Against Tsarism; May Day and Tactical Questions Zurich 1893
The Zurich Congress met in August 1893, at a time when class contra-dictions were extremely acute. In England 200,000 miners had been on strike for several months and their struggle, conducted with great strength and de-termination, ended with a partial success. In Belgium the workers, by means of a general strike, had forced from the bourgeoisie a concession in the matter of the franchise. In all countries political and trade union organisations were rap-idly developing. At the same time the increase in the building of armaments meant that the working class had to intensify its struggle against the danger of war.
Before the Congress could begin its deliberations on the agenda, it had again to deal with the question of the admission of anarchists, who were repre-sented at the Congress mainly by the “youth” under the leadership of Gustav Landauer. They had been excluded from the German Party at the Erfurt Con-gress of 1891, and had then formed an independent anarchist group. A pre-liminary conference held in Brussels had laid down as the condition of admis-sion the recognition of the necessity of workers’ organisations and of political action. Since Landauer declared that the anarchists were not opposed to every form of political action, the German delegation, led by Bebel, moved an amendment to the conditions of admission which ran:
“By political action we mean that the workers’ parties utilise or seek to win political rights and the machinery of legislation in order to further the interests of the proletariat and to win political power.”
In moving the amendment Bebel emphasised that fundamental differ-ences separated the socialists from the anarchists. The anarchists could call a special congress for themselves, just as the Christian socialists had done. “Just as we have defined our boundary line to the right in this respect, so we shall define it to the left.”
The amendment was accepted by a large majority, and, under protest, the anarchists left the Congress. Friedrich Engels, who appeared at the last session and made the final speech, emphasised the necessity for organisational separation from the anarchists. We shall return later to the question why the Second International failed to carry out the promise made by Bebel, that is, why it never drew as clear a line to the right as it did to the left. At the moment we only wish to refer to a fact of great importance, that the anarchists were an obstacle in the way of carrying out the practical tasks with which the socialist parties were at that time directly confronted; for the question of the struggle for political power was not an immediate one; the basis for it had first of all to be laid in the shape of proletarian mass organisations and in spreading socialist ideas among the masses. In most countries the parties were concentrating their forces on the struggle for the franchise. At such a time this rendered joint ac-tivity with those who were fundamentally opposed to parliamentary activity impossible from the outset. But the reformists, who did not openly oppose the practice of the party, although they sought to undermine it by subterranean means and to divert it from the path of class struggle, seemed at first less dan-gerous; the entire extent of the reformist danger only became apparent when the working class approached great revolutionary tasks.
It was a characteristic “accident,” of symbolic significance, that Rosa Luxemburg‘s mandate was rejected at the same time as those of the anarchists. Rosa Luxemburg was delegated to the congress as representative of the newspaper of the Socialists of Poland and Lithuania, an organisation which had been established in opposition to the P. P. S. which was even then infected with Polish nationalism.1 Her mandate was declared invalid at the instance of Daszinski, leader of the P. P. S., the man who, ten years after Rosa Luxemburg fell in the fight for the proletarian revolution, was, as Marshal of the Sejm, playing the part of faithful servant to the fascist Pilsudski. 1 P. P. S. The Polish Socialist Party, to a certain extent related to the Russian So-cialist-Revolutionaries.
In the discussion on the attitude of the Social Democracy in the event of war, a factor emerged which had not been present at Brussels: the question of the struggle against tsarism. There was again a resolution from the Dutch call-ing for strike action and the refusal of military service on the outbreak of war, countered by a resolution from the Germans along the same lines as the Brus-sels resolution. Plekhanov, at that time leader of the Russian Social Democ-racy, the Emancipation of Labour Group founded in 1893, in reporting for the commission, opposed the general strike on the ground usually brought forward at that time, although it had been disproved by the general strike in Belgium in 1893:
“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 sheer absurdity.”
To Liebknecht‘s argument that a military strike in countries where ser-vice was compulsory would mean the annihilation of the protesters, Plekhanov added that “a military strike would in the first place mean the disarming of the cultured peoples and would abandon western Europe to the Russian Cos-sacks.”
