The Outlook for the World Revolution

The Bolsheviks themselves seem to have no great confidence in their ultimate victory. Yet they have anchored all their hopes on one thing. For if Russia ceases to be a chosen people of the revolution then the World-Revolution must be the Messiah that shall redeem the Russian people. But what is this world-revolution? It may be regarded in two quite different ways. One may regard it as representing such a growth of the Socialist idea in the world, alongside of the strengthening of the proletariat, accompanied by an increased bitterness of the class-struggle, that Socialism will become a great power, capable of stirring the whole world, and affecting the life of more and more States as it develops. On the other hand, one might understand under this head a revolutionising of the world in the Bolshevik sense, i.e., the conquest of political power by the proletariat in all the great States; otherwise, the Soviet Republic can no longer save the Revolution. It would mean, further, the establishment everywhere of Soviet Republics, and the depriving of all non-communist elements of their rights. It would mean the dictatorship of the Communist Party, and, as a consequence, the letting loose of a civil war throughout the whole world for at least a generation to come.

A strenuous propaganda is at work to bring about this result. To produce a world-revolution, in the Bolshevik sense is beyond their power. But they might certainly be able, should they succeed, in exerting a very considerable influence on Western Europe, and so endanger the world-revolution in the other sense of the word. For the chief task of the preachers of the world-revolution, in the Russian sense, is the letting loose of a fratricidal war among the proletarian masses of the world.

Being from its very beginning a child of party dissension, and having come to power as the result of its struggle with other Socialist parties of its own country, Bolshevism endeavours to establish itself in Russia by means of a civil war, which makes it into a war between brother and brother; and, as a final means towards its supremacy, it adds the attempt to split up all other Socialist parties which have still remained in unity – so long as they do not prove to have a Bolshevist majority. Such is the meaning of the Third International. By this means they hope to introduce the world-revolution. Yet this is not the consequence of a mere whim or of sheer malice, but proceeds from the very essence of Bolshevism itself, which is incompatible with the higher form of existence, for which pioneer work has already been done in Western Europe.

In Western Europe, democracy is not a thing of yesterday, as is the case with Russia. It has won its way through a series of revolutions, and is the result of a struggle extending over hundreds of years. It has been absorbed by the masses in their very flesh and blood. As a consequence, it is absolutely impossible to deprive all society of all political rights. In France the peasants represent a power which one dare not flout, and which very jealously watches over its own private property. Moreover, the bourgeoisie in France, and still more in England, is a class accustomed to struggle. The proletariat in Russia is certainly weaker than that in Western Europe; but infinitely weaker in the Russian Empire is the bourgeoisie itself. There, as everywhere in those countries where a strong military autocracy has been in power, the bourgeoisie is just as much in cowardly fear of the State power, as it is inspired with blind confidence in its protection. Hence the miserable state of present-day Liberalism. The collapse of State power, the failure of the military “wall of protection,” the transference of all powers of a State into the hands of the proletariat, so frightened the bourgeoisie, which has never accustomed itself to undertake any energetic political fight, that it absolutely collapsed, and left the ground uncontested in the hands of its opponents.

In Western Europe the lower classes, as the result of their class-struggle extending over hundreds of years, have educated not only themselves, but also the upper classes. These latter have gained respect for the proletariat; but they have become, moreover, masters of the art of meeting any attack at the right moment by making concessions, thus avoiding catastrophes. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, however, the bourgeoisie has had, for a long time since, to fend for itself without any strong standing army. It has learnt, both in relation with the State-power as also with the proletariat, to depend on its own strength alone; hence it does not easily turn tail when any danger is threatened. And it is these countries that have been victorious in the war.

The war has not crushed and dissolved the armies of these countries as it has those of the Central Powers and Russia. In Eastern Europe, at the time of the dissolution of the army, it was the soldiers, from whatever class of the population they may have been drawn, who always represented an element of revolt. But this enormous power, which hastens a revolution, may also have the effect of bringing weak revolutionary factors to power prematurely, thus causing them to be faced with problems which they are not competent to solve. It is this power which is lacking in the victorious countries. For there Socialism will only acquire for itself State power when it is strong enough, within the framework of democracy, to gain the balance over the other parties. In such countries it has not the slightest cause to abjure democracy; for it is just in such countries that the highest and best strata of the proletariat could never be found ready to accept the substitution of democracy by a dictatorship, which after all simply means the dictatorship of a single person. It is certain that at the present day in France Bolshevik sympathisers among the Socialists are very strong; but they arose solely in consequence of the very justifiable opposition to all attempts of their own capitalist government to crush Socialist governments abroad.

