"The Socialist Party must conform to the conditions imposed upon other parties," says Mr. J. R. MacDonald in agreement with Mr. Wilson's position.[204] On the contrary, no Socialist Party could possibly survive such an attitude. It is only the refusal to conform that assures their continued existence.
There is no possibility that the Socialist parties of Continental Europe would for a moment allow the State to prescribe their form of organization. Kautsky thus describes the German and the French methods of control:—
"A class is only sure that its interests in Parliament will always be furthered by its representatives in the most decisive and for the time being most effective manner, if it is not content with electing them to Parliament, but always oversees and directs their Parliamentary activities."
Kautsky illustrates this principle of controlling elected persons by referring to the methods of labor unions, and proceeds:—
"The same mass action, the same discipline, the same 'tyranny' which characterize the economic organizations of labor is also suitable to labor parties, and this discipline applies not only to the masses, it also applies to those who represent them before the public, to its leaders. No one of these, no matter in what position he may be, can undertake any kind of political action against the will or even without the consent of his comrades. The Social Democratic representative is no free man in this capacity, as burdensome as that may sound, but the delegate of his party. If his views come into conflict with theirs, then he must cease to be their representative.
"The present-day Member of Parliament ... is not the delegate of his election district, but, as a matter of fact, if not legally, the delegate of his party. But this is not true of any party to such an extent as it is of the Social Democracy. And while the party discipline of the bourgeois parties is, in truth, the discipline of a small clique which stands above the separated masses of voters, with the Social Democracy it is the discipline of an organization which embraces the whole mass of the aggressive and intelligent part of the proletariat, and which is stretching itself more and more to embrace the whole of the working class." (My italics.)[205]
In the introduction to the same booklet, Kautsky sums up for us in a few words the methods in use in France:—
"Our French comrades have created for the solution of this difficulty a body between the Party Congress and the Party Executive like our Committee of Control, but different from the latter in that it counts more members who are elected not by the Congress, but directly by the comrades of the various districts which they represent. A right to elect five members to the Party Congress gives the right to elect one member to the National Council.
"The National Council elects from the twenty-two members of the permanent Executive Committee the five party secretaries, whose functions are paid. It conducts the general propaganda, oversees the execution of party decisions, prepares for the Congresses, oversees the party press and the group in Parliament, and has the right to undertake all measures which the situation at the moment demands."[206]
We see that the Socialist members of the national legislatures, both in Germany and France, are under the most rigid control, and we cannot doubt that if such control becomes impossible on account of legislation enacted by hostile governments, an entirely new form of organization will be devised by which the members of the Socialist Party can regain this power. Either this will be done, or the "Socialist" Party which continues to exist in a form dictated by its enemies, will be Socialist in name only, and Socialists will reorganize—probably along the lines I have suggested.
It would seem, then, that neither by an attack from without or from within is the revolutionary character of Socialism or the essential unity of the Socialist organization to be destroyed.
The departure from the Party of individuals or factions that had not recognized its true nature, and were only there by some misunderstanding or by local or temporary circumstances is a necessary part of the process of growth. On the contrary, the Party is damaged only in case these individuals and factions remain in the organization and become a majority. The failure of those who represent the Party's fundamental principles to maintain control, might easily prove fatal; with the subordination of its principles the movement would disintegrate from within. In fact, the possibility of the deliberate wrecking of the Party in such circumstances, by enemies within its own ranks, has been pointed out and greatly feared by Liebknecht and other representative Socialists. This tendency, however, seems to be subsiding in those countries in which the movement is most highly developed, such as Germany and France.