which we are now dealing, was the continuously growing right tendencies that they exhibited. This trend, which
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eventually, two decades later, was to have disastrous consequences to the International and to the world in general, ran through all the proceedings of the three congresses at an increasing tempo. So much so, that by the end of the London congress there was a definitely developing right wing in the International, although it had not yet matured its program and organization. No important issue came before these congresses in which the growing right trend was not markedly felt.
On the question of International May Day, an issue of prime importance to the world's workers, the right influence was much in evidence. The German and English opportunists opposed at both the Brussels and Zurich congresses the basic idea of May First, which was to stage a big tools-down demonstration of labor's growing power and to insist upon the eight-hour day and other current demands. Their line was to shift the May First demonstration to the first Sunday in May, which would soften altogether its fighting character. Lenz says, "In proportion to the forces at their disposal, the Germans had done less to carry out the May Day decision of the Paris Congress than any other party.''^^2^^ Finally, at the Zurich Congress in 1893, the Germans had the manner of May Day celebration left up to the respective parties, which meant that they could freely put their own opportunist line into practice. The French and other delegations fought vigorously against this castration of May First. In this and other debates the German leaders also let it be known that in policy matters they would not allow themselves to be "dictated to" by the International.
Another example of right opportunist strength at these three congresses was shown in some implications of the fight against the Anarchists. The Anarchists were, a bone of contention at the Brussels and Zurich congresses, but in London (1896) the Marxists finally excluded them by adopting a resolution which demanded, as a condition of membership in the International, the endorsement of political action. This the Anarchists would not accept, and they withdrew permanently. The strong terms of the resolution drawn up by Bebel also could have kept out the Anarcho-syndicalist unions, but the congress voted 57 to 56 not to exclude them.^^3^^ But the Second International, while thus correctly raising the bars against the petty-- bourgeois ultra-left, characteristically kept the membership doors wide open to the right. A most important result of this line was to admit to membership in France, in 1894, the Jaures-Millerand-Viviani group of 30 bourgeois radical parliamentary deputies (against Engels" ad-
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vice). This reactionary step was, in the next few years, to have farreaching consequences throughout the International.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE WAR DANGER
Already, in nearly all the congresses of the First International, the question of war was one with which the world labor movement had to concern itself. But in those early years the danger lay chiefly in national wars, such as the involvement of England in the American Civil War of 1861, the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, and the war between France and Germany in 1870. From the outset, however, the congresses of the Second International had to face up to the danger of a far more serious war menace, the possibility of a general European imperialist war. The big European powers, increasingly imperialist in their composition and relentless in their greed, were already shaping up the war alliances that were finally to clash in World War I, in 1914---a collision which Engels long before had foreseen.^^4^^ Germany, Austria, and Italy, in 1882, established their Triple Alliance, and from 1894 on, France, Russia, and England were building their Triple Entente, which finally came to fruition in 1907. The Socialist international congresses of Brussels, Zurich, and London, therefore, dealt extensively with this developing war danger, and here again, and especially in this crucial matter, the growing right opportunism in the Second International manifested itself sharply.
To meet the rising danger of a European war, the resolutions of the Brussels (1891) congress, with much revolutionary phraseology, proposed that the workers should protest vigorously against the war threat and should strengthen their international organization. The Zurich (1893) congress added the provisions that the workers should fight for general disarmament and that their parliamentary representatives should vote against war credits. The London (1896) congress demanded the abolition of standing armies, the arming of the people, the establishment of courts of arbitration, war referendum by the peoples, etc.
As against these prevention measures, the Anarchists and Anarchosyndicalists at all three congresses brought in resolutions proposing a general strike in case of war. The chief spokesman for this project was Domela Nieuwenhuis of Holland. Nieuwenhuis (1846-1919) was a Social-Democratic member of parliament until 1894, after which he joined the Anarchists. The general strike proposals ran generally
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along the lines of the resolution adopted by the Brussels (1868) congress of the First International (criticized by Marx as Utopian under the circumstances) which called upon the workers to cease work should war break out in their respective countries.
The general strike as a weapon against war was heavily voted down at the three congresses of 1891, 1893, and 1896, with especially strong opposition from the Germans. The Socialist leaders generally took the occasion to condemn the use of the general strike altogether in unmeasured terms. At the Zurich congress, Plekhanov thus stated the position of the committee, "A general strike is impossible within present-day society, for the proletariat does not possess the means to carry it out. On the other hand, were we in a position to carry out a general strike, the proletariat would already be in control of economic power and a general strike would be a sheer absurdity.''^^5^^
Obviously, as Marx maintained and as Lenin was to make very clear in later years, the Anarchists and Syndicalists were laboring under an illusion in thinking that they could halt the approaching war simply by a general strike; nevertheless, the rejection by the Second International of the general strike in principle, which became the line of the right Social-Democrats, was crass opportunism. The working class, obviously, was not ready to give up this powerful weapon---as the English had shown in their fight for the Charter in 1842, the American workers in their eight-hour day strike in 1886, the Belgian workers in their strike for the right to vote in 1892,° and as the workers were to do in many parts of the world in later years.
Already in these anti-war debates the conception of the "defense of the fatherland," which was to serve as the ideological basis of the great betrayal in 1914, was beginning to take shape. The idea was that Germany would have to defend itself against an attack from ultra-reactionary Russia, probably allied with France. In 1893 Engels favored a national defense of Germany against Russian tsarism.^^7^^ And it was no doubt such a war that Bebel had in mind when he said that he would himself "buckle on the sword," and also Plekhanov when he stated that the Russian people would welcome the German armies as liberators. But, as Stalin later pointed out, Engels' viewpoint was illusory;^^8^^ the war that was shaping up in the nineties was to be a great imperialist war, and the way the German right-wing Social-Democrats were already getting ready to participate in it was not as a revolutionary war to liberate Russia, but as a chauvinist defense of bourgeois Germany.
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HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
REFORMISM VERSUS REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGY
During the iSgo's, with capitalism rapidly expanding and all the organizations of the workers steadily increasing in strength, and with no signs of early proletarian revolution on the political horizon, the main tasks were necessarily the immediate demands of the daily struggle. The Second International, however, definitely developed a right orientation to overstress these partial demands and to understress the development of a rounded-out Marxist ideology. In crass cases this meant to deny outright the revolutionary objectives of socialism. The issue, as stated at the time by the left, was "Reform versus Revolution," and the International leaders more and more supported immediate demands exclusively at the expense of revolutionary ideology.
In the International congresses of this period discussion of the general political program especially came up under the head of " tactics," with the German delegation generally objecting to a full discussion on the grounds that such ``tactical'' matters fell within the province of the respective national parties. Where the International was heading in this vital respect was well illustrated by the resolution on ``tactical'' questions at the Zurich (1893) congress. Putting all the weight on the fight for immediate demands, the resolution characteristically almost completely ignored the revolutionary aims of socialism. Lenz thus correctly sums it up: "This resolution, which uttered a warning against unprincipled compromise and recommended the workers never to lose sight of their revolutionary goal, nevertheless indicated a thoroughly reformist conception of the state; not the destruction of the bourgeois state and the creation of the proletarian state, but the transformation of the organs of capitalist rule, that is, of the bourgeois state with its bureaucracy and armed force, into the means whereby to liberate the proletariat.''^^9^^
In the German Social-Democratic Party, the leading party of the Second International, the trend towards right opportunism and reformism was more clearly in evidence than in the International congresses. More and more such documents as The Communist Manifesto were pushed into the background, considered as museum pieces. This was to be seen by many developments. First, in the matter of the Erfurt program of 1891, which was written by Kautsky and became the model for Socialist parties the world over. This program, while loaded with revolutionary analysis, slurred over or ignored the basic
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question of the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.10 It also failed to demand a republic in Germany. A blazing danger signal especially was the opportunist program put forward by Georg von Vollmar at this time. Much in the spirit of the English Fabians, the leading reformists in the International, von Vollmar advocated the progressive achievement of partial demands as the road to socialism, proposed an alliance between the party and the rich peasantry, hailed the Triple Alliance as a guarantee of peace, and supported a policy of collaboration with bourgeois parties. The German party tolerated the membership of this petty-bourgeois reformist.
An especially significant expression of the growing reformist trend in the German movement was indicated by what the official heads of the party did to the Preface to Marx's, The Class Struggles in France, written by Engels in March 1895. In this piece Engels stressed the greater difficulties which the development of modern military techniques had placed in the way of barricade fighting in the cities, the traditional manner of winning revolutions. In printing this material, the Vorwaerts, with Liebknecht as editor, cut out some key passages, thereby leaving the direct implication that Engels (in agreement with the right wing) had discarded the perspective of armed struggle in the revolution. It will be remembered that the German party leadership suppressed Marx's criticism of the Gotha program of 1875 and also that Engels' criticism, of the Erfurt program of 1891 was not published for 10 years.^^11^^
The key section deleted from Engels' preface reads: "Does that mean that in the future the street fight will play no further role? Certainly not. It only means that the conditions since 1848 have become far more unfavorable for civil fights, far more favorable for the military. A future street fight can therefore only be victorious when this unfavorable situation is compensated by other factors. Accordingly it will occur more seldom in the beginning of a great revolution than in its further progress, and will have to be undertaken with greater forces. These, however, may then well prefer, as in the whole Great French Revolution on September 4 and October 31, 1870, in Paris, the open attack to the passive barricade tactics.''^^12^^
For many years afterward the gross distortion of Engels' preface was used effectively by the reformists against the left wing. But in the many revolutions yet to come it was to be demonstrated that, contrary to the Social-Democratic opportunists, the advanced military techniques of the bourgeoisie would prove to be no final defense
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against aroused, revolutionary peoples, who could nearly always take large sections of the armed forces with them.
THE FIGHT OF THE LEFT
As against the growing militancy, program, and organization of the right wing in the International, the fight of the left was only partially effective. At the time the left, which in many cases was tending to slur over or to forget vital lessons of Marx and the First International, had no definite program of its own. It also had not clearly differentiated itself from the centrist tendencies which were already beginning to develop. This differentiation of the revolutionary left from the vacillating center---a development which required the highest level of political understanding---could not and did not take place fully until the class struggle had reached a much higher stage of development than it was in then, until the time of World War I and the Russian Revolution.
At this period the Bebels, Kautskys, Plekhanovs, and others, who were eventually to become the center, were already displaying some right tendencies. But they were still hanging on to major elements of Marxism. Indeed, they prided themselves on being the ``orthodox'' Marxists. They had not yet faced the severe revolutionary tasks and struggles that would crystallize their centrism and ultimately force this tendency into alliance with the right wing. Undoubtedly, however, even at this early date the increasing vacillations of the `` orthodox'' Marxists---leaders of the Kautsky trend---provided a certain amount of cover and protection for the right wing.
The international ``left'' wing of the period, therefore, was a broad amorphous grouping, containing many semi-opportunists and potential reformists, as well as such resolute fighters as Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and Franz Mehring. But Kautsky, Guesde, and Plekhanov, the outstanding ``orthodox'' leaders of the Second International of that time, never were to become Communists. The trend of this broad grouping was to fire into the main danger, which was the growing extreme right wing, exemplified by such forces as the Fabians in England and the supporters of Von Vollmar in Germany; but within its own broad confines many right errors and deviations were expressed and tolerated.
Engels, who was then far along in years, led this general fight of the left. But the help he got from the ``orthodox'' Marxist leaders,
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notably in Germany, was often dubious. Kautsky, with his questionable formulations in the Erfurt program, and Bebel and Liebknecht, with their militant, uncritical defense of the political line of the German party, often undercut the fight against the growing right wing in Germany and in the International as a whole.