Nieuwenhuis again attacked the chauvinism manifested by the German Party, but this time his words were directed not against Vollmar, but against Bebel, against his famous declaration in the Reichstag that in a war against Russian tsarism he would himself buckle on the sword. Nieuwenhuis said that it would not perhaps be a misfortune if the Russians were to invade Germany. The culture of Greece and Rome was not destroyed by the invasion of the bar-barians. The refusal to perform military service would, it is true, lead to civil war, but civil war was preferable to the war of nations. The mutinies in the armies of England, Belgium and Italy, the Paris Commune of 1871 showed that it was possible.
A delegate from Poland sharply attacked Nieuwenhuis. In that country Bebel‘s speech had given an impetus to socialist thought and had awakened the old revolutionary temper of the population.
Liebknecht again recalled the attitude of the German socialists in 1870. German Social Democracy had never given up its struggle against militarism, had never renounced it as a weapon. The mailed fist of militarism had to be broken by the spirit of socialism. “But we cannot do that by childish conspira-cies in the barracks, but only by untiring propaganda among the people.”
On behalf of the Austrian Party Victor Adler declared that they had to stop Russia from taking the road which would lead over the bodies of the Polish martyrs. Socialist Europe must not be abandoned to tsarism. By Russia he meant not the Russian people but tsarism, “and in every country — in Austria too — we have enough tsarism.”
For the English delegation Aveling said:
“When we are strong enough to carry out a military strike, we shall do something quite different, for then we shall be con-cerned with sending capitalism to heaven or to hell.”
Volders, a Belgian delegate, attacked the incorrect idea of the Germans that special anti-militarist propaganda was unnecessary. The Belgian socialists knew how to agitate among the troops, how to carry socialist propaganda into the barracks. They held their meetings in the neighbourhood of the barracks, so that the soldiers might have a chance of hearing the truth. The amendment moved by Volders ran:
“In all legislative assemblies the representatives of the work-ing class are to refuse to vote for military credits. They are to pro-test against militarism and to advocate disarmament.”
In his concluding speech Plekhanov vigorously defended Bebel‘s attitude:
“If the German army were to cross our frontiers, it would come as a liberator, as the French soldiers of the National Conven-tion came to Germany hundred years ago; as the conquerors of the princes, they brought freedom to the people.”
The majority of the French and of the Norwegians voted for the Dutch resolution. The German resolution and the Belgian amendment for rejection of military budgets and for general disarmament were passed, those who had voted for the Dutch resolution refraining from voting.
There is no doubt that the majority, with their rejection on principle of the general strike, and their lack of understanding of the necessity for anti-militarist work, were wholly in the wrong; nevertheless, their refusal to regard with indifference the danger of a Russian invasion, and their emphasis on the need for a struggle against tsarism, were completely in accordance with the traditions of revolutionary Marxism since 1848 and with the attitude adopted by Engels in the ‘nineties. In 1893 Russia was unquestionably the strongest pillar of international reaction. It is true that Victor Adler was right in saying that there was enough “tsarism” in Austria — and in Germany too — but the position was different in those countries, in so far as Russia at that time lacked a revolutionary mass movement; it exhibited only the beginnings of a socialist organisation, whereas a socialist mass organisation was developing m Ger-many. At that time a Russian victory over Germany would undoubtedly have strengthened the forces of international reaction, would have dealt a blow at the international working class movement. Consequently in 1892, in his fa-mous article “Socialism in Germany,” Engels urged the necessity of national defence in the event of a Russian attack on Germany. He wrote:
“A war in which the Russians and French would attack Germany would be to the latter a struggle for life or death, a strug-gle in which it could only assure its national existence by the use of the most revolutionary measures. Unless it is compelled thereto, the present government will never unleash the revolution. But we have a strong party which can force it to do so, or which can, should the need arise, replace it — the Social Democratic Party
“And we have not forgotten the great example which France offered us in 1793. The centenary celebration of 1793 is drawing near. Should the Tsar’s thirst for aggression and the chauvinist impatience of the French bourgeoisie hold up the victorious but peaceful advance of the German socialists, then they — depend upon it — are ready to prove to the world that the German workers of today are not unworthy of the French sans-culottes of a hundred years ago, and that 1893 can take its place at the side of 1793.”1
1 F. Engels; “Socialism in Germany,” published in the Neue Zeit, Vol. X, 1, pp. 485-6. Cf. also Zinoviev: The War and the Crisis of Socialism, p. 154 (Russian), where, owing to a misprint, the date is given as 1896 instead of 1893.
