2. Right Majority — Left Resolutions Stuttgart 1907
Printed in the U.S.S.R. by Trade Union Labour
In estimating the character of a political organisation it is necessary to examine not only the position it takes up with regard to the questions on its agenda, but also the questions to which it does not define its attitude. The agenda of the Stuttgart Congress in August 1907 consisted of the following items:
(1) militarism and international disputes;
(2) relations between the political parties and the trade unions;
(3) the colonial question;
(4) immigration and emigration of workers;
The period between the Amsterdam and Stuttgart Congresses witnessed the greatest historical event since the Paris Commune: the Russian Revolution. In that period, too, occurred the great debates on the political mass strike. But the leaders of the International did not consider it necessary to define their at-titude to the lessons of the Russian Revolution. It was left to each one indi-vidually to agree either with the Russian liquidators in concluding that now the Russian socialists should also follow the European road of peaceful trade union and parliamentary work in the reactionary Duma, or with the Bolsheviks and the German left radicals that now, in this new period of harder fighting against the capitalist masters, the other parties would also have to learn to “speak Russian.”
With the exception of a speech by Rosa Luxemburg in the war commis sion, the Russian Revolution was mentioned only in greetings of address and in declarations of sympathy. At the opening of the Congress a great international meeting was held at the Canstatt Green. It was on that occasion that Plekha-nov put forward his Menshevik theory of the Russian Revolution. Its goal was not the establishment of the socialist republic, as many eloquent socialist writ-ers had maintained, but the creation of bourgeois liberties, which are essential to the peaceful progress of the proletarian movement for emancipation.
From another tribune Clara Zetkin announced:
“We cannot close this meeting more fittingly than by paying tribute to the greatest event of our time, the Russian Revolution, which is the prelude to a series of revolutions in which the prole-tariat of all countries will break their chains and win the world.”
Vandervelde followed the middle course for, although he did not speak of the revolution outside Russia, he attributed higher aims to the Russian Revolu-tion: “We hope that the Russian Revolution will not be merely a bourgeois-democratic revolution, but that it will bear the signature of the socialist prole-tariat.”
The resolutions of sympathy which were passed by the congress avoided any mention of the character and perspectives of the Russian Revolution; they merely declared that “the Russian Revolution, which has only just begun, has already become a powerful factor in the struggle between capital and labour.”
The extent of opportunist infection and the depth of its roots were dis-closed in the discussion on the colonial question. From many points of view, this question was of decisive importance.
The development of imperialist hostilities, which constantly threatened the proletariat with the outbreak of a world war, was concerned principally with rivalry for colonies. Italy had joined the German-Austrian entente, be-cause it envisaged danger to plans of robbery in the Mediterranean from the advance of France towards Tunis. The Anglo-French understanding of 1903, the basis of the Triple Entente, was come to on the basis of a division of colo-nial areas. France admitted England’s right to subject Egypt and assured to herself the right to plunder Morocco undisturbed. German imperialism, which did not benefit at all from these negotiations, brought the world to the verge of war by its “panther spring to Agadir” (the despatch of the warship “Panther” to Morocco). The concessions Germany received in 1906 at the Conference of Al-geciras again postponed the struggle. But the struggle for a share in colonies, as one of the most important causes of imperialist conflict, could not be con-cealed.
In 1907 the German Social Democrats had suffered an election defeat on the question of colonial policy. In 1904, when the German imperialists had in the most brutal fashion suppressed the rising of the Hereros in South West Af-rica, murdering half the population and driving thousands of women and chil-dren to death in the desert, the socialist members of the Reichstag abstained from voting on the war credits for this slavery expedition on the ground that it was not yet known who had begun hostilities. Later the party corrected its po-sition and voted against the credits. It was the only party in the Reichstag which opposed the colonial policy of Germany, even if it did so in a somewhat confused and inconsistent fashion. In December 1906 the Bülow government suddenly dissolved parliament, when a manoeuvre of the centre opposition seemed to endanger the course of colonial policy. The elections — known as the Hottentot elections — were carried on in an atmosphere of the most extreme chauvinist-imperialist hostility towards the Social Democrats; in particular the liberal bourgeoisie, whose representative Dernburg was in the colonial office, showed in this election its complete adherence to imperialism, and was conse-quently bitterly opposed to the Social Democrats. The bourgeois parties, refer-ring to the Russian Revolution and to the discussions on the mass strike which had taken place in Germany, used the “red spectre” to scare off petty bourgeois support of the S.D.P.
