The Collapse of the International on the Outbreak of War
RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL
CHAPTER III
THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL AND THE RISE OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
1914—1918
1. The Collapse of the International on the Outbreak of War; the Capitulation of the Centre; the Roots of Social-Imperialism
What sensitive and thoughtful person who lived through that time can forget those fatal days from the Austrian ultimatum on July 23 to August 4, 1914, the Black Day of German Social Democracy and the International, when the socialist group in the Reichstag, 110 strong, unanimously voted for the war credits?
Since that time a new generation has grown up. The young men whom the imperialists would again send to rot in the trenches in the coming war were children at that time. It is impossible to tell too often to this young generation the story of that collapse; the whole working class should be constantly taught the lessons of that frightful time and should learn to draw the conclusions therefrom.
On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist at Sarajevo, the capital of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary. For the Austro-Hungarian imperialists and militarists this offered a welcome opportu-nity, on the pretext of punishing the guilty, of extending the power of Austro-Hungarian imperialism in the Balkans at the expense of .Serbia and Russia. Berchtold, the Austrian foreign minister, addressed an ultimatum to the Ser-bian government on July 23, demanding that an Austrian representative should take part in the investigation of the crime and the pronouncement of sentence, the dissolution of Serbian nationalist organisations and the prohibi-tion of any press propaganda against Austria.
Compliance with those demands would in fact have placed Serbia under the control of the Austrian government. The German government, which was aware that an Austrian-Serbian war could not be localised, but must necessar-ily develop into a world war, encouraged its ally’s frank provocation of war. Subsequently the German government maintained that it was unaware of the verbal text of the ultimatum before it was despatched; even if that were true, there is no doubt that the general contents of the ultimatum were known and approved by the German government.
On July 25 Austria declared war on Serbia; simultaneously with Austria, Russia began to mobilise; proposals of mediation from Grey, British foreign minister, were rejected both by Austria and Russia. On July 30, having re-ceived the report of general mobilisation in Russia, the German government presented an ultimatum to that country. Receiving no reply, Germany’s decla-ration of war on Russia followed on August 1. On August 4 German troops marched into Belgium; the same day England declared war. The catastrophe of world war, for many years prophesied by Marxists, had become bloody reality What did the Socialist International do in that frightful crisis? What did the socialist parties do, which with solemn vows had threatened the imperialist war criminals with every weapon, up to that of insurrection?
On July 29 the International Socialist Bureau met at Brussels. A few weeks previously Victor Adler had declared that he did not believe in the immi-nence of war. Now the Austro-Serbian war was already being waged. The Bu-reau decided not to hold off the international Congress which was called for August 23 at Vienna, but to fix it for August 9. On the day that the Bureau met a great international mass demonstration against war was held in Brussels. The chairman of the German Party, Haase, spoke at the meeting; he declared that Austria alone was responsible for the war. Thousands and millions of workers in Germany had protested against war. The rulers would have to take care, otherwise so much misery and oppression would arouse the people to such a pitch of indignation that they would overthrow the existing system and establish socialist society.
Jaurès said that it was not necessary to force a peaceful policy on the French government, for its intentions were just as peaceful as those of the Eng-lish government. (At that very time the “peaceful” French ministry was in at-tendance at the Tsar’s naval review in the Baltic Sea.) He sent greetings to the German Social Democracy, whose members had been thrown into prison for their anti-militarist agitation, and in particular to Rosa Luxemburg, who in February 1914 had been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. He threatened that the masses would rise in revolution and settle their accounts with the rul-ers in all countries for the blood that was shed.
On August 1 Hermann Müller — in 1928 the builder of armoured cruis-ers — went to Paris on behalf of the German Party, in order to discuss with the socialist members of the French Chamber their attitude in the event of war. The Belgian socialist Hendrik de Man, who accompanied Müller as interpreter, gave the following report of the negotiations:
Müller declared that the German Party would either vole against the war credits or refrain from voting: “I consider it impossible that our votes should be given for the credits.”