In a letter to Sorge in October 1877, Marx had criticized sprouting opportunism in the German Social-Democracy. He said: "A rotten spirit is making itself felt in our party in Germany, not so much among the masses as among the leaders (upper class and `workers')"13 And he proceeded to outline a whole series of dangerous tendencies in the party. In a letter to Bernstein in March 1883, Engels stated, "From the outset we have always fought to the very utmost against the petty-bourgeois and philistine disposition within the party."14 Marx's sweeping criticisms of the Gotha program and Engels' later sharp criticisms of the Erfurt program, were only two incidents of the long two-front fight carried on by these two great leaders---against the right and against the ultra left---against the English opportunist and German petty-bourgeois Socialists, as well as against the Bakuninists. Despite all his long fight against the growing right wing, however, Engels did not fully realize the fatal grip that opportunism was securing upon the German party. In June 1885 he wrote to Becker, "In a petty-bourgeois country like Germany the party is bound also to have a petty-bourgeois `educated' right wing, which it shakes off at the decisive moment.''^^15^^ Unfortunately, however, although later on in many internal struggles the party did check or defeat the right wing, at the final time of supreme crisis and imperative need for resolute revolutionary action in 1914, it could not "shake off" the corrupt right wing.
THE DEATH OF FREDERICK ENGELS
On August 5, 1895, the workers' world was shocked by the death of Frederick Engels in England. He was 75 years old when he passed away, from cancer of the throat. His body was cremated and, following his wishes, his ashes were strewn over the sea. The workers of the world lost a brilliant thinker and valiant comrade-in-arms of Marx with the demise of this great Marxist leader.^^16^^
Engels was politically active almost up to the day of his death. After Marx died in 1883, Engels, laying aside his planned further scientific writings, spent the next eleven years of his life mainly in put-
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ting into final form the second and third volumes of Capital. Marx had been able to finish only one section of his great work, Volume One, and he left the rest largely in the shape of a vast number of notes which were only partly organized. Engels performed a magnificent task in assembling all this material into finished form. At the time of his death Engels was preparing to write a history of the First International, but unfortunately he was cut off before he could undertake it.
Engels was also very much occupied with practical political dayto-day guidance in the international labor movement. During the interim between the two internationals, he and Marx, up to the latter's death, had generally carried on the leading role of the old General Council of the I.W.A. Even after the formation of the Second International Engels continued very much in the same way, for, as pointed out above, the new International went along for over ten years without any formal world organization, journal, or headquarters. Engels, in fact, was generally looked upon as the world Socialist leader, and he remained for years in close touch with the Socialist parties all over the world. He visited the United States and for many years he was a close friend and advisor of the American Socialist movement. Among the classic Marxist writings are his innumerable letters to the parties in France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Russia, the United States, and many other countries.
Brilliant, modest, indefatigable, Frederick Engels made many and great contributions to the thinking and fighting of the world's workers. His name will remain forever enshrined in the memory of the international proletariat, along with that of his great co-worker, Karl Marx. Engels was one of the master builders of socialism.
17. International Trade Unionism
Trade unions are the basic mass organizations of the working class. This is because they are formed exclusively of workers, they are organized in the shops directly at the point of production and exploitation, they embrace the major mass of the workers, and they concern themselves primarily with questions ordinarily of the greatest urgency to the working masses---wages, hours, and working conditions. Trade unions are usually (but not always) the first type of organization set up by the working class in a given country, either in the shape of full-fledged labor organizations or of preliminary "friendly societies.''
When trade unions reach the point of engaging in political action they do this by either setting up or supporting specific political organizations, in the form of parliamentary committees, labor parties, or Marxist parties. They are not equipped, as such, successfully to prosecute political campaigns. By 1900 the steadily growing trade unions had generally won for themselves, after decades of struggle, the formal legal right to organize in Central Western Europe and the United States; but in practice this right was still bitterly contested by the employers, especially in the United States. In Russia and generally in Eastern Europe, the unions at this time, living under terroristic conditions, had no legal existence, although the workers constantly made heroic efforts to form such organizations.
England, where capitalism took its first leap forward, was the birthplace of trade unionism. There trade unions were already to be found in mid-eighteenth century. The workers in all other countries, in establishing their labor organizations, learned much from the British working class; but their unions also were profoundly influenced by their specific national conditions. At the beginning of the ?oth century, therefore, trade unions generally fell into three broad categories---pure and simple trade unions, Social-Democratic unions, and Anarcho-syndicalist unions. In several European countries, there were also a few small Catholic unions, organized primarily on the basis of Pope Leo Kill's encyclical of 1891, De Rerum Novarum.
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HISTORY OF THE THREE INTERNATIONALS
PURE AND SIMPLE TRADE UNIONISM
The pure and simple type of trade unionism, or as Lenin called it, "economism," which, in its classical form, is now virtually extinct, was characterized by a tacit or open acceptance of capitalism; it was marked by a low degree of class consciousness and a weak spirit of internationalism. It worked upon the principle of the protection of the skilled workers at the expense of the broad mass of the working class, a course which fitted right in with the employers' policy of corrupting the labor aristocracy and trade union bureaucracy. Pure and simple trade unions, usually made up of skilled workers, commonly were built on a craft basis, and with a low level of class solidarity; in strikes they generally followed the principle of each for himself and the devil take the hindmost. They confined their activities mostly to elementary economic questions. In political matters they tagged along after the liberal sections of the bourgeoisie, and their leaders' slogan was, "No politics in the Unions"---no working class politics, that is.
Pure and simple trade unionism, accepting bourgeois economics, worked along from day to day, with contempt for Marxist theory and without any concrete perspective. As early as 1883, before a U.S. Senate Commission, this primitive labor line was thus expressed by Strasser (an erstwhile socialist), a close co-worker of Samuel Gompers: "We have no ultimate aims. We are going on from day to day. We are fighting only for immediate objects, objects that can be realized in a few years. . . . We want to dress better, and to live better, and to become better citizens, generally.''^^1^^
The ``home'' of pure and simple trade unionism was in Great Britain and her white-ruled dominions---Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa---and also in the United States. This type of unionism was characteristic of the upward swing period of competitive capitalism and the early stages of imperialism, when there were some minor improvements in real wages, especially of the skilled. In the initial phases of capitalism in Great Britain and the United States, on the other hand, when the working class was being formed, the trade unions were radical if not revolutionary, as illustrated by the militant American trade unions of the iSgo's and the great British Chartist movement of the i84o's. In 1900, the total membership of the British trade unions was i,g72,ooo^^2^^ and of the American unions, some 800,000, of which 580,000 were in the A.F. of L.^^3^^
The working class of Great Britain, by 1900, was already strongly
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159
emerging from the stage of pure and simple trade unionism. This •was basically because of the increasing economic difficulties of British imperialism in a world of vigorous capitalist rivals. The advance of the British labor movement was marked by its growing politicalization---by the formation of the Social Democratic Federation ( Hyndman) in 1881, and the Socialist League in 1882 (both Marxist), the launching of the Independent Labor Party (Keir Hardie) in 1893 (revisionist Social-Democratic), and the setting up by the trade unions of the Labour Representative Committee in 1899, which five years later became the Labour Party, with an essentially Fabian opportunist leadership---MacDonald, Hardie, Burns, Snowden, & Co.4 Generally, pure and simple trade unionism far pre-dates the Marxist parties, because in certain countries the workers have confronted less acute problems of making a political fight for domestic rights.5 When they arrive at the point of taking up class political action, they set up broad labor parties, instead of endorsing the characteristic Social-Democratic parties.
In the United States, however, the advance from pure and simple trade unionism proceeded at a much slower pace. This was basically because of the stronger position of American imperialism in the world capitalist economy. In no country were the evils of trade union primitivism so emphasized as in the United States. In 1900 Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), an avowed enemy of socialism, stood at the head of the American Federation of Labor. Many trade union leaders, openly affiliated with the Democratic and Republican parties, were sunk in depths of personal corruption altogether without parallel in world labor circles. They flagrantly stole money from their unions, sold "strike insurance" to employers, barred Negroes and women from the unions and the industries, made agreements with corporations to keep the unskilled workers unorganized, and ruled their unions at the point of the gun. Class collaboration was their principle, socialism their big enemy, and the sacredness of union contracts their holy slogan. They broke innumerable strikes with their craft union scabbery, and they systematically kept the labor movement politically impotent. Many of them became wealthy, with their various forms of graft and corruption.
In 1900-01 American Socialists, breaking with De Leon's sectarian Socialist Labor Party, established the Socialist Party, headed by Debs and Hillquit. But the Socialists were not fated to win the political leadership of the trade unions from the corrupt Gompers clique. To-
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day, the bulk of American trade unions, which have at least developed elementary political programs of immediate political demands and engage in much political activity, can no longer be classed as pure and simple trade unions. But their top leaders, rigidly anti-Marxist, still generally remain enemies of independent working-class political action, and are frank and ardent defenders of American capitalism.
MARXIST TRADE UNIONISM
In the 1900 period Social-Democratic trade unionism was characteristic of practically all the continental nations, except the Latin countries, from the English channel up to and including Russia, with certain national variations. In the latter respect the Russian unions were the outstanding example, being far more revolutionary than the Social-Democratic labor organizations in Western Europe---but of all this, more further along.
The European Social-Democratic trade unions, differing generally from those in the United States, endorsed the perspective of socialism and either officially or unofficially accepted the political leadership of the Social-Democratic parties. Industrial in form and centralized in controls, they were definitely political in their outlook. Their greater politicalization was partly because of the influence of the Marxist parties, but also because in these countries the remnants of feudalism were much stronger and the workers had to devote more of their activities than in England or the United States to the winning of elementary political rights---to vote, to organize, to strike, etc. Generally these unions were built under the leadership of the Socialist parties, or largely so.
The German unions were the world models for this type of trade unionism, and the Austrian unions were close behind them. The pioneers among the German unions began to take shape, mostly as craft organizations, about the time of the 1848 revolution. They were wiped out by the reaction following this lost revolution. By the middle i86o's they began again to grow, but slowly, until they were hit by the anti-Socialist law of 1878, which liquidated most of them and virtually wiped out the whole trade union press.^^6^^ Like the SocialDemocratic party, however, the trade unions, after the first shock, gradually began to grow. By the time the repressive law was lifted, in 1890, they were stronger than ever, with a total membership of 280,000, organized into 58 national unions. By 1900 the German
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unions numbered 680,000 members and they were entering into a period of rapid growth. In 1890, when the General Federation of Trade Unions was formed, Karl Legien (1861-1930) became the general secretary, and he remained at the head of the German labor movement until he died thirty years later.
The top German trade union leadership early grew opportunist, and eventually it became (organizationally if not theoretically) the strongest center of revisionism in the entire German labor movement, political and economic. The leaders established strict centralized controls in the unions, reduced trade union democracy to a minimum, and systematically played down all manifestations of rank-and-file militancy, their castration of the May First demonstration being only one of many examples of this policy. The Social-Democratic trade union leaders, while professing allegiance to the party, endorsed the principle of the ``neutrality'' of the unions and sought to build them up under their own bureaucratic control---a tendency which, as we shall see, wrought havoc in the German labor movement. The left wing fought this separatist tendency and urged joint relations with the party.^^7^^
ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM
The Anarcho-syndicalist unions, which likewise constituted a welldefined labor tendency by 1900, generally had a background of Proudhonism and Bakuninism. They were -the dominant form af labor unionism in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, although in all these countries the Marxist trade unions had considerable strength. In Latin America---Chile, Argentina, Mexico, etc.---the Syndicalists eventually exerted considerable influence in the trade union movement, and there were some syndicalist tendencies (from 1905 on) in the United States, England, Australia, and Canada, principally in the Industrial Workers of the World. The major forces which produced strong syndicalist trade unions were largely the same as those which developed anarchism in general---namely, industrial backwardness, small handicraft industries, franchise limitations, extreme political corruption in government, Social-Democratic opportunism, and Catholic authoritarianism.
