Part 32 (2/2)

The platform of the American Socialist Party in 1904 divided the population between the ”capitalists,” and the ”working or _producing cla.s.s_.” ”Between these two cla.s.ses,” says this platform, ”there can be no possible compromise ... except in the conscious and complete triumph of the working cla.s.s as the only cla.s.s that has the right or _power_ to be.”

”By working people,” said Liebknecht, ”we do not understand merely the manual workers, but _every one who does not live on the labor of another_.” His words should be memorized by all those who wish to understand the first principles of Socialism:--

”Some maintain, it is true, that the wage-earning proletariat is the only really revolutionary cla.s.s, that it alone forms the Socialist army, and that we ought to regard with suspicion all adherents belonging to other cla.s.ses or other conditions of life.

Fortunately these senseless ideas have never taken hold of the German Social Democracy.

”The wage-earning cla.s.s is most directly affected by capitalist exploitation; it stands face to face with those who exploit it, and it has the especial advantage of being concentrated in the factories and yards, so that it is naturally led to think things out more energetically and finds itself automatically organized into 'battalions of workers.' This state of things gives it a revolutionary character which no other part of society has to the same degree. We must recognize this frankly.

”Every wage earner is either a Socialist already, or he is on the high road to becoming one.

”We must not limit our conception of the term 'working cla.s.s' too narrowly. As we have explained in speeches, tracts, and articles, we include in the working cla.s.s all those who live exclusively _or princ.i.p.ally_ by means of their own labor, and who do not grow rich from the work of others.

”Thus, besides the wage earners, we should include in the working cla.s.s the small farmers and small shop keepers, who tend more and more to drop to the level of the proletariat--in other words, all those who suffer from our present system of production on a large scale.” (My italics.)

The chief questions now confronting the Socialists are all connected, directly or indirectly, with these producing middle cla.s.ses, who, on the whole, do not live on the labor of others and suffer from the present system, yet often enjoy some modest social privilege.

While Liebknecht considered that the wage-earning cla.s.s was more revolutionary and Socialistic than any other, he did not allow this for one moment to persuade him to give a subordinate position to other cla.s.ses in the movement, as he says:--

”The unhappy situation of the small farmers almost all over Germany is as well known as that of the artisan movement. It is true that both small farmers and small shopkeepers are still in the camp of our adversaries, but only because they do not understand the profound causes that underlie their deplorable condition; it is of prime importance for our party to enlighten them and bring them over to our side. _This is the vital question for our party, because these two cla.s.ses form the majority of the nation._... We ought not to ask, 'Are you a wage earner?' but, 'Are you a Socialist?'

”If it is limited to the wage earners, Socialism cannot conquer. If it included all the workers and the moral and intellectual elite of the nation, its victory is certain.... Not to contract, but to expand, ought to be our motto. The circle of Socialism should widen more and more, _until we have converted most of our adversaries to being our friends_, or at least disarm their opposition.

”And the indifferent ma.s.s, that in peaceful days has no weight in the political balance, but becomes the decisive force in times of agitation, ought to be so fully enlightened as to the aims and the essential ideas of our party, that it would cease to fear us and can be no longer used as a weapon against us.”[217] (My italics.)

Karl Kautsky, though he takes a less broad view, also says that the Socialist Party is ”the only anti-capitalist party,”[218] and contends in his recent pamphlet, ”The Road to Power,” that its recruiting ground in Germany includes three fourths of the nation, and probably even more, which (even in Germany) would include a considerable part of those ordinarily listed with the middle cla.s.s.

Kautsky's is probably the prevailing opinion among German Socialists.

Let us see how he proposes to compose a Socialist majority. Of course his first reliance is on the manual laborers, skilled and unskilled.