A French member of the Chamber remarked that in the event of a Ger-man attack, the French socialists could not very well reject the credits. There-upon Müller declared that in the opinion of the German Party the distinction between attackers and attacked was obsolete, war arising from imperialist capi-talism and the responsibility for it falling upon the ruling classes of all the bel-ligerent countries.
Finally it was agreed that abstention from voting in both countries would offer the best guarantee for united procedure. It was, however, stated that no-body could really bind themselves and that each party was to take its decisions in complete independence, while striving for the greatest possible uniformity of attitude.
On July 1 a state of war was declared in Germany. Demonstrations and meetings of the Social Democrats in favour of peace, which had been arranged for the first days in August, were forbidden. On the same day the Party Com mittee issued an appeal to its members which ran:
“The working class movement is acutely affected by the strict regulations of martial law. At the present moment thoughtless ac-tions, useless and ill-understood sacrifices injure not only the indi-vidual, but the whole cause.”
On August 3 the Reichstag Social Democratic group met to decide on the question of their attitude to the war credits. By 78 votes against 14 it was agreed to vote for the credits. Kautsky, whose inherent lack of firmness was never more apparent than in those critical days, proposed that either their votes should be withheld or that they should be made dependent on a guaran-tee from the government as to the objects of the war. Nobody took the sugges-tion seriously, for they all knew that in the situation prevailing the government would not allow the objects of the war to be laid down by the Social Democrats. Later the Alsatian deputy and chauvinist Grumbach maintained that on the contrary the Reichstag fraction committee, taking into consideration the wishes of the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, struck out from the original draft of the declaration on this question a sentence which ran:
“Should the war develop into a war of aggression, we shall oppose it with the utmost energy.”1
Later it became known that the revisionist wing of the group had already decided to vote for the war credits, even if the majority were to oppose such a course.
The minority who had voted against approval of the war credits submit-ted to party discipline; Haase, a member of that minority, even allowed himself to be persuaded to read the declaration at the full meeting. At that time, too, Karl Liebknecht agreed to maintain discipline, in order to preserve the external unity of the party and in the hope that later, once the first war madness had passed, the majority would also be won for opposition to the war.
The important sections of this notorious declaration run as follows:
“The results of imperialist policy, which ushered in an era of competition in armaments and intensified hostility between the peoples, have broken over Europe like a tidal wave. The responsi-bility for this falls on those who conducted that policy — we reject it. Social Democracy has fought against this development with all its strength and up to the very last hour it worked for the mainte-nance of peace by mighty demonstrations in all countries and in close agreement with our French brothers. These efforts have been in vain.
“Now we are confronted by the iron fact of war. The terrors of hostile invasion threaten us. Today we have not to decide for or against war but on the question of the means necessary to the de-fence of the country.
“Now we have to think of the millions of our compatriots whom, without any fault on their part, this fate has overwhelmed We consider it our urgent duty to stand by them, to alleviate their lot, to mitigate this immeasurable suffering
“For our people and for their future freedom, a victory of Russian despotism, stained with the blood of the best of its own people, would place much, if not everything, at stake. This danger must be warded off, if the civilisation and the independence of our own country are to be assured. In so doing we are verifying what we have always emphasised: in the hour of danger we shall not de-sert the fatherland. In so doing we feel ourselves in harmony with the International which recognised the right of every people to in-dependence and self defence, at the time that we, with the Interna-tional, condemned every war of aggression.
“We demand that so soon as the object of security is achieved and the enemies of peace overcome, the war should be terminated by a peace which enables friendship to be maintained with the neighbouring peoples. We demand this not only in the in-terests of the German people.
“We hope that the cruel school of war will awaken in further millions the detestation of war and will win them for the ideals of socialism and of peace among the peoples. Guided by these princi-ples, we approve the credits demanded.”
This declaration gave the signal for the most contemptibly chauvinist ut-terances to flood the pages of the Social Democratic press. The gospel of “hold-ing out” was announced, civil peace replaced the class struggle. The Social Democratic leaders competed with the bourgeois leaders in orgies of patriotism. The Chemnitz Volksstimme wrote;
“Work for peace among peoples has ceased just now. Other cares press upon us.