Despite these difficulties, the party gained a quarter of a million votes and also increased its percentage of the total poll, but it lost 38 seats. This re-sult can easily be explained; the basis of the constituencies, which had been established in 1869, gave the agricultural and petty bourgeois areas a greater number of seats in proportion to the population than the industrial and prole-tarian areas. The party gained the votes of at least half a million workers, and lost a quarter of a million petty bourgeois votes, which meant that the seat was lost in several constituencies.1
At that time, when imperialism in Germany was pushing ahead, it was inevitable that the petty bourgeois masses and the upper sections of the prole-tariat should be won over to imperialist policy by their temporary prosperity — which reached its height in 1906 — and by the prospect of a great advance on the basis of colonial exploitation. The election results presented the socialists with a clear alternative: either firmly to maintain an anti- imperialist, proletar-ian revolutionary policy and penetrate deeper into the proletariat, which would mean renouncing temporarily the support of the petty bourgeoisie, and conse-quently the loss of seats; or, by giving up the struggle against the imperialist colonial policy, to enter into competition for the support of the petty bourgeoi-sie, infected with chauvinism, and thus transfer the basis of their organisation from the proletariat to the petty bourgeoisie and the labour aristocracy.
Support for colonial policy was one of the chief points in reformist policy in all countries. The Jaurèsists had voted the credits for the China campaign, the Fabians announced it as a victory when a member of their society, Sidney Olivier, who had taken part in the Zurich Congress as secretary of the British section, was appointed Governor of Jamaica. In their report to the Stuttgart Congress it was pointed out that “this is one of the most important posts in the colonial service, the salary attached to it being greater than that of most minis-ters in England.”2
1 Proportional representation was not in force at the time in Germany; the system was one of single member constituencies, voting by ballot, and the elected candidate had to have an absolute majority.
2 The Socialist Labour International, Report of the Social Democratic- Organisations to the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart. Berlin, 1907, p. 212 (German)
In Germany Bernstein, Cunow and Schippel put forward the theory that since colonial expansion arose from the nature of capitalism, it could not be fought. It was impossible to fight what had been recognised as necessary. Be-fore the Dresden Party Congress Bernstein wrote in the Sozialistische Monatshefte:
“Without the colonial expansion of the national economy, the poverty which we can observe in Europe and which we are anxious to eliminate, would be much greater, and the prospect of eliminat-ing it much less, than is the case at present... Even against the debit balance of the colonial outrages, the advantages which the colonics have brought weigh down the scale... Social Democracy is in the position of being able to examine recent colonial projects quite dispassionately, according to their objective value. In coun-tries which are not overburdened with colonies, there is no eco-nomic consideration inducing Social Democrats to resist such co-lonial proposals as really prove to be capable of success.”
In 1903, when Kautsky was still in the left wing of the party, he was fully aware of the meaning of this policy. At the Dresden Party Congress he said:
“The revisionist comrades are just as anxious to protect the interests of the proletariat as we are, but they ally themselves with the bourgeois parties at the expense of a third party, and that is the colonies. The proletarians are told: let us go out into the wide world, let us plunder the primitive peoples, and we shall divide the booty, and then we shall both have more than we have got today. And so, wherever revisionism is thought out to its logical conclu-sion, colonial policy plays a great part in harmonising the interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.”