In the situation obtaining in 1893, Engels was in favour of the national defence of Germany against tsarism but, obviously, he was not recommending civil peace between the socialists and Wilhelm II; he was referring to a revolu-tionary war in which the socialists were to seize the leadership. Plekhanov was following the same line of thought when he compared the part that would be played by the German army with that played by the French revolutionary army. He was certainly not thinking of the Prussian Grenadiers under Wilhelm II’s command as liberators.
This attitude of revolutionary socialists on the question of the struggle against tsarism at a time when German imperialism had just begun to develop, when the epoch of imperialist war was just opening, can in no sense justify the position taken up by the German social-patriots in 1914. The use of the hostil-ity entertained for tsarism by Marx and Engels in order to justify the social-imperialist treachery of 1914 has already been exhaustively criticised and re-futed in Marxist literature — by Zinoviev in the book to which we have already referred, by Lenin and Zinoviev in Socialism and War, in the articles published in Against the Stream and in Rosa Luxemburg‘s Junius Pamphlet. It is indica-tive of the complete decay of German Social Democracy from the scientific as-pect — a necessary result of its development into reformism — that it has never attempted to examine seriously this revolutionary Marxist criticism, although it still occasionally appeals to Marx and Engels in reference to the policy of 1914.
All the parties criticised the attitude of the German Party in relation to the May Day celebrations. In proportion to the forces at their disposal, the Germans had done less to carry out the May Day decision of the Paris Con-gress than any other party. In April 1890 the Social Democratic group in the Reichstag (against the vote of Wilhelm Liebknecht), and in opposition to the May Day appeal issued by the Berlin organisation, published an appeal which was definitely hostile to the celebration of May Day. In unconcealed contradic-tion to the spirit and letter of the Paris resolution the Reichstag group declared that the same reasons which made a general strike inexpedient were applicable to the plan for a general cessation of work on one day.
“In such circumstances we cannot find it in our conscience to encourage the German workers to make the First of May a day for a general stoppage of work.”
The First of May was to be celebrated by meetings, celebrations, and demonstrations. Work was to cease only where this was possible “without con-flicts.” The result of this decision was that the workers “downed tools” only in Hamburg, while dissension and discouragement followed within the party and among the advanced workers, which to some extent found expression in the opposition of the “youth.” Friedrich Engels justified the position taken up by the Party leadership, on the grounds that the anti-socialist laws were just about to expire and that the government should be given no opportunity for provocative action; but he too was of the opinion that:
“For the rest, the fraction declaration is bad and the non-sense about the general strike wholly unnecessary.”
Had it been merely a matter of facilitating the abrogation of the anti-socialist laws by a certain cautiousness, the decision could have been excused. In fact, however, in sabotaging a strike on May Day, the German Party leader-ship was pursuing a consistent policy of avoiding any struggle which might in-volve sacrifice. The Berlin Party Congress of 1892 decided, in view of the eco-nomic crisis — an excuse can always be found to evade a struggle — to dis-countenance a cessation of work and to organise the celebration for the eve-ning. In other countries, where May Day demanded no less sacrifice, the social-ist parties considered it their bounden duty to maintain at any cost the stan-dard of international proletarian solidarity. The French workers, for example, in spite of outrageous police brutality which, on May Day 1891, had led to the death of ten workers in Fourmies, organised their revolutionary demonstration. In Austria-Hungary too, where the working class suffered no less from the reac-tion than in Germany and where the May Day celebrations regularly called forth measures of opposition, demonstrations were held each year with great élan.
Victor Adler, reporting on behalf of the commission, declared openly that the purpose of the resolution was principally to induce the Germans, who by their retreat were making the struggle of the workers in other countries more difficult, to proceed with greater determination. The commission proposed that the Brussels resolution should by reaffirmed and strengthened by the following amendment:
“It is the duty of the Social Democrats in every country to strive for a cessation of work on May Day and to support every ef-fort made in this direction in different places and by different or-ganisations...
