Socialism as it is

by William English Walling

The French and Italian advocates of revolutionary unionism also assign to the party a very secondary part, though they are by no means, like the anarchists, opposed to all political action. They do not as a rule oppose the Socialist parties, but they protest against the view that Socialist activities should be chiefly political. Their best-known spokesman in Italy, Arturo Labriola, one of the most brilliant orators in the country, and a professor in the University of Naples, writes:—

"The Social Democracy will prove to have been the last capitalistic party to which the defense of capitalistic society will have been intrusted. The syndicalists [revolutionary unionists] ought to get that firmly into their heads and draw conclusions from it in their necessary relations with the official Socialist Party. The latter ought to resign itself to being no more than a simple party of the legal demands of the proletariat [i.e. the unions,] on the basis of existing society, and not an anti-capitalist party."[262]

This is strong language and brings up some large questions. Far from being displeased with the moderate and non-revolutionary character of the Socialist Party, Labriola, himself a revolutionist, is so indifferent to the party as a direct means to revolution, as to hope that it will drop its revolutionary claims altogether and become a humble and modest but more useful tool of the unions. He even admitted in conversation with the writer that, attaching no value to political advance as such, he was not even anxious at this time that the illiterate South Italians should be given a vote, since they would long remain under the tutelage of the Catholic Church.

One of the founders of the present French movement, its earliest and chief theorist, Pelloutier, who has many followers among the present officials of the French Federation of Labor, went even further, denying to the government, and therefore to all political parties, any vital function whatever. To Pelloutier the State is built exclusively upon "superfluous and obnoxious political interests." The unions are expected to work towards a Socialist society without much, if any, political support. They are to use non-political means: "The general strike as a purely economic means that excludes the coöperation of parliamentary Socialists and demands only labor union activity would necessarily suit the labor union groups."[263]

The leading "syndicalist" writer to-day, Hubert Lagardelle, feels not only that a Socialist Party is not likely to bring about a Socialist society, but that any steps that it might try to take in this direction to-day would necessarily be along the wrong lines, since it would establish reforms by law rather than as a natural upgrowth out of economic conditions and the activities of labor unions, with the result that such reforms would necessarily go no farther than "State Socialism."[264]

Lagardelle speaks of the "State Socialistic" reform tendency as synonymous with "modern democracy." Because it supposes that there are "general problems common to all classes," says Lagardelle, democracy refuses to take into account the real difference between men, which is that they are divided into economic classes. Here we see the central principle of Socialism exaggerated to an absurdity. Few Socialists, even the most revolutionary, would deny that there are some problems "common to all classes." Indeed, the existence and importance of such problems is the very reason why "State Socialism," of benefit to the masses, but still more to the interest of the capitalists, is being so easily and rapidly introduced. Lagardelle would be right, from the Socialist standpoint, if he demanded that it should oppose mere political democracy, or "State Socialism" in proportion as these forces have succeeded in reorganizing the capitalist State—or rather after they have been assimilated by it. But to obstruct their present work is merely to stand against the normal and necessary course of economic and political evolution, as recognized by the Socialists themselves, a similar mistake to that made by the Populists and their successors, who think they can prevent normal economic evolution by dissolving the new industrial combinations and returning to competition. Just as Socialists cannot oppose the formation of trusts under normal circumstances, neither can they oppose the extension of the modern State into the field of industry or democratic reform, even though the result is temporarily to strengthen capitalism and to decrease the economic and political power of the working people. One of the fundamental differences between the Socialist and other political philosophies is that it recognizes ceaseless political evolution and acts accordingly. It teaches that we shall probably pass on to social democracy through a period of monopoly rule, "State Socialism," and political reforms that in themselves promise no relative advance, economic or political, to the working class.

In a recent congress of the French Party, Jaurès protested against a statement of Lagardelle's that Socialism was opposed to democracy. "Democracy," Lagardelle answered, "corresponds to an historical movement which has come to an end; syndicalism is an anti-democratic movement to the extent that it is post-democratic. Syndicalism comes after democracy; it perfects the life which democracy was powerless to organize." It is difficult to understand why Lagardelle persists in saying that a movement which thus supplements democracy, which does what democracy was claiming to do, and which is expected to supersede it, should on this account be considered as "anti-democratic." Socialism fights the "State Socialists" and opposes those whose democracy is merely political, but it is attacking not their democracy or their "State Socialism," but their capitalism.

"Political society," says Lagardelle, "being the organization of the coercive power of the State, that is to say, of authority and the hierarchy, corresponds to an economic régime which has authority and the hierarchy as its base."[265] This proposition (the truth of which all Socialists would recognize in so far as it applies to political society in its present form) seems sufficient to Lagardelle to justify his conclusion that we can no more expect Socialist results through the State, than we could by association with capitalism. He does not agree with the Socialist majority that, while capitalism embodies a ruling class whose services may be dispensed with, the State is rather a machine or a system which corresponds not so much to capitalism, as to the system and machinery of industry which capitalism controls.

Another and closely related idea of the syndicalists is that all political parties, as well as governments, necessarily become the tools of their leaders, that they always become "machines," bureaucratically organized like governments. Lagardelle adopts Rousseau's view that the essence of representative government (all existing governments that are not autocratic being representative) is "the inactivity of the citizen" and urges that political parties, like society in general, are divided between the governing and the governed. While there is much truth in this analysis,—this being the situation which it is sought to correct both in government and within political parties by such means as direct legislation and the recall,—Lagardelle does not seem to see that exactly the same problem exists also in the labor unions. For among the most revolutionary as among the most conservative of labor organizations the leaders tend to acquire the same relative and irresponsible power as they do in political parties. The difficulty of making democracy work inheres in all organizations. It must be met and overcome; it cannot be avoided.

Lagardelle's distrust of political democracy goes even further than a mere criticism of representative government. He thinks the citizen to-day unable to judge general political questions at all,—so that in his view even direct democracy would be useless. It is for this reason, he says, that parties have it as an aim to act and to think in the citizen's place. Lagardelle's remedy is not the establishment of direct democracy in government or in parties, but the organization of the people to act together on "the concrete things of life"; that is, on questions of hours, wages, and other conditions closely associated with their daily life and in his view adapted to their understanding. He does not seem to see that such questions lead almost immediately, not only to such larger issues as are already presented by the leading political parties, but also to the still larger ones proposed by the Socialists.