The Anarcho-syndicalist unions of the period were characterized by a revolutionary perspective, looking .forward to a future society operated by the trade unions. Their revolutionary weapon was the general strike, growing into insurrection. They were aggressively
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``direct actionist" and anti-political; they eschewed all participation in electoral and organized parliamentary activities. They also practiced sabotage in strikes, and largely in the form of go-slow movements in the shops. Organizationally, the Syndicalist unions were decentralized and highly autonomous. For united action they depended largely upon mass spontaneity and the organized activities of the "militant minority." While accepting broad Marxist principles of the class struggle, generally their ideology was permeated with Anarchist and semi-Anarchist conceptions. Lenin criticized Anarcho-syndicalism, with its rejection of "petty work" as "waiting for the great days," with "an inability to muster the forces which create great events.''^^8^^
France was the main stronghold of Anarcho-syndicalism. There the trade unions were born into traditions of Proudhonism, Blanquism, and Bakuninism, and they had in their background a long series of revolutionary struggles. The first substantial trade unions in France grew up shortly after the Paris Commune of 1871. The law of 1884 granted the workers, with limitations, the legal right to organize trade unions. But this, says Lefranc "only legalized the fact"^^9^^; for the workers were unionizing without legal sanction, five national federations existing in Paris before 1884. The French trade union movement developed along two main organizational lines, that is, it built up two distinct national sections: of local trades councils (bourses du travail) and of national industrial and craft federations. In 1895 the movement was united in the General Confederation of Labor (C.G.T.)
The recognized founder of the French Syndicalist, or revolutionary trade union movement, was Fernand Pelloutier, a Communis. tAnarchist, who laid down its general principles. Georges Sorel, a French intellectual, undertook to theorize Anarcho-syndicalism, his principal contributions being the glorification of violence as such, and the metaphysical concept of the general strike as a social myth.10 In later years Sorel's ideas played an important part in the ideological set-up of the Italian fascists. The French Syndicalist movement finally formulated its program at its congress in Amiens (December 1906), which produced the famous Charte d'Amiens. This document states that the C.G.T. "prepares complete emancipation, with the general strike as the means of action, and it considers that the trade union (syndicat), today the group of resistance, will be in the future the group of production and distribution, the basis of social reorganization.''^^11^^ The Syndicalist trends in Italy and Spain largely followed the French pattern..
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TOWARD A TRADE UNION INTERNATIONAL
From their beginnings the trade unions of the various countries displayed strong international tendencies. It was the trade unionists of France and England who founded the First International in 1864, and they always played a big part in the congresses and other activities of that organization. The First International concerned itself very much with questions of trade union struggle, and it was this phase of its work that interested the National Labor Union of the United States. In later years, as the trade unions expanded and multiplied and as the First International became more and more concerned with political questions, sentiment grew for the establishment of an additional international, composed only of trade unions.
This matter was discussed at I.W.A. conventions, and the general idea was endorsed at the Universal Socialist Congress in Ghent, in September 1877 (Chapter 14), but nothing concrete came of it. Throughout its history the First International accepted trade union affiliations. The Second International also, continued to include trade unions, but the matter of a separate trade union international was discussed already at the Zurich and London congresses of the Second International in 1893 and 1896. Meanwhile, the urge towards international trade union organization was expressing itself concretely by the formation of international trade conferences and secretariats. The cigarmakers in 1871,^^12^^ the printers in 1889, and the coal miners in 1890 took the lead in this direction. By 1900 there were 17 of such secretariats,^^13^^ covering major crafts and industries. These movements gave the unions some measure of the inter-country cooperation that the workers found to be indispensable.
Pressure for the establishment of an all-inclusive trade union international continued and grew stronger. "The British and French trade unionists," says Lorwin, "resented the domination of the Socialists in the Second International.''^^14^^ The American Federation of Labor, which also did not follow the lead of the European Social-Democracy, likewise favored closer international trade union cooperation. To this end it proposed a world congress of trade unionists, to take place in Chicago at the same time as the World's Fair of 1893. This plan fell through when the 1891 Brussels congress of the Second International refused to endorse it.
The big obstructionists in the way of a trade union international were the conservative Social-Democrats standing at the head of the
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German labor movement, the growing Legien machine. Seeing the anti-Social-Democratic orientation of the British, French, and American trade union movements, they were afraid that an independent international movement would escape their control. Although pushed along by the growing movement for international labor cooperation, they, for the time being at least, succeeded in preventing its crystallization in the desired separate trade union international.
At a broad trade union conference in Copenhagen, August si, 1901, called for the purpose of considering the holding of periodic world trade union congresses, the German leaders led the opposition to founding a trade union international. "Legien and most of the others in attendance, felt that the Second International was the proper forum for the discussion of the larger problems of labor and that international trade union congresses were unnecessary.''^^15^^ However, after a further conference in Stuttgart in 1902, and at a succeeding conference in Dublin in 1903, in response to the growing demand for a trade union international, a compromise proposition was adopted in the shape of the International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centers. The following year this body had as affiliates 14 national centers with 2,378,955 members.^^16^^
This secretariat, made up of two representatives from each national center, was scheduled to meet biennially. It served to block the formation of a broad international organization until after World War I.* The general secretary of the International Secretariat was Karl Legien, the Gompers-like head of the German trade union movement. It was also this ubiquitous gentleman who became general secretary of the International Federation of Trade Unions which, under increasing French, British, and American pressure, was finally launched in skeleton form in 1913, but which did not become a broad representative international movement until it was reorganized in 1919. At the outbreak of World War I the I.F.T.U. had as affiliates a score of national centers, with some 7,500,000 members, the only important unaffiliated labor movements being those of Japan, Argentina, Bulgaria, and Australia.
* In Budapest, August 1911, an effort was made by the I.W.W. (delegate, Wm. Z. Foster) to have itself seated as representing the labor movement of the United States, but its motion was defeated, only the two delegates from the C.G.T. of France voting for it.
18. Imperialism and Millerand: Paris
(1900)
The fifth congress of the Second International met in Paris in September 1900. By now the imperialist epoch of capitalism had well begun. As Marx had long before indicated, world capitalism, evolving from its early stage of competition, had become increasingly monopolist and eventually imperialist.* The period 1870-1900 was a period of transition to imperialism. Lenin says that, "For Europe the time when the new capitalism definitely superseded the old can be established with fair precision; it was the beginning of the twentieth century.''^^1^^ In his great book, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, written in 1916, Lenin calls imperialism "the monopoly stage of capitalism," "the epoch of finance capital." He analyzes it as including the following five essential features:
``i. The concentration of production and capital, developed to such a high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life. 2. The merging of bank capital with industrial capital and the creation on the basis of this 'finance capital,' of a financial oligarchy. 3. The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as distinguished from the export of commodities. 4. The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world among themselves. 5. The territorial division of the whole world by the greatest capitalist powers is completed.''^^2^^
The growth of monopoly capitalism, or imperialism, in the last quarter of the igth century, was marked by the development of many great industrial and financial cartels, syndicates, and trusts in all the leading capitalist countries. In the United States, which by 1900 had far outstripped England in industrial development, there were already 440 industrial, franchise, and transportation trusts, capitalized at $20 billion,^^8^^ and the next years brought many more. In Germany in 1896
* Modern imperialism, based upon monopoly capitalism, is not to be confused with the ancient imperialism of Rome, Athens, etc., which was based upon slavery.
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there existed 250 monopolistic cartels; this number jumped to 385 in 1905, and it continued rapidly to increase. In 1870 the three biggest French banks had 64 branches, with total deposits of 427 million francs; whereas by 1909 they had 1,229 branches and 4,363 millions in deposits. In England, although its tempo of development was falling far behind that of the United States and Germany, a broad expansion and consolidation of industry and banking were also taking place. Characteristically, the big banker-industrialists had become by 1900 not only the real masters of industry, but also of the governments of the respective great capitalist powers.
The period of imperialism, based on an intensive growth and monopolization of industry and the domination of financial oligarchies in the chief capitalist countries, also brought with it, by various means, the organized economic and political penetration and subjugation of the less developed countries by the large powers. There took place increasingly the export of capital, which gives the exporting power a commanding position in the importing country. In this respect Great Britain was the leader, its total foreign investments .climbing from about £200 million in 1850 to some £2,000 million in 1905,* and to £4,000 million in 1913. Also, a network of cartel agreements spread over many undeveloped countries, dividing up their markets and natural resources among the imperialist monopolies.
Most vital, the imperialist powers proceeded to divide among themselves the various undeveloped territories of the world whose peoples were unable to protect themselves. In the last quarter of the igth century Africa and Polynesia were taken over almost completely by the marauding imperialist states. From 1884 to 1900, according to Hobson, England grabbed 3.7 million square miles of territory with a population of 57 million; France got 3.6 million square miles with 36.5 million people, Germany one million square miles with 17 million people, Belgium 900,000 square miles with 30 million people, and Portugal 800,000 square miles with 9 million people.^^5^^
One of the most dynamic aspects of this growth and evolution of the capitalist system was that, as capitalism always does, it proceeded at widely varying tempos in the several countries. This disparity was according to the law of the uneven development of capitalism, promulgated by Lenin in 1915: "Some countries, which previously held a foremost position, now develop their industry at a relatively slow rate, while others, which were formerly backward, overtake and outstrip them by rapid leaps.''^^6^^
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``In 1880," says Eaton, "Britain's output of pig-iron was 7.7 million tons against Germany's 2.5 million and U.S.A.'s 3.8 million; by 1913 Britain's output had risen to 10.3 million tons but Germany's had risen to 19.3 million and the U.S.A.'s to 31 million.''^^7^^ "Finance capital and the trusts," says Lenin, "are increasing instead of diminishing the differences in the rate of development of the various parts of the world economy.''^^8^^ This unevenness of capitalist development greatly accentuates the sharp conflicts among the imperialist powers and it is a basic cause of modern imperialist war. For, as Lenin points out, "When the relation of forces is changed, how else, under capitalism, can the solution of contradictions be found, except by resorting to violence?"® The first of the armed conflicts in this broad period, heralding the advent of ultra-predatory imperialist war in general, were the Spanish-American war of 1898, the Anglo-Boer war of 1899, the intervention of the big powers in China in 1900, and the RussoJapanese war of 1904.
Of special significance also to the world labor movement during the rise of imperialism was the fact that it tended to increase the disparity in wages between the skilled and unskilled workers in the principal capitalist countries. The last quarter of the igth century, a period of intense industrial expansion and increasing exploitation of labor, was a time of slowly rising real wages in the major capitalist lands. In the pattern of the English employers generally, the capitalists used a portion of the super-profits wrung from the colonies to favor the skilled workers at home, with the objective of thus weakening the militancy and solidarity of the working class as a whole. Everywhere, however, the great mass of the workers slaved in near destitution. Thus, whereas in Germany the real wages of the working class (generally at poverty levels) went up from point 100 in 1887 to 105 in 1909, those of the labor aristocracy increased to 113 in the same period.^^10^^ Similar conditions obtained in other capitalist countries. They had profound effects upon labor policy, the right opportunist Social-Democrats basing their revisionist theories and class collaboration policies upon the relatively more prosperous labor aristocracy, at the cost of the broad labor movement. This w'age trend, however, was to be reversed in later years.
