The Humanising of Conduct in the Nineteenth Century

The great French Revolution belongs to the most sanguinary epoch of world history, and many people have drawn the conclusion that the shedding of blood is one of the indispensable factors in a real revolution. In consequence they have either condemned the Revolution or glorified slaughter. As a matter of fact, the Revolution of 1789 itself removed some of the most important features which gave the Revolution so cruel and violent a character, and prepared the way for milder forms of future revolutions. It accomplished this, on the one hand, by putting aside feudalism and by encouraging industrial capital, which had the effect of turning the masses of the proletariat from being mere vagabonds into wage-earners; and, on the other hand, by starting a movement, which sooner or later was to end with the triumph of democracy. And finally, out of the study of the Revolution, as also of capitalism, a theory arose which enabled the proletarian party, in every given moment, to take some practical action, the object of which lay within the bounds of possibility; so that there was no reason for it to fall into one of those blind alleys, which would only lead to a Reign of Terror. Through the Revolution the peasant was emancipated, and became master of his own land. As a result, land economy reached a higher stage and produced greater returns, of which the peasants had the benefit; and therefore there was a decrease in the amount of superfluous labour that had abandoned agricultural work. On the other hand, there was a great incursion of men coming from the land, who were now seeking employment in the town. All the old guild restrictions had broken dawn; manual labour could develop itself unimpeded. It is true that, in one way after the other, such labour was adversely affected by the rising industrial capital; but even this helped to develop, with its rapid increase, large demands for labour. The industrial proletariat now became a special class with a special class-consciousness, which became more and more pronounced, and differed from the mob proletariat.

Under capital the position of the industrial proletariat had certainly deteriorated, in comparison with that of the independent labourer at the time when manual labour was prosperous, On the other handy capital certainly improved the position of labour as against the mob proletariat. A mob proletariat is, as a class, incapable of struggle; whereas the industrial proletariat, by its class struggles and by its organisation obtained a marvellous result and a remarkable intellectual and moral impetus. In the very beginning the industrial proletariat was dreadfully kept under. by capital, not only economically, but also morally so. In its housing conditions, in the meagreness and uncertainty of its existence, in its ignorance, it was not far removed from the mob proletariat. Indeed, it stood in many respects below it on account of the monotony of its life, as a result of the continuous oppression of factory discipline, which excluded all liberty of action, through the callous sweating of women and children.

As a result, the baldness of the more powerful elements of the mob proletariat was absent from the working proletariat. Hence it became less sensitive, but it did not thereby get rid of its coarseness. In such a condition it would have been quite impossible to think of emancipation. Only after a long time could a man, by engaging in continuous class struggle, expect to extricate himself from the seemingly hopeless bog that threatened to engulf him. The more this process went on, the more were the tendencies towards humanisation, which came to light as the result of the conditions then prevailing, able to develop and grow. Favourable to these tendencies was the fact that, as a result of the Revolution and of its consequences, even the penal laws erected against the proletariat began to lose the cruel character that they had had before.

These are all the causes of the results which we have already notified, namely, that the revolutionary elements of the proletariat show themselves to have been a class filled with the greatest humanising force, especially in the movement that took place in the nineteenth century; and that they departed more and more from the brutal savagery that distinguished their forerunners at the time of the great French Revolution, and which even Engels observed in the early ’forties of the nineteenth century among the factory heads of England. At the same time, the causes that led to the Reign of Terror disappeared. Already after the collapse of this Reign of Terror, the more far-seeing friends of the proletariat clearly recognised that it could not lead to any emancipation based on bourgeois society. They came to the conclusion that this object could be achieved only by the doing away with private property, in respect to the means of production, and by the introduction of communal production. But they found neither the necessary material conditions among the capitalists, nor the psychical conditions among the proletariat; and they could not see that economical development and class struggle were at work to produce these conditions. Therefore, they endeavoured to solve the social question, and attempted to find a plan or formula which seemed possible of practical application, as soon as the necessary means were at their disposal. If the revolutionary proletariat accepted this idea and sought for power, not in some philanthropic millionaire, but in the political dictatorship alter the pattern of the first Paris Commune, every such attempt, when undertaken by a minority in the State, was of necessity bound to lead to a reign of terror similar to the rule of the first Paris Commune. In any case this attempt was at least rational. It did not seek any more to escape the consequences of bourgeois society and yet preserve this society, but it attempted to remove the consequences by destroying their foundation. But even this endeavour must have come to grief when an attempt was made to put this into practice, so long as the social conditions failed, which alone could remove the foundations they were attempting to destroy. It would have meant the attempt of a minority to impose upon a majority something that was impossible, or at least without purpose and even contrary to its interests. And that would have been possible only by resorting to means of force, which would have culminated in the necessity for terrorising by means of slaughter.

Such an attempt was frustrated, not only because the mass of labour at the time was only gradually adopting social ideas, but because the proletariat for many decades had no longer maintained so supreme a position as it had held in conjunction with those regarded with contempt such matters as free trade and the strike, because such things did not affect the system of wages. It was Marx and Engels who taught the workers the importance of the proletarian struggle for emancipation, of the economic problems and conflicts of the capitalist system of that time. Socialism for the proletariat schooled in Marxist thought thus ceased to be something that could at once be introduced and realised everywhere – and under any conditions.

