p The first half-century of Marxism’s development beginning from the late forties of the last century may be described as an historic landmark in its establishment, dissemination and emergence upon the world scene. At the same time it is a phase of unheard-of persecution and vilification of Marxism and the most savage reaction against its inspiring ideas, against the looming spectre of scientific communism. Its founders themselves pointed out that "all the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies".  [48•* 

p It is not surprising, therefore, that Marxism took quite a time in establishing its primacy in the development of social thought and within the labour movement. It has already been mentioned that it had to fight every step of its way, and if we are to speak of its first steps we should record the fact that it successfully repulsed the fierce and most deadly frontal attack of bourgeois reaction. Despite the fact that the bourgeoisie threw all its resources and strength against Marxism and employed every trick in the book in which no holds were barred, it was unable to cope with this rising, life-evoking doctrine. The attacks of the bourgeoisie against scientific communism, like all the anti-scientific conceptions of the petty-bourgeois socialists, proved powerless. As Lenin pointed out, pre-Marxian socialism with its petty-bourgeois and bourgeois ramifications was worsted in open ideological struggle. This was the first big victory of the scientific theory and revolutionary practice of Marxism.

p With the maturation of the social consciousness and development of the class struggle of the proletariat Marxism penetrated more and more deeply and widely into the midst 49

p of the rising and developing working class and the progressive intellectuals. Marxism became the fashion, and Marxists the most noble and respected of men. The finest, burgeoning forces of various nationalities streamed everywhere into the Marxist movement, prepared to dedicate themselves to the cause of working-class liberation from the yoke of capitalism.

p Marxism became an international phenomenon drawing its life-giving juices from the revolutionary struggle of the working classes under the motto of "Working Men of all countries, unite!" The revolutionaries of all the world united in the First International under the banner of Marxism. Under this fighting standard the Paris proletariat first gave battle to the bourgeoisie and set up the Paris Commune—the prototype of the proletarian-dictatorship state. Significantly, Marxism roused to the struggle, to creativeness, the lowliest, most enslaved and disinherited but rising class of contemporary capitalist society—the working class. "The chief thing in the doctrine of Marx," Lenin wrote, "is that it brings out the historic role of the proletariat as the builder of socialist society.”  [49•*  In Marxism the working class found spiritual strength, just as in the working class Marxism found material strength. It was no light task to unite these two streams into a single jointly operating force of the liberation struggle.

p An important factor along the path of the proletariat’s self-awareness and self-determination was the need for the creation of a political party. Marx and Engels maintained that the working class could develop its revolutionary potential, organising talent and revolutionary energy to the full only in the event of its being armed with the theory of scientific communism and having its own class revolutionary party. Therefore, ". . .against this collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes.. .”.  [49•**  It was clear to the founders of scientific communism from the already available experience of the class struggle that not every political party, even 50 if it called itself a labour or socialist parly, was capable of leading the working class to -victory over the rule of capital.

p That is why they spared no effort to create the first truly proletarian party, the Communist League, and the International Workingmen’s Association—the First International, the aim of which was "to replace the socialist or semi- socialist sects by a real organisation of the working class for struggle”.  [50•*  The historic significance of the First International is that it played a tremendous role in the spread of scientific communism and the preparation of cadres of revolutionary proletarian parties in different countries. In the words of Lenin it prepared the ground for "mass socialist working-class parties in individual national states.. .”.  [50•** 

p Therefore, the emergence during the second half of the nineteenth century and the development in nearly all capitalist countries of Social-Democratic parties, which adopted as their ideological guideline the revolutionary doctrine of Marxism, was a gigantic victory of the international proletariat, of all the working people and the oppressed. Although the Social-Democratic parties that had arisen were not all consistently Marxist and not infrequently made great mistakes in matters of programme and tactics, they nevertheless played an outstanding historical role in awakening the international labour movement, separating it from bourgeois democracy and consolidating the revolutionary forces, culminating in the founding of the Second (Socialist) International. Such are the main results of the first half-century of Marxism’s progress.

p Needless to say, these circumstances incensed the bourgeoisie more and more and filled it with dismay. It made frantic attempts to strangle the doctrine of Marxism at birth. The bourgeoisie invoked the aid of ideologues of all trends, of the enlighteners of past epochs, of Liberals and Radicals, it gathered all reactionary forces into a single fist in order to smash and disarm this scientific theory, this advanced idea, which was exercising such a strong appeal. Thus the bourgeoisie for the first time experienced a harrowing fear in face of the mighty spiritual and material power of Marxism and was forced to devise a more flexible long-term tactics of struggle against it.

p Therefore, while not relinquishing violent, terroristic means of struggle against Marxism, the bourgeoisie redoubled its efforts in seeking ways of insinuating itself into the growing Marxist movement. This, of course, was no easy task, but it did not give up hope. It carefully took into account the role, favourable to its own class interests which the petty-bourgeois, anarchist-rebel leaders in the person of the Proudhonists, Bakuninists and Lassalleans played in the activities of the First International. The bourgeoisie was quite satisfied with the performance of the petty-bourgeois leaders in splitting and bringing about the defeat of the Paris Commune—the embryo of the world’s first proletariantype state. The bourgeoisie, however, set still greater value on its own political experience in corrupting the co-operative and trade union movement of the working class and the masses of the people. These important facts deserve a brief mention.