In the dispute on colonial policy it had therefore to be decided whether the parties in the Second International, acting as the representative of the in-ternational proletariat, of all the exploited and oppressed, would carry on the revolutionary struggle on the side of the colonial slaves against the imperialists, or whether they would act as the representative of the labour aristocracy in Europe, corrupted by surplus profits, and align themselves with the imperialist slave-owners in favour of colonial exploitation. The choice was one between two utterly irreconcilable class lines, and the complete lack of purpose which char-acterised the centre was manifested in the attitude of Bebel, who in December 1906 declared in the Reichstag:
“That a colonial policy is being conducted is not in itself a crime. In certain circumstances this can be a work in the interests of civilisation; the question is, how this policy is being conducted. If you come to strange peoples as friends, as benefactors, as teach-ers of humanity, in order to help them, in order to help them make use of the treasures of their country, so that both the natives and the whole of human culture may be benefited, then we are in agreement with it. But that is not the case with your colonial pol-icy. You do not come as liberators and teachers, but as robbers, as oppressors, as exploiters.”
This illusory “socialist” or “democratic” colonial policy, which was con-trasted with capitalist colonial policy in order to evade the real struggle against colonial policy, was the formula behind which the majority of the colonial commission at the Stuttgart Congress took refuge. The revisionist David de-clared the “colonial idea” to be an integral part of the universal cultural aims of the socialist movement, and expressed this “socialist colonial policy” in the formula that the colonial population as well as the natural treasures of the colonies had to be protected against capitalist exploitation. A Belgian delegate, Terwagne, declared on behalf of the minority of his party that it was after all impossible to leave everything in the Congo just as it was; consequently the policy of colonisation should not be rejected in principle and for all time, for under a socialist regime it could work in the interests of civilisation. The Aus-trian social-patriot Pernerstorfer expressed himself in the same fashion.
The opposite conception, the utter rejection of colonial policy, was for-ward by Ledebour and Wurm for the Germans, and Karski for the Polish left. The speeches of these representatives of the left wing were, however, remark-able in that they placed no hope in the revolutionary strength of the colonial peoples, but only discussed the question of defending the defenceless colonial peoples by the strength of the European proletariat. A few years later the great revolutionary movements in Turkey, Persia and China showed how false this estimate was.
By a majority the commission accepted a resolution which began with the following sentence, formulated by the Dutch delegate van Kol:
“The Congress declares that the usefulness or the necessity of the colonies in general— and particularly for the working class — is greatly exaggerated. It does not however reject colonial policy in principle and for all time, for under a socialist regime it may work in the interests of civilisation.”
To this recognition of colonial policy “in itself” was added a condemnation of capitalist colonial policy and a number of practical demands, including one for an international treaty between governments in order to establish a colonial legislative system which would protect the rights of natives and be mutually guaranteed by the states entering into the treaty. The minority of the commis-sion suggested replacing van Kol‘s introductory paragraph by an outright con-demnation of colonial policy, by an exposure of all the chatter about “the mis-sion of civilisation” which was used as a cloak for capitalist exploitation and robbery, and they also proposed that the “practical” demand for a guarantee treaty among capitalist governments should be entirely omitted. There was also a proposal put forward by the English delegation which, going beyond the Am-sterdam resolution, declared in favour of the emancipation of India from British supremacy. In moving the majority resolution van Kol said:
“Before 1870, when we were still a small group, when we still believed in the catastrophe theory, we thought it was enough just to protest against capitalism. Now we have also recognised it as our duty to act against capitalism. And in colonial policy too we must have a reform programme. The great majority of the commis-sion adopted a resolution which rejects a purely negative stand-point and demands a socialist colonial policy. The minority resolu-tion expresses nothing hut gloomy desperation.... Even Ledebour is convinced that capitalism is a necessity in Europe, that it is a nec-essary and inevitable stage of development. Does that not also ap-ply to capitalism in the colonies?... Does Ledebour want to deprive the present order of society of the indispensable raw materials which the colonies can offer it? Does he want to deprive only the present age of the immeasurable wealth of the colonies? Do those German, French and Polish delegates who signed the minority resolution wish to take on the responsibility of simply abolishing the present colonial system? There have been colonies as long as humanity has existed, and I believe that there will be colonies for a long time yet, nor will there be many socialists to claim that colo-nies will be unnecessary in the future order of society.... Perhaps he will tell us what to do with the surplus population of Europe, in what countries the people who have to emigrate will make their homes, if not in the colonies. What will Ledebour do with the grow-ing output of European industry, if he does not want to create new markets for them in the colonies?”