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THE MILLERAND CASE
During this period o£ capitalist upswing and growing imperialism, right opportunism grew in the socialist parties of the chief capitalist countries throughout the Second International. This evil development came to a head at the Paris 1900 congress in the celebrated cases of Alexandre Millerand in France and Eduard Bernstein in Germany. The fights around these two opportunists, the first real international struggles between the right and the left in the Second International, shook the organization from one end of it to the other and threatened to split the movement.
At the outset, Marxism in France had a hard time to get established, in the face of strong Proudhonist, Blanquist, Bakuninist, Broussist, syndicalist, and other counter tendencies. As late as 1898 there were no less than five Socialist parties in France, representing the various groupings. These parties were led by such figures as Guesde, Vaillant, Allemane, Brousse, and Jaures. It was not until 1905 that the several groups joined together and formed the United Socialist Party of France.
In the fight around the question of Millerandism the two outstanding party leaders were Jules- Guesde and Jean Jaures. Guesde (1845-1922), who had supported the Commune, became a Marxist in 1878 and joined the party in the early i88o's, and was one of its pioneers. He was doctrinaire and sectarian, one of the ``orthodox'' Marxists. Jaures (1859-1914), who was a professor of philosophy at Toulouse university, became a Socialist in 1890, and later was one of the founders of the party organ, L'Humanite. He stood in the extreme right wing of the party, his socialism being heavily tinged with pettybourgeois republicanism.
The background of the Millerand case was the famous Dreyfus affair. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French Army, was framed by military reactionaries for treason, convicted, and finally sent off to Devil's Island. Saturated with anti-Semitism, the case caused profound repercussions in France and throughout the world. In the face of the big uproar nationally and internationally over the outrageous affair, Dreyfus was eventually released and, in 1906, definitely cleared of the false charges.
At first, Guesde, true to his left sectarian conceptions, took the attitude that the Dreyfus affair was none of the concern of the proletariat and stood aside from it. Jaures and his right-wing group, the
IMPERIALISM AND MILLERAND 169
Independent Socialist Party, going to the other extreme, decided that the fate of French democracy was at stake, and in 1899 had their man, Millerand, without even consulting the party, accept a post in the Waldeck-Rousseau cabinet as Minister of Commerce. In the same cabinet also sat Gallifet, the butcher of the Communards. Immediately after Millerand's entry the government displayed its reactionary character by having its police shoot down striking workers in Martinique and at Chalons.
THE LEFT DEFEATED IN THE PARIS CONGRESS
The Millerand case occupied the center of attention at the 1900 congress of the Second International. The congress had just passed a resolution limiting the possibilities of coalition with the bourgeois parties. In the discussion, specifically around the Millerand case, three well-defined positions developed. The first, expressed in the Guesde resolution, condemned Millerand's action in principle, stating that the congress "allows the proletariat to take part in bourgeois governments only in the form of winning seats on its own strength and on the basis of the class struggle, and it forbids any participation whatever of Socialists in bourgeois governments, towards which Socialists must take up an attitude of unbending opposition." Guesde's position was strongly supported by Vaillant and Rosa Luxemburg, the latter stating: "In bourgeois society Social-Democracy, by its very nature, has to play the part of an opposition party; it can only come forward as the governing party on the ruins of the bourgeois state.''^^11^^
The second point of view, that of the extreme right, was presented by Jaures, with his customary eloquence. Like Guesde, Jaures also raised the matter as a question of principle, but from the opposite direction. He actively defended Socialist Party coalitions with bourgeois parties, and he specifically endorsed the individual action of Millerand in entering the French Cabinet. Jaures declared that by this action they had saved the Republic, and he pictured such a participation in capitalist governments as the beginning of the socialist revolution.
The third point of view---centrist---was presented by Kautsky. He wrote a resolution (known as the caoutchouc [rubber] resolution), which took the position that the question at issue was not one of principle but of tactics. And, he said: "The congress does not have to decide upon that." After thus leaving the door wide open for such
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opportunistic maneuvers as that of Millerand, the Kautsky resolution proceeded to criticize any Socialist who "becomes a minister independently of his party, or whenever he ceases to be the delegate of that party." In such a case he should resign.
While the left bitterly attacked the Kautsky resolution, the right wing, including Jaures, rallied behind it. It was finally passed by a vote of 29 to 9. Each country was entitled to two votes; Bulgaria and Ireland voted two each against the resolution, with France, Poland, Russia, Italy, and the United States* each casting one vote against it.^^12^^
This was a stinging defeat for the left. It cleared the way for further opportunist betrayers of the Millerand type. As Lenz remarks, "This was the first great defeat for the revolutionary wing of the International." One of the vital lessons of the historic struggle was the manifestation of the growing danger of centrism, as well as of rightism. Kautsky, who had been generally taking a position with the left against right opportunism, was directly responsible for the left defeat by his surrender in principle to the right wing, while at the same time making a shallow showing with radical phrases. This was a forecast of his sinister centrist role to come in later years. As for Millerand, he refused to resign from the cabinet, was expelled from the party, and for many years he served the capitalists as a betrayer of labor into the hands of their class enemies. He died in 1943, honored by the capitalist class and leaving a name which to the world's working class remains a symbol of treason to the labor movement.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MILITARISM AND WAR
Like all other congresses of the First and Second Internationals, the 1900 congress dealt with the growing danger of militarism and war. This increasing menace was a specific manifestation of the dawning period of imperialism. Rosa Luxemburg presented the main resolution on the question. Her resolution analyzed the capitalist origins of war and proposed three major steps to combat it. These were, the education and organization of the youth, Socialist members of parliament to vote against military credits, and united anti-war demonstrations to take place during international crises. The resolution was adopted unanimously.
As usual, a minority of delegates, mainly from the Latin coun-
* The S.L.P. voted against the Kawtsky resolution, the S.P. for it.
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tries, proposed the general strike as the main means to combat war. This proposal was rejected, with the German opportunist trade union leader, Karl Legien, making a speech against the general strike in principle. Aristide Briand of France, then a loud-mouthed phrasemonger and soon to be a renegade, led the fight for the policy of the anti-war general strike.
Except for the defeat suffered earlier on the question of Millerandism, due to Kautsky's treachery, left sentiment in the congress was dominant. This was shown on both the questions of militarism and colonialism. In the latter matter the congress took the position that the workers should actively combat the colonial policies of the imperialist states, and that socialist parties should be established in the colonial countries. Up to this time, the Second International had grossly neglected the situation of the colonial peoples; nor was the organization, in fact, ever to develop an effective program of struggle for and with the exploited peoples of the colonies.^^18^^
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST BUREAU
An important step taken by the 1900 congress was the establishment of the International Socialist Bureau (I.S.B.). For a decade, ever since its foundation in 1889, the Second International had gone along with no organized world center whatever. This was a basic weakness, and there was a continuous demand that this glaring political and organizational defect should be remedied. Finally, therefore, the I.S.B. was set up.^^14^^
The I.S.B. was located in Brussels, with a paid secretary and an annual budget of 10,000 francs. The Bureau was made up of two delegates of each national delegation to the congresses, or in all some 50 to 70 persons. It was to meet four times a year, and in the period between meetings the Bureau was to be managed by the Executive Committee of the Belgian Labor Party. The chairman was Vandervelde and the secretary, Camille Huysmans, both Belgians. With the establishment of the I.S.B., it was also laid down that only those organizations---parties, trade unions, cooperatives, etc.---that recognized the general principles of socialism, could affiliate to the International. Henceforth, the congresses, variously known in the past, would be called International Socialist congresses.
The I.S.B., although constituting a step ahead, still fell far short of the General Council of the First International. The latter was a
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real leading body, cultivating a true international spirit and action; whereas the new Bureau was still within the category primarily of a correspondence and statistical center. Although somewhat enlarged in later years, and acting as a sort of referee between the quarreling national parties, the functions of the I.S.B. remained very limited. The secretary was charged with the specific tasks of calling the congresses, publishing resolutions, reports and proceedings, collecting information, and the like. The Bureau was not a body to enforce the decisions of the congresses nor to interpret them. This was left to the voluntary action of the national parties and other affiliated bodies. The rock upon which the Second International finally came to disaster was that of national chauvinism. From the outset, internationalism was at a low level in its life, with the German and other decisive parties insisting upon virtual autonomy in working out their affairs. The failure of the International, for eleven years, to set up any world center at all, and then when it did establish a Bureau, its refusal to give this body normal leading powers, were both the consequence and a cultivation of the latent danger of bourgeois nationalism in the affiliated parties. The smash-up in 1914 was the ultimate result of this general trend.
19. Bernstein Revisionism:
Amsterdam
(1904)
The central question before the sixth congress of the Second International, in Amsterdam in 1904, was that of Bernstein revisionism. This system of opportunism, organically related to that of Millerand, was directly a product of the rise of imperialism in general and of German imperialism in particular. It was also the fruition of rightwing tendencies that had been developing ever since the foundation of the Second International.
Eduard Bernstein (1850-1933), a former bank clerk and son of a railroad engineer, was born in Germany. During the anti-Socialist law period he was an exile in England, a coworker with Engels and the editor of the journal, Sozialdemokrat. On the basis of characteristic features of the early imperialist period, Bernstein arrived at the conclusion that Marxism was all wrong. Among these features, signalized by Bernstein, were the rapid expansion and relative stability of the capitalist system, the widespread growth of great trusts, the minor increases in the real wages of the workers, particularly the skilled, the great expansion of working-class economic and political organizations, the winning by the workers of certain democratic rights, especially regarding the franchise, and the growth of the "new middle class" (intellectuals, technicians, etc.). On the basis of these developments, Bernstein, who formerly was closely under the influence of the British Fabians in London, developed the general idea that capitalism, instead of becoming obsolete and reactionary, was gradually evolving into socialism.
Going far beyond the earlier opportunism of Vollmar, while still pretending to be a Marxist (because of the broad popularity of Marxism among the German working class), Bernstein undertook to `` revise'' (i.e., to destroy) Marxism root and branch, in both theory and practice. He first made known his ideas officially in October 1898 in a letter to the convention of the German Social-Democratic Party in
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Hannover. In 1899 he wrote a book embodying his revisionist system entitled, Die Voraussetzungen des Sorialismus, translated into English as Evolutionary Socialism.
Bernstein challenged the Marxist theory of surplus value, repudiated the theories of the class struggle and of the materialist conception of history, denied the law of the concentration of capital, and averred that the middle class, instead of declining, was growing. He supported bourgeois patriotism, endorsed Millerandism, and gave his blessing to imperialism and colonialism. He especially attacked the Marxist theory of the relative and absolute impoverishment of the working class, interpreting the temporary small improvements in real wages during the boom period of German imperialism as positive and progressive gains. Ridiculing the term "dictatorship of the proletariat," Bernstein declared that a revolution was both unnecessary and impossible. He especially made use of the distorted article of Engels (see Chapter 16), in which the latter, because of his stressing the greater obstacles in later times against barricade fighting, was made to appear as if giving up all idea of an eventual revolution.