Next come the professional cla.s.ses, the salaried corporation employees, and a large part of the office workers, which together const.i.tute what Kautsky and the other Continental Socialists call the _new_ middle cla.s.s. ”Among these,” Kautsky says, ”a continually increasing sympathy for the proletariat is evident, because they have no special cla.s.s interest, and owing to their professional, scientific point of view, are easiest won for our party through scientific considerations. The theoretical bankruptcy of bourgeois economics, and the theoretical superiority of Socialism, must become clear to them. Through their training, also, they must discover that the other social cla.s.ses continuously strive to debase art and science. Many others are impressed by the fact of the irresistible advance of the Social Democracy. So it is that friends.h.i.+p for labor becomes popular among the cultured cla.s.ses, until there is scarcely a parlor in which one does not stumble over one or more 'Socialists.'”

It is difficult to understand how it can be said that these cla.s.ses have no special ”cla.s.s interest,” unless it is meant that their interest is neither that of the capitalists nor precisely that of the industrial wage-earning cla.s.s. And this, indeed, is Kautsky's meaning, for he seems to minimize their value to the Socialists, because _as a cla.s.s_ they cannot be relied upon.

”Heretofore, as long as Socialism was branded among all cultured cla.s.ses as criminal or insane, capitalist elements could be brought into the Socialist movement only by a complete break with the whole capitalist world. Whoever came into the Socialist movement at that time from the capitalist element had need of great energy, revolutionary pa.s.sion, and strong proletarian convictions. It was just this element which ordinarily const.i.tuted the most radical and revolutionary wing of the Socialist movement.

”It is wholly different to-day, since Socialism has become a fad.

It no longer demands any special energy, or any break with capitalist society to a.s.sume the name of Socialist. It is no wonder, then, that more and more these new Socialists remain entangled in their previous manner of thought and feeling.

”The fighting tactics of the intellectuals are at any rate wholly different from those of the proletariat. To wealth and power of arms the latter opposes its overwhelming numbers and its thorough organization. The intellectuals are an ever diminis.h.i.+ng minority, with no cla.s.s organization whatever. Their only weapon is persuasion through speaking and writing, the battle with 'intellectual weapons' and 'moral superiority,' and these 'parlor Socialists' would settle the proletarian cla.s.s struggle also with these weapons. They declare themselves ready to grant the party their moral support, but only on condition that it renounces the idea of the application of force, and this not simply where force is hopeless,--there the proletariat has already renounced it,--but also in those places where it is still full of possibilities.

Accordingly they seek to throw discredit on the idea of revolution, and to represent it as a useless means. They seek to separate off a social reform wing from the revolutionary proletariat, and they thereby divide and weaken the proletariat.”[219]

In the last words Kautsky refers to the fact that although a large number of ”intellectuals” (meaning the educated cla.s.ses) have come into the Socialist Party and remain there, they const.i.tute a separate wing of the movement. We must remember, however, that this same wing embraces, besides these ”parlor Socialists,” a great many trade unionists, and that it has composed a very considerable portion of the German Party, and a majority in some other countries of the Continent; and as Kautsky himself admits that they succeed in ”dividing the proletariat,” they cannot be very far removed politically from at least one of the divisions they are said to have created. It is impossible to attribute the kind of Socialism to which Kautsky objects to the adhesion of certain educated cla.s.ses to the movement (for reasons indicated in Part II).

While many of the present spokesmen of Socialism are, like Kautsky, somewhat skeptical as to the necessity of an alliance between the working cla.s.s and this section of the middle cla.s.s, others accept it without qualification. If, then, we consider at once the middle ground taken by the former group of Socialists, and the very positive and friendly att.i.tude of the latter, it must be concluded that the Socialist movement _as a whole_ is convinced that its success depends upon a fusion of at least these two elements, the wage earners and ”the new middle cla.s.s.”

A few quotations from the well-known revolutionary Socialist, Anton Pannekoek, will show the contrast between the narrower kind of Socialism, which still survives in many quarters, and that of the majority of the movement. He discriminates even against ”the new middle cla.s.s,” leaving n.o.body but the manual laborers as a fruitful soil for real Socialism.

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