Bernstein put forward the same case:
“We must get rid of the utopian idea which would have us simply leave the colonies. The logical conclusion of such a concep-tion would be that the United States should be given back to the Indians.”
As representative of the minority, Ledebour directed his attack chiefly on the stupid supposition that the rejection in principle of colonial policy meant giving up the struggle for reforms to improve the position of the colonial peo-ples. He energetically contested the usefulness to the working class of colonial policy and said that the road taken by Bernstein and the English Fabians must lead into the bog of capitalism.
A similar attitude was taken up by the French socialist Bracke, who at-tacked the utopian idea of demanding a socialist colonial policy from capitalist governments.
Kautsky made a sharp attack on the majority resolution. It was contra-dictory to socialist and democratic thought. Bernstein‘s theory was the theory of two groups of peoples, of which one was destined to rule and the other to be ruled, the theory of slaveowners and despots, that one group came into the world to wear spurs and the other to bear a saddle to carry the former.
Van Kol‘s reply was if possible an even more shameless recognition of co-lonial exploitation than his speech. He derided the erudite Kautsky:
‘Today we have again been treated to the old wives’ tale of co-lonial cruelties, which has long become a boring subject to a par-liament of socialists. It is true that at the present time colonial pol-icy is imperialist, but It is not necessarily so, it can also be democ-ratic. In any case it is a grave injustice for Kautsky to say ab-stractly that colonial policy and imperialism are one and the same thing.... And the learned Kautsky has done even worse in giving advice on the industrial development of the colonies. We are to take machines and tools to Africa! Empty theory. That is how he wants to civilise the country. If we were to take machinery to the savages of central Africa, what would they do with it? Perhaps they would perform dance around it or add another god to the great number they already have.... If we Europeans come there with tools and machinery, we should be the defenceless victims of the natives. So we must go there with weapons in our hands, even if Kautsky does call that imperialism.”
The resolution on the independence of India was not put to the vote, but was referred to the International Bureau.
The minority amendment to the colonial resolution was passed by the close majority of 127 votes against 108, the ten votes of the Swiss delegation being withheld.1
The votes against the amendment—that is, for a “socialist” colonial pol-icy—were cast by the full strength of the Germans, Austrian, Belgians, Danes, Dutch, Swedes and South Africans2 — it was obvious that the German delega-tion was held together only by party discipline — by a majority of the English and French and a minority of the Italians. The majority who passed the minor-ity resolution of the commission consisted, characteristically enough, of the representatives of the imperialist great powers of Russia, America and Japan, and of the representatives of small countries and oppressed peoples.
1 At this Congress, for the first time, the different delegations were entitled to a number of votes in accordance with the strength of the parties thy represented. The largest received 20 votes, the smaller ones from 15 down to 2.
2 The South Africans were, of course, representatives of the white workers, not of the colonial slaves
The voting signalised the victory of opportunism in the working class movement of the imperialist countries. As against that it was of little impor-tance that finally the resolution, as amended against colonial policy, was passed unanimously with the Dutch abstaining. During the voting an exciting incident occurred, for at first David voted against the resolution on behalf of the German delegation; this led to a vote being taken in the German delegation itself, which resulted in a large majority in favour of the resolution. It was clear that at first the centre voted with the right in favour of van Kol‘s resolution, and then with the lefts against the rights for a resolution which contained the direct opposite of that resolution.
In the discussion on the question of militarism and international con-flicts the alignment was not so clear as in the colonial question. The dispute was chiefly between the semi-anarchist attitude of Hervé and the centrist posi-tion of Bebel, while the resolution which was actually passed corresponded to those ideas of the Marxist left which were least often expressed in the discus-sion itself. Four resolutions had been moved. Bebel’s resolution declared that as a rule wars were the result of the competitive struggle of capitalist states in the world market. They would only cease when the capitalist economic order was abolished; it was essential for all labour representatives to fight against armaments and to vote against military appropriations. “In the democratic or-ganisation of the army, which includes all those capable of bearing arms, the Congress sees an essential guarantee that offensive wars will be rendered im-possible.” Should a war threaten to break out, then the workers were to pre-vent the outbreak of war by “the means they consider most effective” or, if that did not prove effective, they were to do everything to put an end to the war as quickly as possible.