Bernstein presented a ``gradualist'' approach to "socialism," basically akin to that of the Fabians in Great Britain. He said: "A greater security for lasting success lies in a" steady advance than in the possibilities offered by a catastrophic crash.''^^1^^ He declared that for him the final aim of socialism meant nothing, the day-to-day movement everything. (Gompers was saying essentially the same thing). The rigid institutions of feudalism had to be destroyed by violence, as they were, but the "flexible institutions" of capitalism needed "only to be further developed." Denying the reality of the class struggle, Bernstein based his program upon class collaboration, stating that, "The right to vote in a democracy makes its members virtually partners in the community and this virtual partnership must in the end lead to real partnership.''^^2^^
Rosa Luxemburg, who assailed Bernstein, thus sums up his system: "According to the present conception of the party, trade union and parliamentary activity are important for the Socialist movement because such activity prepares the proletariat, that is to say, creates the subjective factor of the socialist transformation, for the task of realizing socialism. But according to Bernstein, trade-unions and parliamentary activity gradually reduce capitalist exploitation itself. They remove from capitalist society its capitalist character. They realize objectively the desired social change.''^^3^^
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175
Bernstein thus lays down the anti-Marxist program of right-wing Social-Democracy. It all sums up to an acceptance of capitalism, of trying to make the best of that system. His program remains that of opportunist socialism down to this day. What essentially have since been added to it have been successive injections of Ebert-Noske counter-revolution, of Hitlerite anti-Soviet hysteria, and of Keynesian conceptions of "progressive capitalism" through subsidizing industry.
THE FIGHT IN THE GERMAN PARTY
The Bernstein letter, which created a sensation, was placed on the agenda at the Stuttgart national convention of the German party in 1898, and after a hot three-days' debate, it was rejected. Bernstein's line was also defeated at the Hannover convention of 1899, but it suffered its biggest set-back at the national party convention in Dresden in 1903, when it was voted down by 288 to 11. Bebel and Kautsky, and especially Bebel, actively led the struggle against Bernstein. Although themselves slipping gradually into a centrist line, they were not prepared to accept the complete surrender of socialism implicit in the Bernstein program. Kautsky condemned Bernstein revisionism as "an abandonment of the fundamental principles and conceptions of scientific socialism," and upon this basis the fight was made.
Especially outstanding in this fight against Bernsteinism was Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919), the young leader of the German left wing. She was born in Poland, and from 1883 was active in the Socialist Party of that country. After 1897 she turned her main attention to the German Social-Democratic Party. She declared that Bernstein's theory meant to "renounce the social transformation, the final goal of the Social-Democracy and inversely, to make of social reforms, the means of the class struggle, its aim. . . . What Bernstein questions is not the rapidity of the development of capitalist society, but the march of the development itself, and consequently, the very possibility of a change to socialism.''^^4^^ She made a brilliant refutation of Bernstein's whole line, showing the fundamental incompatibility of opportunism with Marxism.
Bernstein revisionism came to a climax at this Dresden convention of 1903 as a direct result of the important successes of the German Social-Democracy in the elections of that year. "Compared with 1898, its votes had increased from a.i million to 3 million, its percentage of the total poll from 18.4 to 24, and the number of its seats from 32
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to 55-"^^5^^ On the basis of this increased strength, the right wing felt that the time had come to insist upon participation in the government, on the Millerand model---in this case to secure the post of vicepresident of the Reichstag. Vollmar and a large section of the Reichstag fraction supported Bernstein's demand to this effect.
Under the existing circumstances, this step would put the party into collaboration with the bourgeoisie and its government, which was precisely what the revisionists wanted. The convention, therefore, overwhelmingly rejected the Bernstein proposals and in a strong resolution condemned working-class participation in capitalist governments. In the discussion Kautsky half-heartedly agreed that he had made an error in the 1900 congress of the International by soft-- pedalling the Millerand treachery. Although' defeated at the convention, Bernsteinism dovetailed with the opportunism being developed by the trade union leaders, and the junction of these two tendencies was to wreak havoc with the German party and the whole International.
THE INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE AGAINST REVISIONISM
The fight over Bernstein revisionism quickly spread throughout the International, practically every important party being involved in it to a greater or lesser degree. Especially urgent became the specific question of Socialist participation in capitalist governments. Undoubtedly, the employers in Europe, seeing the rise of the Socialist movement, realized that a potent way to undermine and weaken it was by drawing its leaders into the respective governmental cabinets, where they could be controlled and corrupted.
Millerand was but the first of a whole flock of traitors in this general respect. Undoubtedly, the employers were behind Bernstein's attempt to get the German Social-Democracy organically tied up with the Kaiser's government. It was in this general period, 1905-06, that John Burns, prominent labor leader and erstwhile member of the Social-Democratic Federation in England, was made a member of the Cabinet of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and Aristide Briand and Rene' Viviani, French socialists, were sucked into the Cabinets of the Serrian and Clemenceau governments. All three of these renegades, in the governments, faithfully served the employers in misleading the workers. Briand and Viviani eventually became premiers of France. Before long, they were to be followed into capitalist governments by many other right-wing traitors to the working class.
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177
The struggle against Bernsteinism internationally was made by the broad left, which included many of a centrist trend. In the various countries this fight was typified by the following outstanding figures: In Germany, Bebel, Kautsky, and Luxemburg against Bernstein, Legien, and Vollmar; in France, Guesde against Jaures; in Russia, Plekhanov and Lenin against Martov; in England, Hyndman against Henderson and MacDonald; in the United States, De Leon, Hillquit, and Debs against Berger, Untermann, and Gompers. The fight also went on in all other countries that had substantial Socialist and trade union movements.
One of the great weaknesses of the broad left in this key struggle was to make a fetish of party unity---not to realize that unity with the Bernsteinites was a source of weakness rather than of strength for the parties. Above all, Lenin understood this danger; it was during this general struggle in 1903 that the Russian Bolsheviks split from the Mensheviks. Rosa Luxemburg also sensed the danger, and at the Dresden convention of the German party she proposed to expel all those who voted for Bernstein's proposal, but Bebel and Kautsky did not support her. Plekhanov, who was still a Marxist, also favored the expulsion of Bernstein.^^6^^
Generally, the right wing, particularly in the key parties of Germany and Austria, maneuvered against a split. They even voted for motions condemning their position, seeking by the most unprincipled devices to avoid a head-on collision with the powerful left. At any price, they wanted to keep within the mass parties. In the United States, in 1901, the Socialist Party, headed by Debs, Hillquit, and Berger, had been organized in a breakaway from the sectarian Socialist Labor Party, led by De Leon, but the left in the Socialist Party was still much too immature to make a real stand against the blatant Bernsteinites, whose chief spokesman was Victor Berger.
WHITE CHAUVINISM IN THE AMERICAN SOCIALIST PARTY
One of the worst forms of opportunism in the Second International was white chauvinism, such as expressed in the American Socialist Party towards the Negro people. For many decades the Negro masses, after being freed from chattel slavery by the Civil War of 1861-65, were subjected to the most barbarous persecution. They were denied the rights of education, to work in industry, to vote as citizens, to serve in
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the armed forces, to enjoy the common rights of travelers in hotels, railroad cars, etc. And almost weekly the world was shocked by barbarous lynchings in which Negroes were whipped, shot, hanged, or burned to death.
But the Socialist Party calmly ignored this whole dreadful situation. It did not demand the abolition of lynching and the Jim Crow system. Kipnis, commenting upon this criminal lethargy, says: "There is no record that the party ever actively opposed discrimination against Negroes from 1901 to 1912" (the period of his study).^^7^^ Indeed, the party press reeked'with white chauvinist slanders of the Negro people, in which such outstanding Bernsteinites as Berger and Untermann were the most notorious offenders. The party itself even theorized its indifference towards the tragic position of the Negro people by declaring repeatedly that, being the party of the working class as a whole, it could not raise special demands for specific groups in the population. The only relief the party held out to the outraged, exploited, and murderously oppressed Negro people was that some day socialism would be established and they would then be freed.
In 1903, prior to the Amsterdam congress, the International Socialist Bureau, stirred by shocking stories of Negro persecution in the United States, wrote to the American Socialist Party as to its stand regarding lynching. This letter brought forth the following shameless white chauvinist reply: "The Socialist Party points out the fact that nothing less than the abolition of the capitalist system and the substitution of the socialist system can provide conditions under which the hunger maniacs, kleptomaniacs, sexual maniacs, and all other offensive and now lynchable human degenerates will cease to be begotten or produced.''^^8^^ This shameless justification of lynching apparently did not shock the I.S.B., for nothing further was heard of the matter.
THE LEFT CARRIES THE AMSTERDAM CONGRESS
A very important question before the congress in Amsterdam was the newly-begun Russo-Japanese war. This was the first large-scale war of the imperialist period. The two Socialist parties most concerned---the Russian and the Japanese---took a sound revolutionary position, strongly opposing the war. The dramatic high point of the congress came when Plekhanov of Russia shook hands warmly with Sen Katayama of Japan and they both pledged the solidarity of their
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respective parties in a common struggle against the war.^^9^^ As usual, however, the resolution for a general strike in case of war was voted down by the congress. The recent general strikes in Belgium 1902, Sweden 1902, and Holland 1903, were sharply raising this question throughout the International.
The major attention of the Amsterdam congress was directed towards the burning question of Bernsteinism. The heated discussion took up most of the sessions. The German party led the fight. As Lenz says, it "appeared at the Amsterdam congress as the guardian of the Marxist line in opposition to revisionism.''^^10^^ The fight against revisionism was led by Bebel, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin, Luxemburg, Guesde, and De Leon. Jaures, aided by Vandervelde, Auer, and others, conducted the fight for the right wing.
The final battle turned around the adoption of what was substantially the resolution of the Dresden congress of the German SocialDemocracy in 1903 on the question, which was re-introduced by the Guesdists. This resolution sharply condemned revisionism and ministerialism, and militantly endorsed a class struggle policy. The Jauresist following would have been satisfied with a re-endorsement of the Kautsky "rubber resolution" of 1900. Adler and Vandervelde undertook to come to the rescue of the revisionists with a weasel-worded resolution which, while making a play of class struggle phraseology, specifically failed to condemn revisionism as such. De Leon also introduced a resolution, rejecting outright the Kautsky resolution of four years earlier.
In the congress balloting De Leon's resolution got only his own vote. But the Adler-Vandervelde resolution almost carried; the vote for it was 21 to si, but it failed of passage because of the tie vote rule. The Dresden-Amsterdam resolution carried by a vote of 25 to 5, with 6 parties, holding 12 votes, abstaining. The countries voting against were Australia 2, England i, France i, Norway i. The abstainers were Argentina 2, Belgium 2, Denmark 2, Holland a, Switzerland 2, Sweden 2. The text of the resolution reads as follows:
THE DRESDEN-AMSTERDAM RESOLUTION
``The congress repudiates to the fullest extent possible the efforts of the revisionists who have for their object the modification of our tried and victorious policy based on the class war, and the substitution, for the conquest of political power by an unceasing attack on the
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bourgeoisie, of a policy of concession to the established order of society.
``The consequence of such revisionist tactics would be to turn a party striving for the most speedy transformation possible of bourgeois society into socialist society---a party therefore revolutionary in the best sense of the word---into a party satisfied with the reform of bourgeois society.
``For this reason the congress, convinced, in opposition to the revisionist tendencies, that class antagonisms, far from diminishing, continually increase in bitterness, declares:
``i. That the party rejects all responsibility of any sort under the political and economic conditions based on capitalist production, and therefore can in no wise countenance any measure tending to maintain in power the dominant class.
``2. The Social-Democracy can strive for no participation in the government under bourgeois society, this decision being in accordance with the Kautsky resolution passed at the International Congress of Paris in 1900.
``The congress further repudiates every attempt to blur the evergrowing class antagonisms, in order to bring about an understanding with bourgeois parties.
