Nationalism and Culture (42 page)

While the authoritarian wing of the International continued to advocate the necessity of the state and pleaded for centralism, the libertarian section within its body saw in federalism not only a political ideal for the future, but also a basis for their own organization and endeavors j for according to their conception the International was to provide the world a model of a free community, as far as this was at all possible under existing conditions. It was this concept which led to the internal strife between the centralists and federalists which was finally to wreck the International.

The attempt of the London General Council, which was under the immediate intellectual influence of Marx and Engels, to increase its sphere of power and to make the international league of awakened labor subservient to the parliamentary policies of definite parties, naturally led to the sharpest resistance on the part of the liberal-minded federations and sections which adhered to the old principles of the International. Thus happened the great schism of the socialistic labor movement which has not been bridged to this dayj for this is a quarrel over inner antagonisms of fundamental significance, and its outcome must have decisive results not only for the labor movement but for the idea of socialism itself. The disastrous war of 1870-71 and the rising reaction in Latin countries after the fall of the Paris Comrnune, with the revolutionary events in Spain and Italy, where by oppressive laws and brutal persecutions every public activity was inhibited and the International forced into the hiding places of secret societies, have greatly favored the latest developments of the European labor movement.

On July 20, 1870, Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels these words, very characteristic of his personality and his mental attitude:

The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians are victorious the centralization of state power will be helpful for the centralization of the German working class; furthermore, German predominance will shift the center of gravity of West European labor movements from France to Germany. And one has but to compare the movement from 1866 till today to see that the German working class is in theory and organization superior to the French. Its dominance over the French on the world stage would mean hlcewise the dominance of our theory over that of Proudhon, etc.^

Marx was right. The victory of Germany did in fact mark the turning point in history of the European labor movement. The libertarian socialism of the International was forced into the background by the new state of things and had to abandon the field to the anti-libertarian views of Marxism. Living, creative, unlimited capacity for development of the socialist movement was replaced by a one-sided dogmatism which pretentiously announced itself as science but which in reality was based on

^ Der Briefwechsel zwischen Marx und Engels. Stuttgart, 1913. Volume IV.

a mere historic fatalism leading to the worst fallacies, which slowly stifled every real socialistic idea. Although Marx had in youth exclaimed: "The philosophers have variously interpreted the world, but it is necessary to change it," he himself did nothing during his whole life except to interpret the world and history. He analyzed capitalistic society in his way, and showed a great deal of intellect and enormous learning in doing so, but Proudhon's creative power was denied him. He was, and remained, the analyst—a brilliant and learned analyst, but nothing else. This is the reason why he did not enrich socialism with a single creative thought, but enmeshed the minds of his followers in the fine network of a cunning dialectic which sees in history hardly anything but economics and obstructs every deeper insight into the world of social events. He even rejected and condemned as utopianism every attempt to attain clarity regarding the probable formation of socialistic society. As if it were possible to create anything new without being clear about the direction in which one is going! The belief in the compulsive course of all social phenomena led him to reject every thought about the appropriateness of social events—and yet it is this very thought that is the basis of all cultural activity.

With a change of ideas came also a change in the method of the labor movement. In place of those groups imbued with socialistic ideas and economic fighting organizations in the old sense, in which the men of the International had seen the germs of the coming society and the natural instrument for the reorganization and administration of production, came the present-day labor parties and the parliamentary activity of the working masses. The old socialist doctrine which taught the conquest of industry and of the land was forced gradually more and more into the background, and from now on one spoke only of the conquest of political power and so got completely into the current of capitalistic society.

In Germany, where no other form of the movement had ever been known, this development happened with remarkable quickness, and by its electoral successes had repercussions on the socialist movements of most other countries. Lassalle's powerful activity in Germany had smoothed the way for this new phase of the movement. Lassalle was all his life a passionate worshiper of the idea of the state in the sense of Fichte and Hegel, and had, moreover, appropriated the views of the French state-socialist, Louis Blanc, concerning the social functions of government. In his Labor Program he announced to the working class of Germany that the history of humanity had been a constant struggle against nature and against the limitations it had imposed on man. "In this struggle we would never have taken a step forward, nor would ever take one in the future, if we had made it, or wished to make it, alone, as individuals, everyone for himself. It is the state which has the function of bringing about this

development of freedom, this evolution of the human race toward freedom."

His adherents were so firmly convinced of this mission of the state, and their faith in the state frequently assumed such fantastic forms, that the liberal press of that time often accused the Lassalle movement of being in Bismarck's pay. Proof of this accusation could never be found, but the curious flirtation of Lassalle with the "social kingdom," which became especially marked in his essay. The Italian War and the Task of Prussia, could very easily be ground for such a suspicion.^

As the newly created labor parties gradually concentrated all their activities on parliamentary action and maintained that the conquest of political power was the obvious preliminary to the realization of socialism, they created in the course of time an entirely new ideology, which differed essentially from the ideas of the First International. Parliamentarianism, which quickly came to play an important part in the new movement, enticed a number of bourgeois elements and career-seeking intellectuals into the camp of the socialist party, by whom the change of attitude was still further advanced. Thus there developed, in place of the socialism of the old International, a sort of substitute having nothing in common with it but the name. In this manner socialism gradually lost more and more the character of a new cultural ideal for which the artificial frontiers of the state had no meaning. In the minds of the leaders of this new trend, the interests of the national state became blended with the interest and spirit of their party until, gradually, they were no longer able to distinguish between them and became used to viewing the world and things through the glasses of the nationalist state. Thus it was inevitable that the modern labor parties gradually came to fit into the national state machine as a necessary part and greatly contributed to restore to the state the balance of power it had lost.