The resolution moved jointly by Jaurès and Vaillant for the majority of the French delegation described militarism as a means of keeping the working class under the capitalist yoke. An attack on the independence of a nation was an attack on the international working class.
“The nation which is threatened and the working class must defend their independence against such attacks, and they have a right to the support of the working class of the whole world. This policy of defence and the anti- militarism of the socialist party im-plies the demand for the disarming of the bourgeoisie and the arm-ing of the working classes by means of the general arming of the people…. The prevention of war is to be effected by the national and international socialist action of the working class, using every means in its power, from parliamentary intervention and public agitation to the mass strike and insurrection.”
The resolution of the Guesdist French minority opposed special anti-militarist agitation, since militarism was only a result of capitalism, and the methods of desertion and military strike, going as far as revolution, which were advocated for the anti-military struggle, were calculated to make the propa-ganda for socialism more difficult. The positive demands recommended were a shorter period of military service, the rejection of all credits for the army and navy and propaganda in favour of the general arming of the people. In the event of an international conflict the International Bureau was to meet and take the necessary measures.
Finally Hervé‘s resolution ran:
“Considering that it is all the same to the proletariat in the name of what nationality or government they are exploited by the
.capitalists and considering that the interests of the working class are exclusively opposed to the interests of international capitalism, the Congress rejects bourgeois and governmental patriotism, which falsely maintains that there is a community of interests existing between all the inhabitants of one country, it declares that it is the duty of socialists in all countries to unite for the overthrow of this system in order to establish and to defend a socialist regime. In view of the diplomatic notes which threaten the peace of Europe from all sides, the Congress calls upon all comrades to answer any declaration of war, no matter from what side it is made, with the military strike and with insurrection.”
Bebel‘s resolution was of so general a character that even the most ex-treme adherents of defence of the fatherland such as Vollmar gave it their ap-proval. The Vaillant-Jaurès resolution linked recognition of the revolutionary methods of struggle against a war of aggression with recognition of the duty of defending the fatherland. It was drawn up, obviously, to meet the anxiety of large sections of the French people about an attack from German militarism. It did not express the will of French socialists to answer a war of imperialist France with revolutionary struggle, but the will to direct the power of the Ger-man Social Democracy to the use of the sharpest weapons against German militarism. The Guesdist resolution, with its rejection of special anti-militarist propaganda, showed how the abstract, formal and undialectic conception of Marxism which prevailed among this group in the French labour movement had been transformed into opportunism.
Hervé‘s ideas were described by Kautsky, correctly, as “heroic stupidity.” In his book Leur Patrie, Hervé had enunciated the same ideas which were con-tained in his resolution. Following these lines, his adherents carried on a cou-rageous, energetic, anti-militarist and anti-patriotic agitation.
At that time Lenin wrote that the contents of Hervéism were positive in so far as they gave an impulse to socialism, and were not limited merely to par-liamentary methods of struggle, but also developed among the masses the con-sciousness of the necessity of revolutionary methods of struggle in connection with those crises which inevitably accompany war and finally, Hervéism was positive in indicating that a living consciousness of the international solidarity of the workers and the falseness of bourgeois patriotism had taken root among the masses.11 Lenin, ‘The International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart,” in Collected Works, Vol. XII.
But from the standpoint of revolutionary Marxism he sharply criticised Hervé‘s semi-anarchist folly.