``The congress relies upon the Socialist parliamentary groups to use their power, increased by the number of their members and by the great accession of electors who support them, to persevere in their propaganda toward the final object of socialism, and, in conformity with our program, to defend most resolutely the interests of the working class, the extension and consolidation of political liberties, in order to obtain equal rights for all; to carry on more vigorously than ever the fight against militarism, against the colonial and imperialist policy, against injustice, oppression and exploitation of every kind; and finally to exert itself energetically to perfect social legislation and to bring about the realization of the political and civilizing mission of the working class.''^^11^^
The combined left and center won the victory at the congress, but obviously the right wing was not decisively beaten. The strength of the revisionists was shown in full in the vote on the sneaky right-wing Adler-Vandervelde resolution, which so narrowly escaped passage. The large number of abstentions on the main resolution was a further manifestation of opportunist strength. The International was yet to hear much from the Bernstein revisionists, to its own ultimate disaster.
20. Lenin: The Party of a New Type
By the turn of the century the historic trend of the Second International was definitely away from Marxism and towards right opportunism. The major parties comprised in the International were increasingly falling victim to petty-bourgeois illusions bred by the ``prosperity'' of the upswing period of imperialism in their respective countries. True, the right wing was defeated in the Amsterdam congress of 1904 and during the next few years it was also to suffer many other formal defeats, especially in the German party, the eventual stronghold of revisionism. Yet the right wing generally tended to become stronger and, with its revisionist program, to get more and more intrenched in the leadership of the several Socialist parties. Moreover, the developing and vacillating center group was proving steadily less capable of resisting the advancing right and was tending constantly to surrender to it. As for the weak left wing in most of Europe, it was generally confused, immature, and quite unable to overcome the process of political degeneration that was gradually engulfing the International.
Powerful opposition from the left nevertheless was developing against the stifling revisionism of the Second International, and by 1904 it was already well marked. Its center was in Russia, an industrially backward country that had hitherto played only a small role in the International, and its leader was Lenin, who was generally but little known at that time in world labor circles. The Russian SocialDemocratic Workers Party could and did come forth as the leading Marxist, anti-revisionist force in the Second International. This occurred basically because, whereas in the western capitalist countries the socialist revolution seemed vague and far off, in Russia, as the follow-up of the impending bourgeois revolution, it was obviously knocking at the door and imperatively demanding basic attention. The new revolutionary program, developed chiefly by Lenin,
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Bolshevism, or as it came to be later known, Marxism-Leninism.
``Leninism," says Stalin, "is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and the proletarian revolution.''^^1^^ Marxism-Leninism was the product of developing world imperialism and the Russian Revolution. Its natural point of origin was tsarist Russia, where the contradictions of imperialism were the sharpest, and where the proletarian revolution was rapidly brewing. The great significance of Lenin is that, with his brilliant intellect and indomitable revolutionary spirit, he was able to interpret theoretically the basic economic and political currents of the imperialist period and to translate them into successful revolutionary action.
LENIN AND HIS WORK
Lenin (1870-1924) was born on April 10, 1870, in Simbirsk, Russia. His father, by birth a peasant, had become a school teacher, and his mother was also of modest origin. His older brother Alexander, one of the most active organizers of Narodnaya Volya (People's Will), a terrorist organization, was hanged by the tsar's government in 1887. The same year Lenin entered the Kazan university, the universities in St. Petersburg and Moscow being barred against him as the brother of an executed revolutionary. He at once became active in the university's revolutionary student movement and got expelled one month after his entry. He finally managed, however, chiefly on the basis of self-study, to get a degree in law from St. Petersburg, but he never practiced the profession. He participated vigorously in the workers' revolutionary movement, for which in 1897 he was banished to Siberia for three years. Thereafter, except for a short while during the time of the revolution of 1905, he lived abroad until early in 1917.
Like Marx and Engels, Lenin was a man both of theory and action. Not only did he resurrect the main theories of Marx, which the revisionists thought they had safely buried forever, but he also developed Marxism further to embrace the many problems generated by the period of imperialism in all countries. All his adult life Lenin was an active participant in the concrete struggles of the workers. The synthesis of his immense theoretical and practical work was his triumphant leadership of the workers and peasants in the great Russian Revolution of November 1917.
Lenin, who collided with the revisionists on all major points, especially attacked their fundamentally wrong analysis of imperialism.
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The revisionists saw in the phenomena of expanding imperialism the softening of class antagonisms, the necessity of class collaboration, the transformation of the state into an organism standing apart from classes, the increase of capitalist stability, the development of " organized capitalism," and generally the ending of the period of revolution and the opening up of opportunities for the workers to make a gradual and peaceful advance to socialism. They considered the works of Marx and Engels obsolete, as applying only to the earlier, competitive state of capitalism. Lenin, on the other hand, saw in imperialism the intensification of class and national antagonisms, the beginning of the decline of capitalism, the opening of a new era of great wars and revolutions. He defended the writings of Marx and Engels as having full validity in this period, and he made them the basis of all his further analysis and revolutionary activity.
THE BUILDING OF A REVOLUTIONARY PROGRAM
On this basis Lenin, in practice and in his many great writings, proceeded to reestablish the whole body of Marxian theory, which the revisionist heads of the Second International had long since discarded. As against the revisionist acceptance of bourgeois democracy and of the bourgeois state, Lenin demonstrated with crushing force that the capitalist state was an organ of the capitalist class for the repression of the working class, and that the workers, in order to emancipate themselves, would have to destroy it and to construct a new regime. He further demonstrated in theory, as well as by the practice of the Paris Commune, and finally by the Russian Revolution itself, that the form of social organization the victorious workers would set up after the abolition of capitalism would be none other than the dictatorship of the proletariat, so brilliantly foreseen by Marx and Engels.
On the solid foundation of Marxist principles, Lenin also widely developed proletarian revolutionary strategy and tactics for the period of imperialism, and he directly cultivated the Marxist forces in many countries. Among the basic propositions worked out by him were: the leading role of the proletariat in all present-day revolutions, bourgeois or socialist; the alliance between the workers and the peasantry, and between the workers in the imperialist countries and the peoples in the colonial lands; the class differentiation in the villages; the question of self-determination for oppressed peoples; the relationship between immediate demands and the fight for socialism; the role of
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the trade unions and their relationship to the party; the law and techniques of proletarian insurrection; the general structure upon which socialism will be built; the possibility of the establishment of socialism in one country; the growing over of the bourgeois revolution into the proletarian revolution, and many more. All this was in fundamental contrast to the current right-wing policies of tailing the working class after the bourgeoisie, casting off the peasantry as a reactionary mass, having contempt for self-determination and the struggles of the colonial peoples, concentrating solely upon immediate demands, and their general failure to consider or to fight for socialism.
One of Lenin's greatest accomplishments was to theorize and construct the Communist Party itself, without which all talk of working class emancipation and socialism would be vain chatter. In opposition to the bourgeois conceptions of the right wing for an amorphous party, without a real program, including all sorts of trimmers and opportunists and bereft of discipline, Lenin built a party on the basis of the principles laid down by Marx and Engels; that is, as the vanguard of the proletariat. Lenin's is a party of revolutionists, based on the working class and its allies, made up of the best fighters and most devoted workers in the labor movement, the various people's organizations, cooperatives, etc., self-critkal, and with a highly developed Marxist ideology---a party which in every respect: on the battlefields, in the workshops, on the farms, in the colleges, and in the legislative halls, truly stands at the head of the working class and the whole nation. The Communist Party, as conceived and forged by the great Lenin, is the most highly developed type of political organization ever produced by humankind, an indispensability for achieving socialism.
With his great political and organizational program, Lenin laid down the science of revolutionary struggle for the period of imperialism, and he therewith provided the theoretical basis for the later revolutions in Russia, China, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany, Rumania, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Esthonia, IndoChina, Korea, and many others that are still to come. By the time of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1905, Lenin had already worked out most of the main essentials of his revolutionary program, which constituted the basic challenge to the revisionism that was becoming increasingly dominant in the Second International.
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EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE PARTY IN RUSSIA
The first organized Marxist force in Russia was the Emancipation of Labor group, formed in 1883 by G. V. Plekhanov, together with Martov, Paul Axelrod, Vera Zasulich, and Leo Deutsch.^^2^^ Plekhanov (1856-1918), was formerly a Narodnik, or Populist, but became a Marxist, and in his early years he was one of the most brilliant Marxist theorists in the whole Second International. His eventual general orientation, however, was away from Marxism, through centrism to revisionism. Lenin, arriving in St. Petersburg in 1893, became active in the Marxist ranks, organizing there the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Lenin's group took a militant part in the growing strike movement and in further clarifying the line of the Russian Marxists, thus preparing the way for the foundation of a national Marxist political organization.
As a Marxist party must, the Party in tsarist Russia grew in struggle, not only against the employers and the reactionary landlords, but also against the various alien political tendencies arising among the working class and its allies. The first ideological enemy that it had to overcome was Narodism (Populism). The Narodniks, while vaguely advancing a socialist perspective, "erroneously held that the principal revolutionary force was not the working class, but the peasantry, and that the rule of the tsars and the landlords could be overthrown by peasant revolts alone.''^^3^^ The Narodniks belittled the future development of capitalism and the proletariat in Russia.
Plekhanov, and later Lenin, waged a brilliant polemic against the petty-bourgeois Narodniks. They pointed out the rapid capitalist development that was already taking place in Russia and they demonstrated the factors making for its continued growth. They proved the proletariat to be the leading revolutionary class and argued for a program of organized political action on the basis of the working class. They condemned the Narodniks' (People's Will group) advocacy of individual terrorism. The general result of this historic ideological warfare was to establish the hegemony of Marxism in the ranks of the working class. The Narodniks, however, retained their strength among the peasantry, and later, as Socialist-Revolutionaries, they were to play a very important part in the oncoming revolutions.
After the arrest of Lenin and in the midst of the developing trade union struggle, specifically in 1899, a new deviating group appeared in the ranks of Russian workers. These were the so-called Economists.
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``They declared that the workers should be called upon to wage only an economic struggle against their employers; as for the political struggle, that was the affair of the liberal bourgeoisie, to whom the leadership of the political struggle was left. . . . They were the first group of compromisers and opportunists within the ranks of the Marxist organizations in Russia.''^^4^^ Lenin identified this opportunist group with the Bernstein revisionists, and after his return in 1900 from Siberia, with sledge-hammer blows, he routed it. During this historic controversy Lenin, in his book, What Is To Be Done? composed the most profound analysis of trade unionism ever written.
Still another major deviation within Russian Marxist ranks in these crucial, formative years, was that of the "legal Marxists," led by Peter Struve and others. This group "cut out the very core of Marxism, namely, the doctrine of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat." They strove "to subordinate and adapt the working class movement to the interests of bourgeois society, to the interests of the bourgeoisie.''^^5^^ Relentlessly, Lenin tore into this petty-bourgeois tendency and broke up its following, such as it was, among the workers. The "legal Marxists," what was left of them, eventually went over outright to the Octobrists and Constitutional Democrats, the main parties of the capitalists in the 1917 Revolution.
During these intense and profound ideological struggles Lenin quickly came forward as the main spokesman of Russian Marxism, early outstripping the former leader, Plekhanov. It was then, too, that Lenin wrote several of his famous books and pamphlets, laying the foundations of communism in Russia, including, Development of Capitalism in Russia, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight Against the Social Democrats, What Is To Be Done? and The Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats.
The first attempt to establish the party on a national scale took place in 1898 while Lenin was in Siberian exile. Nine Marxists met in Minsk in March of that, year and set up the Russian Social-- Democratic Labor Party at an underground convention. In the face of the existing tsarist terrorism, however, the effort did not prosper. Immediately after the convention the Central Committee members were all arrested. The new organization, with no concrete program or constitution and with but few members, did not succeed in establishing definite bonds among the widely scattered Marxist groups. The party did not actually get established until five years later.