“One question alone occupies us all: Shall we win? And our answer is: Yes. We have been outlawed and persecuted, we were called men without a fatherland, while we ardently and sincerity strove for the welfare of Germany.
“But whatever has been inflicted upon us we are all at this moment aware of our duty, which is, before all, to fight against Russian slavery.”
The Hamburg Echo wrote:
“Now we must hold out... Now it is iron that decides. Now it is power that decides. The people of Germany must defend them-selves.”
And the Social Democratic comic paper, Der Wahre Jakob, wrote in true Wilhelmian style:
“Well, children, now there’s nothing left for it but a thrash-ing.”
The trade unions ceased to fight for better conditions for the workers and set their energies to eliminating any friction in the production of war materials. The trade union press declared proudly that trade union discipline made the best sort of soldiers out of the workers.
With a few notable exceptions the Social Democratic parties in other countries followed the shameful example of the German Party. In France the war credits were passed unanimously. On the day of the declaration of war Jaurès was assassinated by a nationalist. A much worse fate overtook Guesde and Vaillant. Both these old fighters against reformism fell together with the reformists into the bog of opportunism. Together with Millerand, Guesde en-tered the ministry of national defence.
In Belgium the entry of Vandervelde into the government was the first war measure. The Belgian Social Democrats were not content with general phrases about defence, they preached undying hatred against all Germans. The central socialist organ, Le Peuple, wrote on August 18:
“On the day of the inevitable victory of all the Allies this ha-tred, without mercy and without weakness, must place the Teuton race outside the pale of humanity. For several generations (!) this race will have to do penance for the fearful crime that it has com-mitted.”
In Austria the Social Democratic deputies were spared the decision on war credits, since the government did not consider it necessary to assemble parliament. In an appeal dated July 25, the German Social Democrats of Aus-tria protested against this arbitrary measure and laid the responsibility for the war on the government. In the same appeal, however, they admitted the right of this reactionary government to demand guarantees from Serbia “that under-ground activities against the security and peace of the Austrian state should be prohibited.”
On the day of the declaration of war the party leadership issued an ap-peal expressing the hope of a new Austria and warning party members to keep party activity within the narrow limits imposed by the emergency situation. Chauvinist frenzy was first exhibited in the Vienna Arbeiterzeitung on August 2. The war was described as a “world war of the Tsar,” sabre-rattling Wilhelm ap-peared as the peace-maker and all the blame was thrust on to tsarism and “semi-barbaric Serbia.”
On August 5, the German-Austrian social-patriot Austerlitz indulged in a passionate hymn of praise for the action of the German Social Democrats in approving the war credits. In an article entitled The Day of the German Nation he wrote:
“This day, August 4, we shall never forget. However the iron die may fall — and with the greatest ardour of our heart we hope that it will fall victoriously for the sacred cause of the German peo-ple — the picture given today by the German Reichstag, the repre-sentative of the nation, will be indelibly imprinted on the con-sciousness of all German humanity, will remain in history as a day of the proudest and most powerful exaltation of the German spirit.
“Man for man the German Social Democrats voted for the credits. Like the whole international Social Democracy, our Ger-man Party, that jewel of the organisation of the class conscious proletariat, is the most vigorous opponent of war, the most pas-sionate adherent of the union and solidarity of the peoples. And it omitted to do nothing which might have prevented this war (which is now, above all, a war against the German system), it omitted nothing that might have spared humanity this frightful upheaval of the whole earth. It is certainly not its fault that the German Empire and the whole of Europe are experiencing the scourge of war. But now that the German fatherland is in danger, now that the na-tional independence of the people is threatened, the Social Democ-rats stand on guard before their homeland and the ‘men without a country,’ the ‘red rabble,’ as the Kaiser once said of us in abuse, dedicate to the state the life and blood of the working masses.
“So, united, the German people marches to the fight for the protection of its political and national existence. On the other side wretched speculators and hucksters, lacking any moral idea; here a united and powerfully moved people; world history would be moving backwards if the Germans were not to receive justice.”