The thesis of the Communist Manifesto that “the workers have no father-land” fully answers the patriotism of Vollmar, Noske and Co. (Noske, who had already given himself a bad name by his patriotic speeches in parliament, and Karl Liebknecht, the champion of anti-militarist agitation, especially among the youth, were invited to take part in the sitting of the commission.) But it does not follow from that that it is a matter of indifference to the workers in which “fatherland” they live. For the political, cultural and social environment is an important factor in the class struggle, and from the standpoint of the proletar-ian class struggle, though not from that of bourgeois patriotism, the proletariat has to consider the question of the fate of the country. The question is not whether the proletariat should answer a declaration of war with a strike or an insurrection, if that is expedient, but whether the proletariat should undertake to answer every declaration of war with insurrection. Such a decision would be foolish, for it means that the proletariat would resort to insurrection not when the conditions for such action were most favourable, but when it pleased the bourgeoisie to declare war, that is, at a time which in most cases would cer-tainly not be the most favourable for the decisive struggle. If it is expedient, the proletariat can resort to the military strike, but it is by no means expedient to bind oneself to this “tactical recipe.” Finally, if the proletariat decides on insur-rection, this is not in order to replace war by peace, but in order to replace capitalism by socialism.
How far removed from such Marxist criticism of Hervéism was the speech with which Bebel opened the commission discussions! Against the appeal to the statement in the Communist Manifesto that the workers have no fatherland. Bebel declared boldly that the pupils of Marx and Engels no longer shared the views of the Manifesto.
“What we are fighting is not the fatherland itself, for that be-longs far more to the proletariat than to the ruling class, but the conditions which prevail in that fatherland in the interests of the ruling classes.”
And with truly astonishing naiveté he stated that:
“To maintain that in any given case it would be difficult to say what is a war of aggression and what a war of defence is incor-rect. Matters have changed since the threads which lead to war ca-tastrophes were invisible to the informed and observant politician. Cabinets can no longer conceal their policy.”
And just as Jaurès had praised the Triple Entente as a bulwark of peace, Bebel assured the Congress that “nobody in important circles in Germany wanted war…” Finally, on the question of defence, he said:
“If we, as Social Democrats, cannot entirely dispense with military armaments, so long as the relations of individual states to each other have not undergone radical transformation, we need them purely for defence, and on the broadest possible democratic basis, which will prevent the misuse of the military forces. Conse-quently we shall fight the existing militarism m Germany by every possible means and with all our strength. But beyond that we can-not allow ourselves to be forced into adopting methods of struggle which might be fatal to the life and, in certain circumstances, to the very existence of the party.”
Hervé was not unjustified, when replying to this speech, in saying that the socialist world regarded with astonishment and regret the attitude of the German Social Democracy to militarism, that the entire German Social Democ-racy had become bourgeois and that Bebel had gone over to the revisionists. He had issued the slogan: Workers of the world, murder each other!
The entire German delegation was indignant at this speech. Seven years later it was shown that Hervé‘s words applied to the overwhelming majority not only of the German, but also of the French Social Democrats. Bebel himself died in 1913. Jaurès was murdered on the eve of the war. Had they retained the attitude which they adopted in 1907 they would have fallen to the same level of bourgeois patriotism as Hervé, so radical in 1907, who volunteered for service in August 1914.
Bebel‘s speech contained not only the incorrect conception that on the outbreak of war between imperialist states the decision as to who was aggres-sor and who defender could be based on the childish question, “Who started it?”, not only the illusion that a more democratic organisation of the defence of the state makes it merely an instrument of defence — it also contained the fundamental rejection of revolutionary methods of struggle because they might endanger the legal existence of the party. Bebel’s fall on the question of the mass strike after the Jena Congress was necessarily followed by his failure on the question of the struggle against war. Actually, Bebel had fallen to the posi-tion of Vollmar, who declared:
“It is not true that we have no fatherland.... The love of hu-manity cannot for a moment prevent me from being a good Ger-man.”
In fact the reformist Jaurès displayed more revolutionary determination than the ex-revolutionary Bebel, when he declared:
“In the Neue Zeit Kautsky advocated direct action in the event of German intervention in Russia in support of the Tsar. Be-bel repeated this from the tribune of the Reichstag. If you can say that, then say the same for all international conflicts. It is true that military intervention by Germany in support of the Tsar against the Russian Social Democracy would be the most extreme, the most acute form of the class struggle. Bui if a government does not take the field directly against Social Democracy; if, frightened by the growth of socialism, it seeks a diversion abroad, if in that way war between France and Germany breaks out, then should the German and French proletariat be allowed to murder each other at the bidding and for the benefit of the capitalists without the Social Democrats having exerted their strength against it to the very ut-most? If we were not to do that, we should be completely dishon-oured.”