It would be wrong to regard these peculiar ideas simply as conscious treason on the part of the leaders, as has often been done. The truth is that we are here confronted with a slow assimilation of socialist theory into the thought-world of the bourgeois state, induced by the practical activity of present-day labor parties which necessarily affected the mental attitude of their leaders. The same parties which sallied forth under the flag of socialism to conquer political power saw themselves gradually forced by the iron logic of circumstances into the position where bit by bit they had to abandon their former socialism for bourgeois politics. The more thoughtful of their adherents recognized the danger, and sometimes exhausted themselves in fruitless opposition against the tactics of the

^ The recently discovered letters between Bismarck and Lassalle published by Gustav Mayer in his valuable essay, Bismarck and Lassalle, throw a curious light on Lassalle's personality and are also psychologically of great interest.

party. This was necessarily without result, since it was directed solely against the excrescences of the party system and not against the system itself. Thus the socialist labor parties became, without the great majority of their members being conscious of it, buffers in the fight between capital and labor, political lightning-rods for the security of the capitalist social order.

The attitude of most of these parties during the World War, and especially after the War, proves that our view is not exaggerated, but fully in accord with the facts. In Germany, this development has taken an actually tragic form, with consequences which even today cannot be estimated. The socialist movement of that country had been completely emasculated by long years of parliamentary routine and was no longer capable of a creative act. This especially is the reason why the German revolution was so shockingly poor in real ideas. The old proverb, "Who eats of the pope dies of him," was proved by the socialist movement 5 it had so long eaten of the state that its inner life force was exhausted and it could no longer accomplish anything of significance.

Socialism could maintain its role as a cultural ideal for the future only by concentrating its whole activity on abolishing monopoly of property together with every form of government of men by men. Not the conquest of power, but its elimination from the life of society, had to remain the great goal for which it strove—which it could never abandon without abandoning itself. W^hoever believes that freedom of the personality can find a substitute in equality of possessions has not even grasped the essence of socialism. For freedom there is no substitute j there can be no substitute. Equality of economic conditions for each and all is always a necessary precondition for the freedom of man, but never a substitute for it. Whoever transgresses against freedom transgresses against the spirit of socialism. Socialism means the mutual activity of men toward a common goal with equal rights for all. But solidarity rests on free resolve and can never be compelled without changing into tyranny.

Every true socialistic activity, the smallest as well as the greatest, must therefore be imljued with the thought of opposing monopoly in all its fields—especially in that of economics—and of guarding and enlarging by all possible means the sum of personal freedom within the frame of the social union. Every practical activity tending towards other results is misdirected and useless for real socialists. So must also be rated the idle talk about the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a transitional condition between capitalism and socialism. History knows no such "transitions." There exist solely more primitive and more complicated forms in the various evolutionary phases of social progress. Every social order is in its original form of expression naturally imperfecta nevertheless, all further possibilities of development towards a future structure must be contained

in each of its newly created institutions, just as already in the embryo the whole creature is foreshadowed. Every attempt to incorporate into a new order of things the essential parts of an old one which has outlived itself has up to now led always to the same negative result. Either such attempts were at the very beginning thwarted by the youthful vigor of social reconstruction or the tender sprouts and hopeful beginnings of the new forms were so confined and hindered in their natural growth by the old that they gradually declined and their inner life-force slowly died out.

When Lenin—much in the style of Mussolini—dared to say that "freedom is a bourgeois prejudice," he only proved that his spirit was quite incapable of rising to socialism, but had remained stuck in the old ideas of Jacobinism. Anyway, it is nonsense to speak of libertarian and authoritarian socialism. Socialism will either be free or it will not be at all.

The two great political trends of thought of liberalism and democracy had a strong influence on the development of the socialist movement. Democracy with its state-affirming principles and its effort to subject the individual to the demands of an imaginary "common will" needs must affect such a movement as socialism most disastrously by endowing it with the idea of adding to the realms the state already ruled the enormous realm of economics, endowing it with a power it never possessed before. Today it appears ever more clearly—and the experiences in Russia have proved it—that such endeavors can never lead to socialism, but must inevitably result in the grotesque malformation of state capitalism.

On the other hand, socialism vitalized by liberalism logically leads to the ideas of Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin and their successors. The idea of reducing the state's sphere of activity to a minimum, itself contains the germ of a much more far-reaching thought, namely, to overthrow the state entirely and to eliminate the will to power from human society. Democratic socialism has contributed enormously to confirm again the vain belief in the state, and in its further development must logically lead to state capitalism. Socialism inspired by liberal ideas, however, leads in a straight line to anarchism, meaning by that, a social condition where man is no longer subject to the guardianship of a higher power and where all relations between him and his kind are self-regulated by mutual agreement.

Liberalism alone could not attain this highest phase of definite intellectual development for the reason that it had too little regard for the economic side of the question, as has already been explained in another place. Only on the basis of fellowship in labor and the community of all social interests is freedom possible j there can be no freedom for the individual without justice for all. For personal freedom also has its roots in man's social consciousness and receives real meaning only from it. The idea of anarchism is the synthesis of liberalism and socialism, liberation of economics from the fetters of politics, liberation of culture from all