The era of Imperialism
Extract; Bukharin, “Lenin as a Marxist”
On
this socio-economic basis, we also had a corresponding political superstructure
- consolidated national states; "fatherlands". The bourgeoisie sat
firmly in the saddle. The imperialist policy began, which began to manifest
itself especially sharply, approximately in the 80s of the last centuries. On the
basis of the rise in the standard of living of the working class, the
separation and rapid progress of the labor aristocracy, a process of slow
growth of workers' organizations, internally, was reborn. This process thus
served as a background, as a soil for the
rebirth of the ideologically of the Labor movement, degenerating into the
system of the general capitalist mechanism, which found its main expression,
its most rational expression, in its political head, that is, in the state
power of the ruling bourgeoisie.
Therefore,
there is a certain lack of coordination between the development of Marxism in
the ideological field and the development of Marxism in the purely practical
field.
Marxism
in its two main forms began to be reborn. The most striking formulation of the
trend of degeneration was given by the revisionist current within the German
Social Democracy. Since we are talking about precise theoretical formulations,
we in other countries do not have more classical examples, even in spite of more decisive regenerations. Due to a whole series of historical conditions,
which I cannot enter into an analysis of here, this practice did not receive
sufficiently clear and precise formulations there, which it received in the
most, so to speak, -thinking of country.
In
Germany, the revisionist trend has already signaled quite clearly, and not only
signaled, but very fully expressed the departure from Marxism that was
characteristic of Marx and Engels and of the entire previous era. Much less
clear was the departure from Marxism of other groupings, which was called the
radical, or “orthodox” Marxist, with Kautsky at the head. … I personally
consider it wrong to think that the fall of the German Social-Democracy and of
Kautsky begins and dates back to 1914. It seems to me (now: we can say so) that
it has been a long time ago, though not with such haste; as with the
revisionists, with this grouping in the milieu of the German Social Democracy,
which for a long time set the tone for the entire International, we can quite
clearly see a departure from genuine orthodox, from truly revolutionary
Marxism, as it was formulated by Marx and Engels in the previous phase of
development working ideology.
I
repeat, at the beginning of this period there was a certain lack of
coordination between theory and practice. The most far-reaching ideologues of
the revisionist type laid down the practice of the German Social-Democrats,
having worked out the corresponding theory. Another part of the S.D. still
rested in its theoretical formulations, not being able, and not really trying,
in practice to overcome these harmful tendencies. This was the position taken
by the Kautsky group, but at the end of this period, when history posed
point-blank a number of the most fundamental and essential questions
(commencement of world war) it turned out that there was almost no significant
difference between these wings, both practically and theoretically. As a matter
of fact, these two wings—revisionism and Kautskyianism—expressed one and the
same tendency to degenerate and brand from , the tendency to adapt, in the
worst sense of the word, to those new social conditions that were emerging in
Europe and which were characteristic of this cycle of European development—they
expressed one and the same theoretical current that was leading away from
Marxism in its real and truly revolutionary formulation.
From
a general point of view, one can characterize this difference in such a way
that revisionist Marxism in its purest form—this has become most clear in recent
years—that this revisionist Marxism in its purest form, or Marxism in quotation
marks, has acquired a pronounced fatalistic character in relation to state
power, to the capitalist regime, etc., whereas in Kautsky and his group we have
a Marxism that could be called democratic-pacifist.
This
line of differentiation was arbitrary, it has become more and more blurred in
recent years as these currents began to follow the same channel, which more and
more resolutely moved away from Marxism. The essence of this process lies in the
exfoliation of the revolutionary essence of Marxism, in the replacement of the
revolutionary theory of Marxism, revolutionary dialectics, the revolutionary
teaching on the development of capitalism, the revolutionary teaching on the
collapse of capitalism, the revolutionary teaching on dictatorship, etc., —replacement
of all this by the usual bourgeois Democratic-Evolutionary pacifist doctrine.
It
could be shown in detail how this bias manifested itself very clearly in a
whole series of theoretical questions. I partly made this analysis in a speech devoted
to the program of the Communist International at one of the international
congresses. This revisionist deviation is found in Kautsky, who completely
falsifies in his theory of the state and state power; the same with Plekhanov,
who was one of the "most orthodox".