Bebel‘s respect for legality went too far even for the not overbold Victor Adler, whom in 1903 Bebel had accused of revisionism. He rejected Vollmar‘s
patriotic analysis of the resolution. In the name of the Polish and Russian So-cial Democrats Rosa Luxemburg recalled the Russian Revolution.
“If the bloody shadows of the fallen revolutionaries were here, they would say: ‘We can do without your praise, but learn from us.’ And it would be treachery to the revolution if you were not to do so…. The Russian Revolution not only arose out of the war, it also served to stop the war.”
She contended that Vollmar should be disavowed by the great mass of the German proletariat, recalled the Jena resolution in favour of the general strike and announced that an amendment to Bebel‘s resolution, rendered nec-essary by the speeches of Bebel and Vollmar, would be introduced. In his reply Bebel used a ridiculous argument against the mass strike in the event of war:
“According to a statement made by Chancellor Caprivi in 1893, Germany, in the event of war, would immediately call all men capable of bearing arms to the colours, that is, six million men, of whom two million are Social Democrats, and in France four and a half million soldiers. Where should we get the people for the mass strike? Four million families would be in the greatest need, and that is worse than any general strike.”
Then the memory of better days awoke in the old fighter:
“I do not know what will come, but I do know that this war will probably be the last and that the whole of bourgeois society will be at stake. We can do nothing, therefore, except educate, spread light, agitate and organise. From a certain standpoint a So-cial Democrat might say that a great European war would further our cause more than a decade of agitation and therefore we should wish for the war. We do not desire such a frightful way of attaining our goal. Bui if those who are most interested in the maintenance of bourgeois society do not see that by such a war they are tearing up the very roots of their existence, we have nothing against it: then I say: go your own way, and we shall succeed you. If the rul-ing classes themselves did not know that, we should have had the European war long ago. Only the fear of the Social Democracy has so far prevented them. But if such a situation does arise, then we shall no longer be concerned with such trifles (!) as mass strike and insurrection; then the very features of the civilised world will be completely changed.”
A sub-commission was set up to formulate the resolution. Lenin offered Rosa Luxemburg the mandate of the Russian Social Democracy. On behalf of the Russian and Polish Social Democracy, Rosa Luxemburg put forward an amendment which gave Bebel‘s ambiguous resolution a clear revolutionary character.
A paragraph was inserted embodying the essence of the anti-militarist agitation carried on in Germany among the working class youth, particularly by Karl Liebknecht, which called upon the parties to educate the working class youth in the spirit of socialism and the fraternity of the peoples, to train them systematically in class consciousness, so that the ruling classes would not dare to use them as tools for strengthening their class domination over the militant proletariat.
The concluding paragraph of the resolution, formulated by Rosa Luxem-burg and Lenin, contained those directions which became the guiding princi-ples of proletarian internationalism in time of war.
“If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working classes and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved to exert every effort to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the sharpening of the class struggle and the general political situation. In case war should break out anyway, it is their duty to intervene in favour of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilise the economic and political crisis created by the war to rouse the masses and thereby to hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule.”
The significance of this paragraph becomes particularly clear in applica-tion to the various examples of revolutionary struggle against a reactionary war, especially to the Russian Revolution of 1905. Nevertheless the resolution betrays the trait of compromise, firstly in the demand for a popular system of defence in place of a standing army — a demand issuing from the times of bourgeois revolutions and national wars, which loses its revolutionary content and assumes a reactionary character in the epoch of imperialism and proletar-ian revolution, when the need of the day is the disarming of the bourgeoisie and the arming of the proletariat. Secondly, in the demand for the “utilisation of courts of arbitration in place of the pitiful institutions of governments, a step which will assure to the peoples the benefit of disarmament.” That was an ex-pression of the pacifist illusions which were always contested by consistent Marxists.