The national trade union commission of Austria issued a notice to shop stewards in which they were asked to come to the help of the state by render-ing it support in their trade union activities and by keeping strictly within the legal limits imposed by the state of emergency.
“With regard to wage movements we feel compelled to ex-press our opinion that the present time is most unfavourable to such activities and that consequently their initiation and conduct should as far as possible be discontinued.”
The Italian Social Democrats in Austria, in their Trieste organ Lavoratore, answered these orgies of social-patriotism with the biting comment that, if the few Social Democrats in Belgium had managed to get one minister, then in Germany at least half a dozen socialist ministers must have been appointed.
In England the leader of the British Socialist Party, Hyndman, wrote in the party organ that Germany, as the disturber of peace, had to be decisively defeated and nothing should be done to hinder the efforts of the government to win a rapid victory. The declaration that the landlords and capitalists of Great Britain were still the worst enemies fitted rather badly among these social-patriotic slogans.
Even after the outbreak of war the Independent Labour Party – a rare ex-ception — held on to its policy of pacifist objection to the war.
The Dutch Social Democrats under Troelstra‘s leadership maintained an attitude of neutrality and voted for the credits asked by the government in or-der to defend that neutrality.
In the articles of Het Volk, the central organ of Dutch Social Democrats, there was, however, evidence of the hostility of the masses towards Germany, aroused by the violation of Belgian neutrality. To the Dutch Social Democrats the greatest danger seemed to be the possibility of being forced on to the Ger-man side by any British violation of neutrality. They staled that it was impossi-ble to fight against England and the reasons given betrayed the social-imperialist.
“It is extremely important to remember that a conflict with England would directly endanger our colonies so that, as things stand, such a conflict is to be avoided. The policy pursued by Ger-many is not worth any sacrifice on our part.”
Those who took up the opposite stand were less numerous. In the Ser-bian Skupchina the deputies Lapchevich and Katzlerovich voted against the war credits and branded the government as being partly responsible for the war. A similar attitude was adopted by the Bulgarian “narrow” socialists.
The Italian socialists who at their congress at Regia Emilia in 1912 had, on the proposal of Mussolini, at that time still on the left wing, expelled the so-cial-patriots from their party, were united in their opposition to Italy’s partici-pation in the war and continued to uphold their stand even after Italy’s entry into the war. In Holland the Tribunists,1 who had split off from the Social De-mocratic Party in 1906, defended the principles of proletarian internationalism. They declared that a civil war was preferable to a blood bath with their brothers of other countries.
But the revolutionary struggle against war, the civil war against the im-perialist war, found its most conscious and resolute expression in the theory and practice of the Russian Bolsheviks. As early as July 1914 the proletariat in Petersburg was fighting on the barricades. In the first period of chauvinist frenzy the iron fist of the military dictatorship was able to keep down the revo-lutionary movement, but the Bolshevik group in the Duma made an open dec-laration of struggle against the crime of the tsarist government and placed themselves at the service of the organisation for carrying on illegal revolution-ary work among the workers and soldiers; for this they were all exiled to Sibe-ria.
Thus, in the time of greatest trial, it was shown that it was precisely the strongest parties, the parties of the most important imperialist countries, which failed most shamefully, and that in the war it was not the radical resolu-tions, passed unanimously or with overwhelming majorities, which determined the action of the parties, but the ideas of the reformists, a thousand times con-demned and rejected at all party and international congresses. It was not the centre, but the frank and unashamed opportunists who took over the leader-ship. There were the decisions of International congresses imposing on all par-ties the duty of voting against military expenditure; for the German Party there was the decision of the Magdeburg Congress of 1910, condemning outright ap-proval of the budget; there was the International’s decision of 1904 which for-bade the participation of socialists in bourgeois governments even more sharply than that of 1900, but in Germany as in France, in England as in Bel-gium, the Social Democrats voted for the war credits. In France, England and Belgium socialists entered the government and if they failed to do so in Ger-many and Austria it was because — as subsequent developments showed — the bourgeoisie in those countries did not consider it expedient at that time to take Social Democrats into the government. The Stuttgart and Basle resolu-tions, demanding revolutionary struggle against war and the utilisation of the crisis engendered by war for the overthrow of capitalism, were a dead letter to the leaders of those parties.