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THE BIRTH OF BOLSHEVISM: LONDON, 1903
The London convention which founded the party, met in the midst of a rising wave of mass struggle in Russia. There was an industrial crisis which largely crippled the industries between 1901-3, and there were big strikes in many parts of the country. These strikes, constantly becoming broader and more revolutionary in tone, were met with brutal violence from the tsar's government. During 1902 the movement spread to the peasants and they set fire to the landlords' mansions and seized their lands. Students also became involved, and militant demonstrations took place in many universities. Russia was building up to the Revolution of 1905.
Lenin laid solid preparations for the construction of the party in London. He led in the establishment of the journal, Iskra; he published his famous book, What Is To Be Done?, and he led a broad educational campaign among the various Marxist groups. Already in this preliminary work, Lenin gave a clear picture of the disciplined, vanguard party that was to be built.
The congress opened on July 30, 1903, in Brussels; but owing to police persecution it had to be moved to London. There were 43 delegates, representing 26 organizations. The Iskra-ists had some 24 solid supporters. Lenin, Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod, Zasulich, and Trotsky were present. Stalin was not there, being in Siberian exile. The opposition opposed the introduction into the program of the dictatorship of the proletariat---which no other party in the Second International specifically endorsed. They also opposed including the right of selfdetermination and the formulation of demands for the peasantry. The program had both minimum (immediate) and maximum (ultimate) demands. Lenin, with the cooperation of Plekhanov, beat back the opposition, and the revolutionary Iskra program was adopted.
The central fight took place over the party constitution. Around this organizational question the two opposing political currents in the convention took shape. Lenin's plan (supported then by Plekhanov) provided that one "could be a member of the party who accepted its program, supported it financially, and belonged to one of its basic organizations"^^6^^; whereas Martov, supported among others by Trotsky, wanted a broad, amorphous organization. To be a member all one needed was to accept the program and support the party financiallyactual membership and activity not being necessary. The difference
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was that Lenin wanted a fighting revolutionary party, a strong vanguard party; whereas the opposition strove for a loose, undisciplined organization, on the opportunist Social-Democratic model of the West. Lenin could not make his conception fully prevail at the congress, but when it came to the election of a Central Committee and editors for the Iskra, Lenin's group prevailed. It was in this vote in the elections that the two factions acquired their historic names of Bolsheviks (majority) and Mensheviks (minority). After the convention the factional fight became intense, and by January 1905 the party was split, each group having its own central body and press. During this struggle Lenin produced his famous book on party program and organization, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. He led the Bolsheviks; while Martov, with increasing help from Plekhanov and Trotsky, led the Mensheviks.
THE INTERNATIONAL INTERVENES
In line with the decision of the Second International at Amsterdam in 1904, that only one party from each country could be affiliated, the International Socialist Bureau intervened in the Russian Party split, with the avowed aim of establishing unity. In February 1905 a proposition was adopted in the I.S.B. to set up an arbitration committee headed by Bebel, to consider the Russian situation. This amounted to letting the German party settle the Russian factional fight. The Mensheviks accepted the proposal and nominated Kautsky and Clara Zetkin as their representatives. Lenin, however, refused to agree, stating that the issue was a matter of principle and therefore a question for a .party congress rather than for an "arbitration committee" to dispose of.
This whole incident was important chiefly as showing how little Lenin's position was understood or accepted by the ``lefts''---Bebel, Kautsky, and others---in the International at this time. In Die Neue Zeit, the chief weekly of the German Social-Democracy, Rosa Luxemburg wrote unsympathetically of Lenin's group<, and Kautsky, the editor of the paper, refused to publish Lenin's side of the controversy. Protesting against such treatment, Lenin declared that Luxemburg's article "extolled disorganization and treachery" and condemned Kautsky's action as "an attempt to muffle our voice in the German SocialDemocratic press by such an unheard-of, rude and mechanical device as the boycott of the pamphlet.''^^7^^ "Kautsky declared that if he had
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been present at the Second congress [London, 1903] he would have voted for Martov, against Lenin.''^^8^^ The development of the revolution in Russia brought the futile party unity negotiations to an end. The International had no inkling of the tremendous political significance of the crystallization of the Bolshevik movement in Russia. Lenin's party of the new type meant the shaping of a strong turn, away from the opportunist-infected parties of the West which were increasingly forgetting the principles and perspectives of Marx, and toward the beginning of a truly revolutionary party, based firmly upon the elementary principles laid down in The Communist Manifesto. This was, in fact, the seed corn of a new and better International, which the revolutionary course of events eventually was to bring to fruition. The victory of Lenin's group in Russian Marxist circles was, with the years, to have profound effects not only within the Second International, but throughout the entire world.
21. The Russian Revolution of 1905
The Russo-Japanese war (1904-05) was an imperialist clash between two great rival powers striving to dismember and to occupy the northern areas of China (Manchuria). Anticipating the Pearl Harbor pattern, Japan struck first, without declaring war, inflicting crippling damage upon the Russian fleet at Port Arthur on February 8, 1904. This was the first o£ a series of naval and military disasters for Tsar Nicholas II's forces. Incompetent, corrupt, arrogant, the Russian high command suffered one blow after another.
Port Arthur was lost in December 1904; a crushing defeat was suffered at Mukden in February 1905, where of 300,000 Russian troops, 120,000 were killed, wounded or missing; in May 1905, the Russian fleet was wiped out at the battle of Tsushima; and on August 23, 1905, under the chairmanship of President Theodore Roosevelt, the peace treaty was signed in Portsmouth, N. H., stripping Russia of Port Arthur, Southern Sakhalin, its Korean sphere of influence, and the whole of Southern Manchuria. It was a disastrous defeat for Russian imperialism.
THE RISING REVOLUTIONARY WAVE
From the outset, the Russian workers had no taste for this reactionary, imperialist war. They were already in a revolutionary mood, which was greatly accentuated by the brutal slaughter of the war and by the criminal actions of the tsar's government and field officers, who sent half-starved, half-armed troops in to be butchered ruthlessly. The bitter tragedy of the war added to overflowing to the cup of misery of the oppressed people, and they replied with the great revolution of 1905.l This began even while the war was going on. It was the first example of transforming an imperialist war into a people's revolution.
The historic movement started with a series of strikes. These were headed mainly, but not exclusively by the Bolshevik wing of the party. In December of 1904 a big Bolshevik-led strike of oil workers devel-
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oped in Baku. It resulted in a victory and a collective agreement for the workers, something unheard of previously in Russia. "The Baku strike," says Stalin, "was the signal for the glorious actions in January and February all over Russia." Many other strikes developed, chief among them the January strike in the biggest metal works of St. Petersburg, the Putilov shops---a party stronghold. The strike quickly spread all over the city.
There one of the most tragic events in Russian labor history took place, the "Bloody Sunday" massacre before the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg on January 9, 1905. The peaceful demonstration of 140,000 persons was led by the priest Gapon, who had secret police connections. The Bolsheviks warned the workers that the tsar's officers would order the troops to fire upon them, but nevertheless the demonstration went ahead. The masses' petition demanded "amnesty, civic liberty, normal wages, the land to be gradually transferred to the people, convocation of a constituent assembly on the basis of universal and equal suffrage.''^^2^^ As the party had warned, the tsar turned his guns against the unarmed masses, with the result that more than 1,000 were killed and 2,000 wounded in a horrible butchery.
The tsar hoped by this frightfulness to crush the general strike in St. Petersburg and also to terrorize the workers all over Russia. But it had just the reverse effect. A great cry of outrage went up from the Russian masses, in fact from labor all over the world. The revolutionary movement, instead of being extinguished, blazed up with vastly greater vigor. Strikes broke out in many parts of the country. During January 440,000 workers struck, or more than in the previous ten years. The revolution had begun.
During the next several months, as the war against Japan still went on, the strike movement spread into all the industrial centers. Lenin says that in this revolutionary year there were some 2,800,000 strikers, or twice the total number of workers. In Lodz, Poland, the workers built barricades in the streets and fought off the troops. And in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, an important textile center, the workers, in a long, fiercely fought strike, set up a Council of Representatives, "which was actually one of the first Spviets of Workers' Deputies in Russia.''^^3^^
The revolutionary movement also spread to the peasantry. Lenin states thit during the Autumn of 1905, "the peasants burned down no less than 2,000 estates and distributed among themselves the provisions that the predatory nobility had robbed from the people.''^^4^^ Among various of the oppressed nationalities revolutionary sentiment also flared
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up. Students tore up the tsar's pictures and the Russian schoolbooks, and they shouted to the government officials, "Go back to Russia." Polish pupils demanded a Soviet. Sensational was the revolt of the battleship Prince Potemkin, in the Black Sea in June. The other warships of the fleet refused to fire upon the rebellious crew. Finally, however, running out of coal and provisions, the Potemkin had to steam to Rumania and surrender there.
Frightened at the growing revolution, the tsar, on August 19, `` conceded'' a "Duma of the Empire" to the Russian people. Based on a crassly unjust system of class voting, this was to be a sort of "advisory parliament," and its political purpose was to divert the rising revolutionary current into harmless parliamentary channels. It was the time-honored Bismarckian device of ruling classes, who, finding themselves unable to rule solely by violence, also made use of pseudo political concessions.
TWO TACTICS: MENSHEVIK AND BOLSHEVIK
The Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party grew rapidly in the great mass upheaval. "The hundreds of revolutionary Social-- Democrats," said Lenin, "suddenly grew into thousands." But the party was split, not formally but actually, into Menshevik and Bolshevik sections. In order to secure some degree of united action, the Bolsheviks tried to bring the Mensheviks into the party convention in London in April 1905; but the latter refused, and instead held their own convention, in Geneva. As a result, two conflicting political lines were developed; the disputes between the two groups over ``organizational'' questions emerged, as Lenin well understood beforehand, as sharply varying political programs of action.^^5^^
The Mensheviks understood the current struggle in Russia to be simply a bourgeois revolution of the old style. Therefore, according to them, the bourgeoisie had to lead it. The role of the working class was to support the bourgeoisie in overthrowing tsarist absolutism, but in so doing it must not engage in revolutionary activities on its own account, as this would frighten the bourgeoisie into the arms of feudal ultra-reaction. The peasantry they wrote off as non-revolutionary, a viewpoint shared by Trotsky. Plekhanov said that, "apart from the bourgeoisie and the proletariat we perceive no social forcef in our country in which oppositional or .revolutionary combinations might find support.''^^6^^ The Menshevik perspective after victory was for a long developmental period of Russian capitalism, with the prospect
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of socialism being shoved away off into the dim future---presumably to await some distant time when the workers would quietly vote themselves into power.
The Bolsheviks also understood the developing revolution to be bourgeois in character; but at this point their agreement with the Mensheviks ceased. The proceedings of the London convention of the party and also Lenin's great book, Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution^ written shortly after the convention, attacked the Menshevik position at all decisive points and developed a basically different analysis and program. Lenin made it clear that the bourgeoisie could not and would not firmly lead the revolution; afraid of the working class, it would tend to compromise with tsarism, as it did. Therefore, the working class must lead. Lenin also saw in the peasantry a powerful revolutionary ally, as it was, which would march under the general leadership of the proletariat.