Even where it did obtain political power, it introduce only so much of Socialism as was possible under the existing conditions, and in a form corresponding to those particular conditions. According to this conception, Socialism could not be introduced by means of a coup d’état. It was to be the result of along historical process. At the same time, the Socialists were for ever being urged to under take, in any given moment, only what was possible under the conditions, material and moral, then prevailing. If, therefore, everything was to be done with due consideration it would have been impossible for the Socialists to fail of anything they undertook, or for them to find themselves in a desperate condition, which should force them to act contrary to the spirit, of the proletariat and of Socialism, and have recourse to Terrorism.

In fact, since Marxism has led the Socialist movement, this latter, even up to the beginning of the great world war, has in nearly every one of its actions always been preserved from grave defects, and the idea of carrying anything out by means of Terrorism has completely dropped out of its programme. Much contributed to this result. At the same time in which Marxism became the dominant social doctrine; democracy had taken root in Western Europe, and had begun, as a result of its struggles there, to form a sound foundation for political life. In consequence of this, not only the enlightenment, and organisation of the proletariat facilitated, but also its insight into economic conditions as well as into the relative power of the classes increased. Hence all fantastic adventures were eliminated, as also was civil war, as a means of class struggle. In 1902 I wrote in my pamphlet The Social Revolution (chapter 6, Democracy)

“Democracy is one of the highest values, if for no other reason than because it makes possible higher forms of revolutionary struggle. This struggle will no longer be like that of 1789 or 1848, a struggle of unorganised masses without any political education, or without any insight into the relative powers of the struggling elements, and without any deeper understanding of the objects of the struggle and the means for its solution. It will be no longer a struggle of masses that let themselves be carried away by every disadvantage, and who do not become downhearted as the result of failure. On the other hand, election and the means thereto make it possible to take stock of oneself and of one’s enemies. They help towards a clear insight into the relative strength of the classes and parties. Further, they put a check on over-hasty action, and overcome defeat. They also help to make even the opponent himself recognise the untenable nature of his position, and often cause him voluntarily to abandon it, wherever such might prove to be a matter of life and death for him. Thus all struggle becomes less cruel and merciless, unless dependent on blind chance.”

As a result of the combined working of all these conditions, of the formation of the industrial proletariat, and of the elevation of this latter above the level of the mob proletariat; as a result, further, of the development of Socialist theory and the establishment of democracy, it was possible to put in the background the gloomy fears which Engels even in 1845 expressed in his book, The Position of the Working Classes in England, where he said:– “If the English middle-class does not reflect – and it seems to have no intention of doing so – there will follow a revolution, which will bear no comparison with any that has hitherto taken place. The proletariat, driven to despair, will seize their torches. The revenge of the people will betray such rage, of which not even the year 1793 can give us any idea. The war of the poor against the rich will be the most fearful that has ever been waged.” (2nd Edition, p.298.)

It must be said that Engels’ fears would have been justified only in the case of a revolution breaking out at the time he expected. Even in the ’forties his fears were still rather exaggerated, in spite of the fact that crowds of undeveloped people, especially Irish, had been engaged in industry. But Engels himself expected that, if the revolution would not come soon, the proletariat would have time to develop itself, and become imbued with a Socialist spirit, which would then cause the revolution to take some milder form.

“In proportion as the proletariat assimilates Socialist and Communist elements, will the shedding of blood, vengeance and rage decrease in the revolution.” The revolution expected by Engels came in 1848, but not in England. After the outbreak there began in all countries in Europe an epoch of capitalist development, which was accompanied by a growth of the economic, intellectual, and moral strength of the working-classes.

In the most progressive countries of Europe things rapidly changed. As early as 1872, a year after the Commune, Marx gave expression to the hope that, in countries like America, England and Holland, the proletariat would assume a peaceful form. Ever since that time, the rise of the proletariat has brought with it further progress. Yet no one with a keen insight into the matter can suppose that a monarchy based on militarism, such as the German, Austrian and Russian, can be overturned by means of force alone. But, even in this matter, people thought less of slaughter by actual weapons, and more and more of the one means best suited to the proletariat for obtaining its object, namely, refusal to work, or, in other words, the strike. It was perfectly clear that the men of the old regime in Germany, as also in Russia, would endeavour to crush any attempt to overthrow them by a resort to arms. But that a considerable section of the proletariat, when once it came to power, should again have, recourse to slaughter, revenge and rage, as did indeed happen at the end of the eighteenth century, was expected by no one. This set the whole development upside down.

In opposition to the views of Engels, who was the author of the book The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Knowledge, which voiced the belief that there would be a continuous diminution of barbarity and cruelty in future proletarian revolutions, another view has lately been discussed in a book entitled The Development of Socialism from Knowledge to Action, which appears in the preface to a book entitled The Programme of the Communists, by N. Bukharin (Zurich 1918). There it is written:-

The more capitalism develops in, any country, the more reckless will be its defensive struggle, and so the more murderous will be the proletarian revolution, the more cruel the measures by means of which the victorious working-class will tread under foot the defeated capitalists. (p.19)

This is the very contrary to what Marx and Engel’s had expected It is all the more wrong, since it erects into a general law for the whole of social development those Bolshevik practices that have prevailed for the last eighteen months. It is wrong, because it declares these practices to be the outcome of the recklessness and the brutality of the capitalists’ defensive war. Of all this brutality there was no sign in November, 1917, in Petersburg and in Moscow; and still less recently in Budapest. But that the proletarian revolution has become more murderous in the extreme is perfectly true. The reason for this state of affairs, I, in my “senile obstinacy” or my “senile stupidity” (Bukharin, p.22), attribute, in any case, to other factors than capitalist barbarity, which was never less evident in the countries involved in the world-war than in Germany at the beginning of the last revolution.