The question whether, in an imperialist war, there can be any talk of the defence of a country which has been attacked, was not answered explicitly ei-ther in the affirmative or the negative. Vandervelde, who moved the resolution on behalf of the commission, spoke of the “inalienable right of every country to defend its independence from external attack,” and from that concluded that the militia was necessary as a means of defence.
As chairman Singer moved that the resolution should be accepted forth-with. Hervé, on the contrary, wanted discussion, since there was a great differ-ence between the resolution and the speeches which had been made in the commission. The German delegation would have to state that it did not share the opinion of Bebel and Vollmar, but agreed with the standpoint taken up in the resolution.
However, with the usual diplomatic pretence of agreement which did not exist, the resolution was passed unanimously, without discussion. Differences of principle were not fought out, but covered over. A good resolution unani-mously accepted concealed the incapacity of the International for united action.
The other points on the agenda were of secondary importance in com-parison with these two. On the question of the relation of the party to trade un-ion organisations a resolution was passed which, in essentials, corresponded to the resolution by Kautsky rejected by the Stuttgart Congress of the German Social Democratic Party. According to this resolution, the party and the trade unions have tasks of equal importance to carry out. The relations between them are to be as close as possible and the desirability of uniformity in trade union organisation was not to be lost sight of.
“The trade unions will only be able to fulfil their duty in the workers’ struggle for emancipation if their activities are guided by a socialist spirit. It is the duty of the party to support the trade un-ions in their efforts to improve and to raise the social position of the workers.
“The Congress declares that the progress of the capitalist system of production, the growing concentration of the forces of production, the greater unification among the employers, the in-creasing dependence of individual concerns on the whole of bour-geois society, will necessarily condemn trade union activity to im-potence if the unions confine their attention to the interests of craft corporations and if their work is conducted on the basis of profes-sional egoism and the theory of a harmony of interest between capital and labour.”
This resolution was opposed by some French trade unionists, who had wanted to include the principle of the neutrality of the trade unions and a rec-ognition of the general strike, and also by the leader of the Socialist Labour Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, Daniel de Leon, who was anxious for a sharper condemnation of the reactionary American unions and wanted the resolution to include paragraphs on the formation of the un-ions on industrial lines and on the role of the trade unions in the building of socialist society.
In the commission Plekhanov too, representing the Mensheviks, declared his adherence to the principle of trade union neutrality, while Voinov,1 for the Bolsheviks, took up the Marxist standpoint on this question.
1 Party name of A. V. Lunacharsky. — Ed
In the discussion on woman suffrage Clara Zetkin, reporting for the commission, sharply attacked the opportunist tendency of renouncing the de-mand for woman suffrage. In England, for example, the opportunists had voted in favour of a proposed franchise which would have benefited only the women of the possessing classes, merely in order to win the support of bourgeois femi-nists. The Austrian Party had thrust the demand for votes for women some-what in the background, imagining that a more modest franchise would be easier to achieve. The resolution declared that, when the struggle was carried on, it should be conducted on socialist principles, that is, as the demand for a uni-versal franchise for men and women; it was passed with only one dissent, but a woman representative of the Fabian Society declared quite openly that:
“Whatever this Congress may decide, we shall, in virtue of the autonomy of nations, work together with the bourgeois suffra-gists.”
On the question of emigration and immigration a number of chauvinist voices were again raised against the “import of coolies.” But here again a reso-lution was accepted which followed the lines of proletarian internationalism.
Thus we see that a congress at which the opportunists were already in the majority passed revolutionary resolutions on all questions. How did it hap-pen that the lefts, although in the minority, could carry the day as far as reso-lutions were concerned? The reason is clear. First of all the Marxists had on all questions a united, consistent and international standpoint, while the oppor-tunists had no settled opinions and the opportunists of one country disagreed with those of another. Secondly, the reformists were not anxious to express their opinions openly before the international working class. Each party wanted to appear better than it actually was in practice. But the experience of the Sec-ond International has shown well enough how worthless are the finest deci-sions if they are not backed by an organisation which is prepared to carry them out.
3. Nationalism in the Trade Union Question — Opportunism in the Co-operative Question
Copenhagen 1910
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