Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second International - The substance of Bernstein's critique
Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second International - 2
This text of Engels, which became, through his subsequent death, a political testament, dated from 1895. A year later, Bernstein began to publish the series of articles in Die Neue Zeit called Problems of Socialism. These were interrupted and begun afresh several times between 1896 and 1898 in response to the polemical reactions they raised; they finally appeared in March 1899, recast and amplified by the author, under the title: The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy.[2] Bernstein's approach to his theme immediately recalls the questions Engels had raised in his 'Introduction': the erroneous judgement of Marx and himself concerning the temporality of social and political developments; the mistaken conception of revolution as a 'revolution of the minority', the need to 'revise' outdated insurrectionist tactics in favour of new tactics based on utilization of the franchise, already adopted by the German Social Democrats.
Engels had written of a revision of tactics ; Bernstein objected that this tactical revision necessarily implied a revision of strategy, a revision of the premises of theoretical Marxism. The errors denounced by Engels were not merely a result of contingent factors; they derived from essential points of doctrine and until the latter were revised it would be impossible to avoid making these errors. Bernstein was not disputing the new tactics. The political practice of the party was correct. But in order to proceed unhesitatingly and without contradictions along the path indicated by the new tactics, it was, he claimed, essential to free the party from the utopian and insurrectionist phraseology cultivated by the old theory. 'The practice of the German party has frequently, indeed almost always, been opportunist in character.' Despite this, or precisely because of this, 'its policy has in every case proved more correct than its phraseology. Hence I have no wish to reform the actual policy of the party . . .; what I am striving for, and as a theoretician must strive for, is a unity between theory and reality, between phraseology and action.'[3] This statement is from a letter to Bebel, written in October 1898. In February 1899, Bernstein wrote to Victor Adler as follows: 'The doctrine [i.e. Marxism] is not sufficiently realistic for me; it has, so to speak, lagged behind the practical development of the movement. It may possibly still be all right for Russia . . . but in Germany we have outgrown its old form.'[4]
There was then, according to Bernstein, a contradiction between the theoretical premises of socialism and the practice of Social Democracy -- hence the title of his book. The task he proposed was that of examining the theory, now outdated and utopian, and bringing it into line with the practical politics of the party. In short, the aim was to contest the necessary relation between Marxism and the workers' movement. Socialism must liberate itself from the encumbrance of the old theory. 'The defect of Marxism' lay in its 'excessive abstraction' and the 'theoretical phraseology' which resulted. 'Do not forget,' he wrote to Bebel, 'that Capital, with all its scientificity, was in the last analysis a tendentious work and remained incomplete; it did so, in my opinion, precisely because the conflict between scientificity and tendency made Marx's task more and more difficult. Seen from this standpoint, the destiny of this great work is almost symbolic and constitutes, in any event, an eloquent warning.'[5]
The errors denounced by Engels were not, therefore, accidental but sprang from the theory itself. The incorrect estimation of the temporality of capitalist development resulted from a dialectical apriorism of the Hegelian type, from the fatalism and determinism of the materialist conception of history. It was, in short, the error of the 'theory of breakdown' (Zusammenbruchstheorie ), the constant expectation of the inevitable and imminent 'catastrophe', to which, according to Marxism, the capitalist system was condemned by its very nature. The incorrect notion in 1848 of a seizure of power by 'revolution' or through a 'political catastrophe' and hence the overthrow of the state, also arose from an aprioristic and tendentious cast in Marx's argument, an argument shared in this case, in Bernstein's view, completely with Blanquism.
In short, an apriorism deriving from the conception of historical development in terms of dialectical antithesis, and a tendentious spirit or, as one might put it today, an 'ideological' intention, induced Marx to do violence to the evidence of scientific analysis. To this basic error Bernstein ascribed the theory of the polarization of society into two classes: the idea of the growing immiseration and proletarianization of the middle strata; and finally, the concept of the progressive worsening of economic crises and the consequent growth of revolutionary tension.
