Socialism as it is

by William English Walling

CHAPTER VI

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS

In the most famous document of international Socialism, the "Communist Manifesto" (published by Marx and Engels in 1847), there is a fulmination against "reactionary Socialism," which it will be seen is approximately what we now call "State Socialism." After describing the Utopian Socialism of Fourier, of Saint-Simon and of Owen, the "Manifesto" says:—

"A second form of Socialism, less systematic but more practical, tried to disgust the working people with every revolutionary movement, by demonstrating to them that it is not such and such a political advantage, but only a transformation of the relations of material life and of economic conditions that could profit them. Let it be noted that by transformation of the material relations of society this Socialism does not mean the abolition of capitalist relations of production, but only administrative reforms brought out precisely on the basis of capitalist production, and which consequently do not affect the relation of capital and wage labor, but in the best case only diminish the expenses and simplify the administrative labor of a capitalist government.... In the promotion of their plans they act always with the consciousness of defending first of all the interest of the working class. The working class only exists for them under this aspect of the suffering class.

"But in accordance with the undeveloped state of the class struggle and their social position, they consider themselves quite above antagonism. They desire to ameliorate the material condition of life for all the members of society, even the most privileged. As a consequence, they do not cease to appeal to all society without distinction, or rather they address themselves by preference to the reigning class."[178]

Marx points out that the chief aim of these "reactionary Socialists" was the transformation of the State into a mere organ for the administration of industry in their interest, which is precisely what we mean to-day by "State Socialism."

In contrast with this "reactionary Socialism," now prevalent in Great Britain and Australia, the Socialist parties of every country of the European Continent (where such parties are most developed), without exception are striving for a social democracy and a government of the non-privileged and not for a scheme of material benefits bestowed by an all-powerful capitalist State. Professor Anton Menger, of the University of Vienna, one of the most acute and sympathetic observers of the movement, remarks correctly that—"in all countries, at all times, the proletariat [working class] has rightly thought that the continuous development of its power is worth more than any economic advantage that can be granted it."[179]

The late Paul Lafargue, perhaps the leading thinker of the French Socialist movement, a son-in-law of Karl Marx, made a declaration at a recent Party Congress which brings out still more clearly the prevailing Socialist attitude. Denying that the Socialists are opposed to reforms, he said: "On the contrary, we demand all reforms, even the most bourgeois [capitalist] reforms like the income tax and the purchase of the West [the Western railroad, lately purchased by the government]. It matters little to us who proposes reforms, and I may add that the most important of them all for the working class have not been presented by Socialist deputies, but by the bourgeois [capitalists]. Free and compulsory education was not proposed by Socialists." That is to say, Lafargue believed that reforms extremely beneficial to the working class might be enacted without any union of Socialists with non-Socialists, without the Socialists gaining political power and without their even constituting a menace to the rule of the anti-Socialist classes. Capitalism of itself, in its own interest and without any reference to Socialism or the Socialists, may go very far towards developing a society which in turn develops an ever growing and developing working class, though without increasing the actual political or economic powers of this class when compared with its own.

In Germany especially, Marx's co-workers and successors developed marked hostility to "State Socialism" from the moment when it was taken up by Bismarck nearly a generation ago (1883). August Bebel's hostility to the existing State goes so far that he predicts that it will expire "with the expiration of the ruling class,"[180] while Engels contended that the very phrase "the Socialist State" was valueless as a slogan in the present propaganda of Socialism, and scientifically ineffective.[181]