Lenin envisioned a fundamentally different revolutionary perspective---not the establishment of a classical type bourgeois government and then a decades-long, indefinite period before socialism would be introduced, such as was previously the widespread Social-Democratic belief, but the immediate setting up of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. This, although still within the framework of capitalism, would have the objective of a relatively rapid transition to a socialist regime. Said Lenin: "From the democratic revolution we shall at once, and according to the degree of our strength, the strength of the class-conscious and organized proletariat, begin to pass over to the socialist revoution. We stand for continuous revolution. We shall not stop half way.''^^7^^
Contrary to the Mensheviks, Lenin understood clearly that the revolution could be victorious only through armed struggle. This was the sole effective answer that the workers and peasants could make to brutal tsarist autocrats who had replied with "Bloody Sunday" to the peaceful demands of the people. The pacifist illusions of the Mensheviks in this respect were high-lighted by Plekhanov's revealing and treacherous remark after the defeat of the December uprising: "They should not have taken up arms.''
Lenin's general revolutionary line, based fundamentally upon principles laid down long before by Marx, represented in the conditions of modern imperialism a new program. It was basically opposed to the general theories and policies prevalent throughout the Second International, of which the Russian Menshevik program was typically repre-
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sentative. Lenin's was the broad revolutionary path along which the Russian workers and peasants, in November 1917, were to march to victory over the ruins of tsarism and capitalism, and which Was to open new perspectives to the workers of the whole world.
THE HIGH TIDE OF THE REVOLUTION AND REACTION
During the Fall of 1905 the revolution took on great impetus. In October a general strike of railroad workers swept the country. This strike was joined by hosts of workers in other industries, also by government employees, students, and intellectuals. About 1,500,000 workers struck. In the center of the strikes was the demand for the eighthour day. Peasant uprisings multiplied in large sections of the country, national revolts began to take shape, and scattered mutinies occurred in the army and navy. The Bolshevik slogan of the political mass strike had come into reality. Crook calls it "the greatest political mass strike that the world had known.''^^8^^ Soviets of workers' deputies, in many instances including peasants, sprang up in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and many other, cities and towns.
On October 17, the tsar issued another manifesto to the people, this time promising them political reforms and a ``legislative'' Duma. The Bolsheviks had boycotted his first ``consultative'' Duma proposal. They also boycotted this second one.* The Mensheviks, on the other hand, who did not want to overthrow tsarism by uprising but "to reform and improve it," fell right into line with the Duma plans of the tsar. "The Mensheviks sank into the morass of compromise and became vehicles of the bourgeois influence on the working class, virtual agents of the bourgeoisie within the working class.''^^9^^
The climax of the Revolution was the December 1905 uprising in Moscow. Lenin had returned to Russia in November, remaining in hiding from the tsar's police. The party issued a call for an armed uprising. The political strike had grown into insurrection. The call met with wide support among the masses, but with determined opposition from the Mensheviks and other opportunists. Trotsky, Parvus,** and others, leading the St. Petersburg Soviet, the most important of all, kept that body from responding to the call for armed struggle. On
* Lenin later called this second boycott a mistake, as .the revolution by then was on the downgrade---the first boycott being justified by the fact that the revolutionary wave was then rising.
** He became a German agent in World War I.
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December 20, the insurrection began in Moscow. Barricades quickly spread over the city, and for nine days an heroic but losing struggle was conducted in the face of the tsar's overwhelming armed forces. There were uprisings also in Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Novorossisk, Sormovo, Sevastopol, and Kronstadt, but they were all crushed.
During 1906 and 1907 the strike wave continued, but on a diminishing scale; the crest of the Revolution had passed. On June 3, 1907, the tsar dissolved the Duma, and the reaction under Premier Stolypin formally set in. What was left of the freedom won in 1905 was ruthlessly abolished. But the Russian working class soon recovered from its defeat. Despite severe terrorism and repression, already by 1912 the workers were again on the advance with broad strikes and political struggles. But this time they were developing a cumulative strength that was able to carry them through to ultimate victory.
There were various elementary reasons why the Revolution of 1905 failed.^^10^^ Among them were the lack of a stable alliance between the workers and the peasants, the disinclination of,a large section of the peasants to fight for the overthrow of tsardom, and the help received by the tsar's government, politically and financially (two billion rubles),^^11^^ from the western imperialist powers. But the most important factor in the defeat was the political split in the party itself, with the Mensheviks sabotaging every phase of the struggle. Lenin called the 1905 Revolution a "dress rehearsal" for the great November Revolution of 1917, and a part of that dress rehearsal was that the right-wing Social-Democrats had their apprenticeship in counter-revolution.
THE INTERNATIONAL AND -THE REVOLUTION
The 1905 Revolution produced far-reaching repercussions throughout the world of labor. It also had a deep influence upon the oppressed peoples of the Middle and Far East, as the oncoming national liberation revolutions in China, Persia, and Turkey were soon to make clear. Capitalist circles all over the world also were deeply shocked by the great upheaval. Never since the days of the Paris Commune had they seen socialism thus staring them in the face, but this time it was on a vastly broader and more threatening scale. The whole capitalist system felt the great earthquake shock.
One of the pronounced effects of the Revolution was to speed up the ideological differentiation within the labor movement. In the light of the powerful attempt of the Russian toilers to overthrow tsarist
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absolutism, theoretical disputes between the various groupings took on real flesh and blood. From this period on, the internal tendencies and groupings became definitely more "marked. The right became, more conscious and aggressive; the center began to assume more concrete shape and to veer more to the right, and the left started to feel its way towards a definite program and organization.
The Revolution developed a host of urgent lessons for the international movement. It made clear many vital questions---the application of the armed insurrection under modern conditions, the methods and results of the mass political strike, the relation between the bourgeois and the socialist revolutions, the role of Soviets as the base of the future society, the indispensability of a solid, disciplined Marxist party, the treacherous role of the Mensheviks, the Anarchists, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. It was fundamental that these elementary lessons be brought home to the workers of the world.
The left wing, and to some extent the center, tried to do this. Lenin wrote voluminously and brilliantly on the Revolution. Rosa Luxemburg said that the labor movement would be many years in absorbing the basic lessons that the great struggle had to teach. The right opportunists, however, understood from the start that, at all costs, they had to keep from the workers the real message of the Revolution. So for the most part their discussion of the great upheaval was confined to pouring out glowing praises in public speeches for the heroism of the Russian workers. The 1905 Revolution belongs more to the tradition of the First and Third Internationals than to that of the Second International.
The right opportunists were especially anxious to keep from the workers in the West the tremendous significance of the Russian workers taking up arms. They had thought that by the distortion of Engels' article (see Chapter 16) they had forever done away with this most inconvenient question. They took refuge in Plekhanov's treacherous comment, "They should not have taken up arms," and they undertook, and largely succeeded, in brushing aside the whole matter on the basis that such a resort to armed struggle---a sign of the feudal primitiveness of Russia---could not take place in the western capitalist countries where the workers generally had the franchise. The revisionists were thus able to blur over the validity of the traditional revolutionary weapon, the insurrection, which the workers had learned sideby-side with the petty bourgeoisie in many revolutions; but they could not, however, fully obscure the significance of that great mod-
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ern revolutionary weapon, developed by the workers themselves, the general strike.
THE QUESTION OF THE POLITICAL MASS STRIKE
Throughout the life of the First and Second Internationals there had been an insistent demand, which was raised at almost every congress, to endorse the use of the general strike, usually as a means to fight war or as the road to the revolution, but sometimes also as a means to win the vote for the workers. However, the proposition was generally voted down, except in the 1868 congress of the First International, when it was adopted as an anti-war measure. In later years, the right-wing opportunists and revisionists outdid themselves in ``proving'' how, under any and all circumstances, the general strike was an impossibility. They argued that it was wrong in principle. General strikes in various European countries since 1900, but especially in the Revolution of 1905, knocked this nonsense into a cocked hat. With their huge mass political strikes, the Russian Bolsheviks had demonstrated beyond any doubt the great power of this elementary weapon as one of the highest forms of the workers' struggle.
Consequently, sentiment for the mass strike spread rapidly in many countries. Rosa Luxemburg especially championed it in the Second International.^^12^^ In Vienna, in October 1905, when the news reached there of the great Russian strikes, the Social-Democratic Party, then in convention, adjourned and prepared for an immediate mass strike. Mass demonstrations began, and on November 28 the industries all over Austria were paralyzed by a solid walkout demonstration.^^13^^ Barricades were erected in Prague. The central demand was for universal suffrage. In January 1907, after stalling the issue as long as possible, the vote was granted by the government under the threat of a still broader general strike. In the Spring elections of that year, the Austrian party got over a million votes and its parliamentary representation increased from 11 to 87.
The issue of the mass strike came to a head in the German SocialDemocracy, the basic organization of the Second International. The question was to knock out the class system of voting and to establish the universal, direct, secret, and equal suffrage. Thus, in Prussia in the 1903 elections the Socialists polled 314,149 votes and the Conservatives 324,137, but the Conservatives got 143 Representatives and the Socialists got none. The revisionist leaders promptly saw the great
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danger the proposition of the political mass strike held for their whole program of class collaboration, and they resolved to kill it by any means. Already in May 1905, the Legien leaders of organized labor, at their trade union convention in Cologne, sharply condemned the general strike. They knew the question was later to be passed upon by the convention of the party and they undertook to pre-determine the latter's action. The resolution, overwhelmingly adopted, said: "The congress considers that the general strike, as it is portrayed by' the Anarchists and other people without any expression in the sphere of the economic struggle, is unworthy of discussion; it Warns the working class against neglecting its day-to-day work by the acceptance and dissemination of such ideas.''^^14^^
The Social-Democratic Party congress met in Jena in September 1905. Bebel made a report on the mass political strike, presenting it as a defensive weapon. Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and others on the left, made vigorous Marxist speeches for the political strike. The center wobbled on the question, but the right wing made an allout offensive against it. Legien, David, and other opportunists denounced the general strike as "general nonsense," asserted that in any case it was impossible, and declared that it constituted the revolution itself. The convention, however, voted overwhelmingly in the sense of Bebel's report, adopting a resolution which gave a limited endorsement of the mass political strike, as follows: "In the event of an attack on the universal, equal, direct, and secret franchise, or on the right of association, it is the duty of the whole working class to use every means which is appropriate to ward off the attack. The party congress considers that one of the most effective means of preventing such a political crime against the working class or of winning rights which are essential to their emancipation is the widest possible use of mass cessation of work.''^^15^^
The contrary actions of the national trade union and party conventions, one condemning the general strike and the other endorsing it, thus created a crisis in the German labor movement. It was the climax of the tug-of-war that had been developing for several years between the authority of the unions and that of the party, or more concretely, between the clique of reactionary bureaucrats who were controlling the already powerful trade unions and the group of more radically inclined petty-bourgeois intellectuals who were dominating the party. A way was found out of this impasse by holding a secret conference at Mannheim in February 1906 between the Central Com-
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mittee of the party and the General Commission of the trade unions, at which the party leaders agreed not only to abandon their project for mass political strikes, but also to accept the trade union leaders' ultimatum that the matter could not even be discussed in the ranks of the labor unions. Bebel organized this surrender.^^16^^
The surrender of the Bebel-Kautsky party leadership to the opportunist trade union bureaucrats marked a tragic milestone in the history of the German Social-Democracy. It enormously strengthened the position of the right wing and weakened that of the center and left groups. The opportunist trade union leaders became dominant in the party. Illustrative of the type of leadership then in the party, the Reichstag representatives, from 1903 to 1906, consisted of the following: 13 intellectuals and bourgeois, 15 petty bourgeois, 54 of proletarian origin, most of whom were high trade union officials.^^17^^ The 1906 debacle largely laid the basis for the line-up of revisionist leadership that was to mislead the German working class to overwhelming disaster a decade later in the first great world war.