The proof of the apriori character of all these theses lay, according to Bernstein, in the fact that they had been invalidated by the course of history. Things had not proceeded in the way Marx had hoped and predicted. There was no concentration of production and no elimination of small- by large-scale enterprises; while this concentration had taken place extremely slowly in commerce and industry, in agriculture the elimination of small units had not merely failed to occur -- the opposite was the case. No worsening and intensification of crises; not only had these become more rare and less acute, but with the formation of cartels and trusts capitalism now had at its disposal more means of self-regulation. Finally, no polarization of society into two extreme classes; on the contrary, the absence of any proletarianization of the middle strata and the improvement of living conditions of the working classes had attenuated, rather than exacerbated, the class struggle. 'The aggravation of social relations,' Bernstein wrote, 'has not occurred in the manner described in the Manifesto. To attempt to conceal this fact is not only useless but mad. The number of property owners has grown, not diminished. The enormous growth in social wealth has not been accompanied by an ever-narrowing circle of great capitalist magnates, but by an ever-growing number of capitalists at every level. The character of the middle strata has changed, but they have not vanished from the social hierarchy.' Finally, he added: 'from a political point of view, in all the advanced countries, we observe the privileges of the capitalist bourgeoisie steadily giving way to democratic institutions. Under the influence of this, and driven by the ever more powerful pressure of the workers' movement, there has been a reaction of society against the exploitative tendencies of capital, which, even if it is still uncertain and hesitant, is there nonetheless, and invests wider and wider sectors of economic life.' In short, 'factory legislation', the 'democratization of communal administration', and 'universal suffrage' tend to erode the very basis of class struggle. This only confirms and proves once more that where parliamentary democracy is dominant, the state can no longer be seen as an organ of class rule. 'The more the political institutions of modern nations become democratized, the more the occasions and necessity for great political crises are removed.' Hence the working class should not strive to seize power by revolution, but should rather seek to reform the State, remodelling it in a more and more democratic mould. To conclude: there is a contradiction between political democracy and capitalist exploitation. The development of the former, that is of political equality, must necessarily gradually reduce and overcome economic in equalities and hence class differences.
Obviously, in his last text, Engels had not intended to say anything like this. Besides, Bernstein himself, while underlining the importance of the 'political testament', recognized that Engels himself could scarcely have been expected to undertake this 'necessary revision of the theory'. Nevertheless, at the moment when he began his series of articles in Die Neue Zeit, Bernstein enjoyed considerable prestige within German Social Democracy, not only because of his direction of the Party organ at Zurich for several years during the period of the exceptional laws; and not only because of his collaboration with Kautsky in the preparation of the Erfurt programme;[6] but also and above all because he had lived for years in England close to Engels as both his disciple and friend. Kautsky recalled later: 'From 1883 Engels considered Bernstein and myself as the most trusted representatives of Marxist theory.'[7] When Engels died in August 1895 it seems that of the two Bernstein was especially favoured; it was to him as executor that Engels entrusted the 'literary legacy' of Marx and himself.
Clearly, it would be futile to attempt to construe these elements as implying Engels and Bernstein had a common outlook. Though Bernstein insinuated on occasion that his 'internal struggle' and 'new viewpoint' were no secret to Engels, it cannot be doubted, as Kautsky wrote, that 'if Engels had suspected the change in Ede's [Bernstein's] outlook . . . he would certainly not have entrusted him with his literary legacy'.[8] However, even if we lay aside these secondary considerations, their close relationship at least serves, in my view, to underline two important facts: not only that 'revisionism' was born in the heart of the Marxism of the Second International, and advanced from there, but also that Bernstein's polemic is incomprehensible if we fail to grasp the particular character of that Marxism from which it originated and in relation to which it always remained, in a real sense, complementary.
T H E ' B R E A K D O W N T H E O R Y '
The pivot upon which the whole of Bernstein's argument turns is his critique of the 'theory of breakdown'. In his book, Bernstein and the Social-Democratic Programme, which appeared in the same year, 1899, Kautsky correctly pointed out that 'Marx and Engels never produced a special "theory of breakdown" and that this term originates from Bernstein himself, just as the term "theory of immiseration" owes its existence to the adversaries of Marxism'.[9] But what Bernstein understood by this theory was in substance nothing other than the content of the famous paragraph in Capital on the 'historical tendency of capitalist accumulation'.
In Marx's account, the imperative laws of competition determine the progressive expropriation of smaller capitalists by larger and hence an ever more accentuated 'centralization of capital'. This process, periodically accelerated by economic crisis, reveals the inherent limit of the capitalist regime: the contradiction between the social character of production and the private form of appropriation. On the one hand, these 'develop, on an ever-extending scale, the cooperative form of the labour process . . . the transformation of the instruments of labour into instru- ments of labour only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as the means of production of combined, socialized labour'. On the other hand, 'along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grow the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself'.