The
presence of such revisionism in the theory of the state makes it quite clear
why the Kautskyite wing also took a bourgeois-pacifist position during the
"world imperialist war".
The
real Marxian formulation in the field of the theory of state power is known to
all of us. This teaching can be expressed roughly in this way. During the
socialist revolution, the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie is destroyed, and
a new dictatorship is created— “anti-democratic”- and at the same time
proletarian-democratic state, a completely unique and specific form of state
power, which then begins to wither away. In Kautsky however, you will not find
anything of the kind in this point; and in Kautsky, as in all Social-Democratic
Marxists in quotation marks, all of them elucidate this point in such a way
that state power is something that passes from the hands of one class into the
hands of another in the same way "like a machine that was in the hands of
one class, and then passes into the hands of another class, without this new
class dismantling all its cogs and then putting them back together in a new
way.
From
the same formulation, theoretically pure, from this teaching follows the
defensive position during the war. Argumentation along this line could be heard
dozens of times at the socialist meetings at the beginning of the war, and this
extremely primitive argumentation has a certain kind of logic from its point of
view. It goes without saying that” if this given bourgeois state will be
tomorrow in my hands, then there is nothing to destroy it, but, on the
contrary, it must be protected, because tomorrow it will be ours.”
The
task was posed in a completely different way from that of Marx.
“If
the state must not be destroyed, because it will be in my hands tomorrow, then
the army must not be disorganized,
because it is an integral part of the state apparatus, no state discipline can
be violated,” and so on. Everything here is harmonious, and it goes without
saying that when these complexes were exposed to blows in mutual struggle, then
Kautskyianism, the German Social-Democrats, in full solidarity with its
theoretical presuppositions, drew the corresponding practical conclusion.
I
repeat that it is wrong to think that here we have some kind of momentary,
catastrophic fall. It was theoretically “justified.” We just didn't notice this
inner rebirth even in the so-called "orthodox" wing, which had little
in common with real orthodoxy.
The
same could be said about the theory of the collapse of capitalist society,
about the theory of impoverishment, about the colonial and national questions,
about the doctrine of democracy and dictatorship, about tactical doctrines,
such as the doctrine of mass struggle, etc. Regarding this point of view, I
would recommend to all comrades to read Kautsky's well-known classic pamphlet
The Social Revolution, which we have read, but now we will read it with
completely different eyes, because now it is not difficult to discover in it a
whole Mont Blanc of all sorts of distortions of Marxism and opportunist
formulations, which are completely clear to us.
If
these Marxist "epigons" took into account certain new changes in the
field of the capitalist system, in the field of the relationship between
economics and politics, if they put some new phenomena from the field of
current life under their theoretical lens, then these new phenomena are always
in essence they took into account from one point of view, from the point of
view of the growth of workers' organizations in an evolutionary way into the
general system of the capitalist mechanism.
For
example, a new joint-stock company appeared, but now they were using it to
explain that capitalism was being democratized.
There
has been an improvement in the condition of the working class on the continent,
and the conclusion was drawn from this immediately that perhaps a revolution is
not needed, but we can do everything by peaceful means.
Since
they relied on Marx, they immediately seized on a whole series of quotations,
on individual snatching of provisions and words ripped out of context.
It
was well known that Marx said of England: "In England, perhaps things can
get along without bloodshed."
This
was shared by everyone.
It
was known that Engels once said not particularly good things about the
barricade struggle.
Thus,
from this, every possible conclusion was at once drawn with the necessary
quotations; every phenomenon was considered from the aspect whereby the workers'
organizations were being absorbed by the general capitalist system, from the aspect which we might agree to call the standpoint of class truce. In the
end its revolutionary essence flew off from revolutionary Marxism. What happened very often in history, when we
have the same words, the same nomenclature, the same phrases, the same labels,
the same symbols, and I repeat, we have a completely different socio-political
content.
Bukharin,
“Lenin as a Marxist”
Translated from Russian
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