It is necessary to explain from the Marxist standpoint why, in that crisis, the centre surrendered so completely to reformism, why opportunism in its most repulsive form, in the form of social imperialism, triumphed.
The centrists were always trying to find a middle path between the revo-lutionaries and the reformists. Neither adaptation to the existing bourgeois or-der nor preparation of the masses for the revolutionary struggle, but opposition within the boundaries of legal parliamentary and trade union action — that, briefly, was more or less the theory and practice of the Marxist centre in the peaceful period which preceded the world war.
So long as that comparatively peaceful period lasted, so long as great cri-ses did not compel definite decisions and so long as the Social Democratic par-ties did not embody a power great enough to give great historical importance to their decisions, it was possible to adopt this middle position of “pure” opposi-tion without revolutionary consequences.
But as the practice of a proletarian mass party this policy became impos-sible the moment that the outbreak of imperialist war placed the existence of all the belligerent states at stake. Kautsky‘s prudent proposal to refrain from voting on the war credits was quite rightly ignored by all the sections because such an expedient, the symbolical expression of the desire to avoid a decision, was impossible in such a situation- The war had to be fought, or fought against. A party with four and a quarter million adherents closely observing the attitude of their leaders could not simply protest in parliament and then quietly evade all responsibility. Against the mighty war machine of the bourgeoisie, against the raging chauvinism of the whole bourgeois world, against the terror-ism of the military dictatorship, the workers’ parties could only take up the fight if they were prepared to bear all the consequences of the struggle, that is, if they were guided by revolutionary perspective and by revolutionary determi-nation.
Because the revolutionary perspective, the faith in the revolutionary strength of the masses, the will to revolutionary action was lacking in the cen-trists, they saw no other way in practice than that of consciously and consis-tently following the path of the reformists. In fact, for the South German oppor-tunist Frank, who in Baden had been fighting for years to get approval of the budget, it was the obvious thing to vote for the war credits and to enlist as a volunteer.
For Hyndman, who regarded naval armaments in England as an essen-tial defence against the German danger, it was nothing more than an act of consistency to proclaim war on Prussian militarism.
For the Jaurèsists, who had introduced a bill concerning the more effec-tive defence of the country and who, even in the days of peace, had taken the road of government participation, it was, again, merely an act of consistency to accept posts in the ministry in time of war.
But what reasons did Kautsky, Friedrich Adler, Longuet and Co. adduce to justify the policy of defence of the bourgeois fatherland? In 1914-1915 Kaut-sky published in the Neue Zeit the notorious articles which later appeared in pamphlet form under the title Internationalism and the War.
In the pitiful rigmarole of which this complaisant purveyor of “Marxist’’ theories to justify the actions of the Party Committee showed himself to be a master — and never more so than at that moment — one thing was clear: with-out a revolutionary perspective, it is impossible to find any other way than that of social-patriotism.
Kautsky‘s philosophy ran on the following lines: In every past war Marx and Engels and their followers propounded this question: “Of which power, or group of powers, would the victory be more favourable for the international proletariat?”
“In peace the obvious position of the Social Democracy, as representative of the lowest ranks of the people, is that of opposi-tion to any government — until it has itself won the strength to take over the government. In wartime it is placed in the unenviable situation of supporting a government, once it decides to take sides with one of the belligerent states. If that government is its own government, that implies voting the means to carry on war, com-plying with the demands of a government to whom, in peace time, not a man nor a penny would have been granted.”
Thus, for Kautsky, there was only one question — whether the victory of the Central Powers or the Triple Entente was “in the interests of the proletar-iat,” whether the German and Austrian, or the Russian, English and French governments should be supported. And since this is a question impossible to answer, Kautsky found it quite natural for the German Social Democrats to de-sire the victory of the German armies and the French socialists the victory of the French armies — of course, always in the interests of the proletariat.