p We know, for example, that in the middle of the last century a broad co-operative movement developed in Europe and workingmen’s associations were established embracing all links of the capitalist system. This was a great movement of the working class, who endeavoured through the co-operatives and associations to break free from the yoke of capitalism. Although these organisations, like the insurance societies, aimed at protecting the economic interests of the working people and wringing concessions from capitalism, this movement seriously alarmed the bourgeoisie.

p It was alarmed because the workers had proclaimed the motto of "independence of the co-operatives and workers’ associations from the bourgeois state". This was a great stride forward in the labour movement. The fact of the matter is that workers’ organisations independent of the bourgeoisie undoubtedly united these workers, trained and educated them, while the shortcomings and insecurity of their economic gains gradually forced the workers to recognise the need for political struggle against the whole structure of bourgeois society. And when the whole of Europe became covered with a network of co-operative societies the bourgeoisie was faced with the urgent question: what to do? Repressions yielded no results. The bourgeoisie then brought into play its most trusty forces recruited from among the so-called Right Socialists and promised millions to support their movement.

p The leaders in question were quick to answer the call. 52

p One of the first to do so was the Right-wing French Socialist Louis Blanc, who, with the aid of immense funds provided by the bourgeoisie, launched a press campaign in favour of the co-operatives and workers’ associations being run by the state and taken charge of by the bourgeoisie. This idea was promptly legalised by the French National Assembly, which unanimously appropriated three million francs for putting the co-operative movement under the control of the bourgeoisie. During the debate on this question in the National Assembly that crafty dictator Thiers exclaimed: "We should have been asked to appropriate, not three, but twenty million francs. Yes, we would have given you twenty millions, and that would not have been too high a price to pay for a convincing experiment that would have cured us all of this suicidal madness.”  [52•* 

p In fact, it did not take the bourgeoisie at all long to turn that powerful class movement into an utterly sterile reformist movement, draining it of its living spirit and making it a breeding-ground of pernicious bourgeois ideology. Charles Gide, the ideological leader of the French co-operators, had good reason for admitting that the most revolutionary of Socialists inspire no fear in him after they have gone through the school of co-operation. It is not surprising that the cooperative movement—essentially a sound and profoundly social movement—soon became a reservoir of reformists, the mainstay of bourgeois influence on the working class and the peasant mass.

p This was largely due to the fact that in most European countries the co-operative movement began to spread, not during the rising tide of revolution among the masses, but during a period of its ebb, in an age that followed the defeat of the revolutionary movement. That is what happened in England, for instance, where the co-operative movement began to develop rapidly after the defeat of the revolutionary movement of Chartism. That is what happened in Germany and France, where the co-operative movement began to build up after the defeat of the 1848 revolution, that is, during the subsequent reaction. That is what happened in Russia, where, after the revolution of 1905, the co-operative movement spread widely.

p No less significant as an example of the insidious work of corruption of the labour movement is the activities of the agents of the bourgeoisie within the trade unions, where the tell-tale hand of revisionism is at its most legible. It should be borne in mind that the trade union movement among the working class is one of its earliest forms of socio-political organisations. The trade unions first came into being as the militant, best organised and revolutionary associations of the working classes. As one of the forms of the labour movement, called to life and struggle by the capitalist system itself, the trade unions were a means of defence against the onset of growing capitalism with its entire system of exploitation and oppression.

p And what, ultimately, came of these once militant organisations? In a number of places they shared the fate of the co-operative movement. The bourgeoisie wormed its way into these organisations and with the aid of its agents seized control of them and turned them into an obedient instrument of its policy. At a time when the revolutionary leaders of the labour movement, steadfast, ardent champions of the working-class cause, devoted their will, energies and talent towards creating militant proletarian parties, the Right-wing reformist leaders went into the trade union and co-operative movements, corrupted them from within, weakened them ideologically and organisationally and isolated them from the political class struggle of the working class. This was the first betrayal by the renegades.

p The trouble was that these politically corrupted cadres eventually settled in the Social-Democratic parties into which they brought the bourgeois ideology of reformism— trade-unionism. The fact that many Social-Democratic parties in the West came from the midst of the reformist trade union movement, and some Communist Parties, in their turn, emerged from among Left-wing groups within the ranks of the Social-Democratic parties is still making itself felt to this day in a number of cases. This is particularly in evidence lately in the strong tendency among the trade unions in a number of capitalist countries to dissociate themselves from the Communist Parties. Trade-unionism has found its full voice again.

p Another thing the bourgeoisie took note of was that the first Marxists were educated people, and at that time could only have come from bourgeois and other propertied classes. 54 It understood perfectly well that quite a few of these “ Marxists” had joined the movement as fellow-travellers, and as such, were casual, temporary, transient passengers. In short, the bourgeoisie was perfectly sure that the blood of the master-race in the veins of such revolutionaries would sooner or later have its say. This especially applied to the category of leaders who were inclined towards such failings as vanity, ambition and careerism. The bourgeoisie was aware of these leaders’ "human foibles" and spared no effort or expense in coaxing and coddling them.

We see from all this that in the course of the first halfcentury of Marxism’s existence the bourgeoisie, in addition to employing harsh repressive measures against the Marxist movement, gradually, step by step, wormed its way into that movement and built up its agent-force within it in order, at the proper moment, to let it loose and develop subversive, corruptive work within it to full power.