“The May Day demonstration for the eight hour day is at the same time a manifestation of the firm determination of the working class to abolish class differences by means of the social revolution and to so to take the only road which leads to peace within each nation and to international peace.”
In moving this amendment, Adler said:
“If we do not move forward, the May Day celebration will die out.... But in Germany they were much more anxious to carry out the decision against a cessation of work than to see that the cele-bration was organised for the First of May, and not for any Sunday in the month.”
The speech given by Bebel in defence of the German attitude does not represent the most glorious page in the life history of that great leader of the working class. It breathed the spirit of that petty, selfish bureaucracy which was gaining a growing influence within the German Party with the strengthen-ing of the organisations, particularly of the trade unions.
Bebel declared that he could not in any circumstances vote for a resolu-tion which, in contradiction to the Brussels decision, deprived the different par-ties of the right to determine the form which their May Day celebrations should take. That was unthinkable. If at a party meeting the minority were to vote for the cessation of work, then according to the proposed resolution the majority would have to obey the minority. That would involve a breach of party disci-pline, and the party would have to accept the financial as well as the moral re-sponsibility for such a decision. Moreover he could not bring himself to accept the wording “that class differences were to be abolished by means of the social revolution. And for a number of German states this would make the May Day celebration legally impossible.”
After the word “revolution” had been replaced by “transformation” the German delegation voted for the last amendment; then, together with Den-mark, Bulgaria and Russia, Germany voted against the first amendment and Singer made the matter worse by saying that the German comrades voted “on principle” for cessation of work just as warmly and honestly as the others, but they could not “allow themselves to be dictated to in this matter by any indi-vidual.”
This description of an international decision as the “dictation by an indi-vidual” expressed that lack of respect for the International which was charac-teristic of the practice of the parties organised in the Second International. In the years which followed the German Socialists pursued the tactics of renounc-ing a strike on May Day wherever the cessation of work might involve sacri-fices.
The discussion on the political tactics of Social Democracy also revealed one of the weakest points of the Second International. While the most impor-tant leaders of the time were united in rejecting opportunist tactics of compro-mise with the bourgeoisie and in pursuing the objective of the proletarian revo-lution, they had no clear conception of the tasks of the proletariat in the revo-lution and of the relation of the working class to the bourgeois state.
The resolution put forward by the commission and passed by an over-whelming majority represented the following line of thought: trade union or-ganisations and political action are both necessary for agitation on behalf of the principles of socialism and for winning urgently necessary reforms. Conse-quently workers must fight for political rights in order to be able to put forward their demands in all legislative and administrative bodies and to win for them-selves the means of political power in order to “change them from being the means used for the rule of capitalism into the means for emancipating the pro-letariat.” The selection of the methods and forms of struggle was to be left to the different countries, but it was necessary.
The resolution also declared in favour of the initiative and referendum, and of a system of proportional representation.
“...to keep in the foreground of these struggles the revolu-tionary goal of the socialist movement, the complete economic, po-litical and moral transformation of present day society. In no case should political action serve as the pretext for compromise and al-liances which violate our principles or encroach upon our inde-pendence.”
This resolution, which uttered a warning against unprincipled compro-mise 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. While the international congresses never let pass an opportu-nity of celebrating the memory of the Paris Commune and of prophesying the World Commune, the most important lesson which Marx drew from the experi-ences of the Commune was forgotten, namely, that the proletarian revolution cannot simply take over the old state machine, but must destroy it.
Here was evidence of the confusion in which this question had been left by the programme of the German Party, adopted at the Erfurt Congress in 1891, despite Engels‘ criticism that “what the programme really should contain is omitted.” This programme, which in the time of the Second International was held to be the best Marxist Party programme, correctly describes the tenden-cies of development within bourgeois society, the intensification of the class struggle which necessarily leads that society into decay: but it was content with a programme of action, containing bourgeois-democratic and social re-forms, that made no mention of the tasks of the proletarian revolution in rela-tion to the state.