The essence of the Stuttgart and Basle resolutions, that the proletariat is interested, not in the victory of one capitalist government, but in the overthrow of all capitalist governments, was completely forgotten.
The fear of revolutionary struggle, which actually lay at the basis of cen-trist theory, was expressed somewhat ingenuously by the representative of the Rumanian Party in the I.S.B., Rakovsky (who later went over to the left wing). Rakovsky asked what the Austrian Social Democrats should have done after the outbreak of war. “There would have been only one way—insurrection.” But if there was no certainty of success, such a movement, whether it took the form of insurrection or strike, was bound to develop into civil war, to disorganise the machinery of government and further the interests, not of the Austrian Social Democrats, but the Serbian chauvinists. Consequently no Social Democratic party could begin such a movement, if hostile armies stood on the frontier, without the certainty of success.
This profound consideration, which left the international proletariat, as an independently acting factor, completely out of account, gave rise to the no-torious Kautskyist thesis: “The International is not an effective instrument in war time, it is essentially an instrument of peace,” and to Rosa Luxemburg‘s brilliant slogan in her Junius Pamphlet: “Fight for peace, class struggle in peace.” Friedrich Adler wrote in similar strain in the Vienna Kampf in 1915: the only policy suitable for socialists in time of war is the policy of silence. Since the practical decision was between civil war against imperialist war and sup-port of the imperialist war, the centrists were bound to surrender to social-imperialism. They who, during the debates on the mass strike which had occu-pied the preceding years, had opposed revolutionary action, they who were un-able to draw from the Russian Revolution practical lessons for the conduct of the workers’ struggle, they who were nervously anxious to continue in the old rut while gigantic new conflicts approached — they could do nothing, when the catastrophe happened, imperatively demanding revolutionary action, but sup-ply “Marxist” arguments to justify the imperialist actions of the openly reform-ist elements. If the centrists in the Independent Labour Party conducted them-selves to some extent better than their comrades in Germany, France and Aus-tria, it was only because they were comparatively so small and powerless; their rejection of war did not mean revolutionary action against war, their fight did not menace the security of the national frontiers.
How was it that opportunism had eaten so deeply into the socialist or-ganisations of precisely the leading imperialist countries? For in fact it was a case not only of the treachery of the leaders, it was the complete failure of the great mass organisations together with their leading bodies, for at first, despite their shameful treachery, the leaders were able to maintain their influence over the organised workers.
The fact that this reformist decay had gone deeper in the countries with the most powerful imperialist position and the greatest imperialist super-profits showed where the causes of degeneration were to be sought. In the middle of the previous century Marx and Engels had explained the bourgeois develop-ment of the British labour movement, the formation of a corrupt leadership at the head of the trade unions, by the monopoly position of British capitalism, which meant that the upper section of the workers enjoyed a standard of life above the average and therefore entertained feelings of solidarity with the rul-ing classes against the exploited workers in other countries, particularly in the colonies from which the super-profits of imperialism were mainly drawn. We have already referred to this fact.
This also explains why it was first of all and particularly the trade unions which were affected by this reformist infection; why, for example, in Germany, the preponderant influence of the trade union leaders determined the victory of opportunism in the German working class movement.
In the trade unions the skilled workers outweighed the unskilled. The trade union organisations enabled the skilled workers to obtain by trade union methods, in the comparatively peaceful epoch of the advance of German impe-rialism at the beginning of the twentieth century, a constant, if modest im-provement in their standard of living. In addition there were the numerous state social institutions which persuaded the workers that the state to some extent assured their existence. Thus there arose the labour aristocracy, as rep-resented by Bernstein when he said that the phrase “the workers have no fa-therland’’ no longer applied to the modern state,1 or by Gustav Bauer who de-clared that the workers with their organisations had a great deal to lose.2
The imperialist world war offered a frightful lesson of how the interna-tional proletariat had to pay for the illusion of a harmony of interest between itself and the imperialist states.
2. The Bolsheviks Raise the Standard of the Third International; Zimmerwald and the Zimmerwald Left
1914—1916
.jpg)