Marx concludes:
The monopoly of capital itself becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.[10]
It is true that Bernstein did not accept this account of the 'historical tendency of capitalist accumulation', which he regarded as a 'purely speculative anticipation'. Not by chance is the major thrust of his book directed at denying or strictly circumscribing what is today regarded, even by non-Marxist economists, as the most verified of all Marx's predictions; the capitalist concentration and centralization he forecast. Here we need refer only to the judgement of the eminent American economist, V. Leontiev, who rejects many aspects of Marx's theory. Discussing Marx's 'brilliant analysis of the long-run tendencies of the capitalist system', he observes:
The record is indeed impressive: increasing concentration of wealth, rapid elimination of small and medium-sized enterprises, progressive limitation of competition, incessant technological progress accompanied by the ever-growing importance of fixed capital, and, last but not least, the undiminishing amplitude of recurrent business cycles -- an unsurpassed series of prognostications fulfilled, against which modern economic theory with all its refinements has little to show indeed.[11]
In this sense, Rosa Luxemburg was right to point out that 'what Bernstein questions is not the rapidity of the development of capitalist society, but the march of this development itself and consequently, the very possibility of a change to socialism'. He 'not merely rejects a certain form of the collapse. He rejects the very possibility of collapse'.[12] Or, better still, he denied not only the 'breakdown' (which we shall see, is not one of Marx's ideas), but also -- quite apart from any notion of automatic 'breakdown', such as Luxemburg's own thesis that the system 'moves towards a point where it will be unbalanced when it will simply become impossible"[13] the vital nucleus of Marxism itself: namely, the idea that the capitalist order is a historical phenomenon, a transitory and non-natural order, which, through its own internal and objective contradictions inevitably nurtures within itself the forces that impel it towards a different organization of society.
There is no doubt that Bernstein expressly rejected all this. The best proof, if proof were needed, is his concern to demonstrate the possibility of the 'self-regulation' of capitalism. Cartels, credit, the improved system of communications, the rise of the working class, insofar as they act to eliminate or at least mitigate the internal contradictions of the capitalist economy, hindering their development and aggravation, ensure for the system the possibility of unlimited survival. In other words, for Marx's basic conception according to which the advent of socialism has its preconditions and objective roots within the process of capitalist production itself, Bernstein substituted a socialism based upon an ethical ideal, the goal of a civilized humanity free to choose its own future in conformity with the highest principles of morality and justice. As Rosa Luxemburg acidly commented: 'What we are offered here is an exposition of the socialist programme based upon "pure reason". We have here, in simpler language, an idealist exposition of socialism. The objective necessity of socialism, as the result of the material development of society, falls to the ground.'[14]
However, granted this, it is also necessary to point out that the way in which Marx's own theory was expounded by the Marxism of that period transformed what Marx himself had declared a historical tendency into an 'inevitable law of nature '. A violent crisis would sooner or later produce conditions of acute poverty which would turn people's minds against the system, convincing them of the impossibility of continuing under the existing order. This extreme and fateful economic crisis would then expand into a generalized crisis of society, only concluded by the advent to power of the proletariat. Such, according to Bernstein, was the dominant conception within Social Democracy. The conviction had become deeply rooted, he wrote, that 'this path of development was an inevitable natural law and that a generalized economic crisis was the necessary crucible for the emergence of a socialist society'.
The attribution to German Social Democracy of this thesis of an imminent and inevitable 'breakdown' (Zusammenbruch ) of bourgeois society under the fatal impact of 'purely economic causes' was energetically attacked by Kautsky in his thorough reply to The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy. He wrote: 'In the official declarations of German Social Democracy, Bernstein will seek in vain any affirmation that could be construed in the sense of the "theory of breakdown" he imputes to it. In the passage of the Erfurt Programme dealing with crises, there is no mention of "breakdown".'[15] Yet Bernstein's accusation was not altogether wide of the mark: this can be shown not only by some of the reactions it aroused in Marxist circles (Cunow for example), reaffirming that Marx and Engels did indeed believe in a catastrophic breakdown of capitalism,[16] but also by the Erfurt Programme itself, drawn up by Kautsky in 1891-2. In the Erfurt Programme, the conversion or transformation of the 'historical tendency' Marx had discussed into the terms of a naturalistic and fatal necessity is quite evident.
Kautsky wrote in his commentary to the programme:
We consider the breakdown (Zusammenbruch ) of existing society as inevitable, since we know that economic development creates with a natural necessity conditions which force the exploited to strive against private property; that it increases the number and power of the exploited while it reduces the number and power of the exploiters, whose interest is to maintain the existing order; that it leads, finally, to unbearable conditions for the mass of the population, which leave it only a choice between passive degeneration and the active overthrow of the existing system of ownership.
And he added:
Capitalist society has failed; its dissolution is only a question of time; irresistible economic development leads with natural necessity to the bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production. The erection of a new form of society in place of the existing one is no longer something merely desirable; it has become something inevitable.[17]
This theme of the approaching breakdown of capitalism and the imminent passage to socialism constitutes an essential guide-line in the Bernstein-Debatte. This was not only for the theoretical or doctrinaire reasons already mentioned, to which we shall have occasion to return; but also because, in the various forms this theme assumed around the turn of the century, we can trace the reverberation of a real historical process, which must at least be mentioned at this point.
T H E ' G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N '
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