Vandervelde, always an expert — even at the time of his greatest fall — in defending a wrong cause with fine words, expressed with peculiar felicity this mixture of revolutionary principles with utter confusion concerning the funda-mental tasks of the revolution. He said:
“We do not ignore the dangers of corruption by parliamentarianism, for it leads to the most unnatural compromises, even to the betrayal of principle. But this danger of corruption does not lie in parliamentarianism itself, but in the fact that parliaments are in the hands of the bourgeoisie; when parliaments are controlled by the emancipated proletariat, the basis for corruption will disap-pear. Since, however, we recognise the dangers of parliamentarian-ism in bourgeois society, we have erected certain safeguards by demanding that those representatives of the workers who enter parliament should fulfill certain conditions. In the class struggle, they should in no circumstances lose sight of the fact that no com-promise with the bourgeois parties should be made which might in any way mean the surrender of even one iota of the class character of the proletariat. This is the only way in which the proletariat can achieve victory. If capitalism is not annihilated, if capitalism is not razed to the ground, the proletariat cannot triumph; but every compromise retards the annihilation of capitalism.’’
Compromise could not be entirely prohibited; it was necessary for small parties which did not have the franchise.
Thus on the one hand it was openly stated that the struggle for power could not be fought out in the parliamentary arena, while on the other the revolutionary transformation of the state system was visualised only as the transfer of parliament into the hands of the proletariat.
On behalf of the Dutch delegation, Vliegen moved a resolution directed against “state socialism.” At that time state socialism was understood to mean that reformist viewpoint represented particularly by Vollmar, which, following the Lassallian tradition, hoped for the solution of social problems through re-forms in the bourgeois state. It is true that the resolution did not contain any positive formulation on the question of the relation of the proletariat to parlia-mentarianism, to bourgeois parties and to the state, but it also avoided the confusion of the majority resolution in stating clearly
“...that improvements in the position of the worker in present day society can only be welcomed by the workers in the sense that they improve their capacity to fight, that they provide the means for better organisation and facilitate the expropriation of the pos-sessing classes.”
In speaking to the resolution, Vliegen remarked that the parties in Ger-many, England and France “were acting as possibilists, even if this was not said or written outright,” and explained possibilism, i. e., opportunism, in the following words: “The characteristic feature of possibilism is that it raises a means to the level of an end.”
The attack from the Dutch again brought Wilhelm Liebknecht to his feet. He supported the rejection of “state socialism” for, as the Berlin Party Congress of 1892 had declared, socialism and state socialism were irreconcilable contra-dictions. He protested vigorously against the “myth” that the Germans no longer took their stand on the ground of revolutionary class struggle. The Ger-man programme was more radical than any other programme, but questions of tactics were not questions of principle. “If the conditions were to change twenty-four times in one day, we would change our tactics twenty-four times.” The Dutch wanted to limit parliamentary activity to making protests; that was a mistake.
‘‘Just as tactics in themselves are neither revolutionary nor reactionary, so the state machine is not in itself reactionary. It is nothing but an instrument for exercising power, a sharp and pow-erful weapon. If an enemy attacks me with a weapon, I shall not master him by despising that weapon; I shall seek to deprive him of that weapon, if I do not wish to feel it in my own body. We can only triumph over the power by which we are opposed if we seize the mighty sword which it wields!... We are concerned with a struggle for power, and this struggle must be fought out on politi-cal soil, so that we can get into our own hands the legislative ma-chinery which our enemies have used for hundreds of years to suppress and exploit the proletariat.”
While, in this question of the state, Liebknecht openly took up a thor-oughly reformist attitude, he spoke decisively, on behalf of the German delega-tion, against any compromise with bourgeois parties, as did Adler for Austria, Turati for Italy and Quelch for England.
The resolution was passed unanimously, the Dutch abstaining. A resolu-tion on the agrarian question, in favour of the public ownership of the land, and a resolution on the “national and international formation of the trade un-ions” which recommended a loose connection and mutual support among trade unions, were also accepted. The latter resolution had been countered by the Dutch with a proposal for international unions and by the Austrians with a proposal recommending all countries to take up the struggle for universal and equal suffrage. The Congress closed its session with a speech by Engels which contained noteworthy remarks on the importance of the International. Engels said:
“We must allow discussion, or we shall become a sect, but a common outlook must be preserved. Free connection, voluntary cohesion supported by congresses — that is enough to give us the victory, of which no power in the world can deprive us.”
4. Exclusion of Anarchists; the Agrarian and Colonial Questions
London 1896
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