There are also many who think that Bolshevik methods are suitable for Russia; but they have no intention of recommending the same methods to be applied in France. Nevertheless, even there the Blanquiste traditions of revolt, and the Proudhonist traditions of anti-parliamentarianism have not quite died out. These two hostile elements have gained fresh life by some strange fusion in syndicalism. They might offer some basis for Bolshevism. But it is quite out of the question that they should ever gain hold of the proletariat of France, or indeed of England and America. Its growth there would only end in its splitting up, just at the time when it would have great and decisive struggles to fight – struggles in which it could only possibly become victorious by showing the utmost cohesion and co-operation. The Bolshevik propaganda for a world-revolution, as we have already said, cannot therefore further the world-revolution, which is already in preparation. The utmost it can do is to endanger it.

Communism, as a result of its divisive tendencies, has already endangered the revolution in Germany. German Social Democracy before the war was a strong Socialist party in the country. United on the basis of a common and single aspect of society shared by all its members, it was on the point of embracing the majority of the population, as soon as it had succeeded in winning over the Catholic workers, who followed the banner of the Centrum. If it had possessed the majority, the struggle for democracy, that is to say the struggle for the voting reform in Prussia, would have become a struggle for political power. If this had been gained the party would at once have reaped the finest fruits of its activity, considering the wealth which German capitalism had developed and amassed, and which made it possible to ameliorate rapidly the general condition of the masses. The world-war has made a complete end to this wealth. Peace has now found Germany in the most desperate situation. It precludes any attempt at creating better conditions for the masses, whatever the means of production may be. But this world-war, as a result of the collapse and the dissolution of the army, has also caused social democracy, not through its own strength but through the bankruptcy of its opponents, to come to the fore, at a time when itself has become weakened through the cleavage which the war has brought about. If social democracy wishes to become the dominating party, its immediate reunion has become an imperative necessity. One would have thought that the demands of the present moment would have been carried out all the more expeditiously, since the cause of the cleavage within the Socialist party, namely, the attitude towards the war, has now disappeared.

But, unfortunately, since the rise of the Soviet Republic, a new wedge has been driven through the Socialist ranks of Germany by Bolshevik propaganda, which has demanded that our Party should relinquish the essential claims of democracy, and set up the dictatorship of the workmen’s council as a form of State. In, order to be under no false impression, the Bolsheviks ceased to call themselves social democrats. They therefore called themselves Communists, apparently in order to ally themselves with the true form of Marxism laid down in the Communist Manifesto. They forgot, however, that Marx and Engels, towards the end of 1847, published the Communist Manifesto, and a few months later issued the Neue Rheinische Zeitung as the organ of democracy, so little in their eyes was the antagonism between democracy and communism. The opposition between dictatorship and democracy has created in Germany, alongside of the two Socialist parties which existed before the revolution, yet another, namely, that of the Communists. It has given rise to uncertainty and division in the politics of each of these two parties, and among the Independents has produced strong Bolshevik tendencies. Further, it has resulted in a. reaction among a section of the Socialists of the Right against these very tendencies, which, however, overshot the mark, and caused leanings towards the Bourgeois party, with which the Socialists of the Right; already as the result of the war policy, had a good deal in common.

The revolution of November 9th broke this coalition with the bourgeoisie, and brought about an understanding with the Independents. Unfortunately this was only temporary. In Germany it is just as little possible as in Western Europe to introduce a real, permanent, and active form of dictatorship, which should embrace the whole Empire. The population has progressed far too much for this. All attempts of separate and proletarian sections to assume the dictatorship can have only temporary success. They are bound to lead to one result, namely, the increase of the political and economic dissolution of the Empire, and to prepare the way for a counter-revolutionary military dictatorship. But this latter also can never become a permanent and universal power. It is impossible in Germany to continue to govern against the interests of the workers.

The excesses of the Noske Guards in Berlin, the terrible fury in Munich, are no proof of the dictatorial power of the government. They show rather the helplessness of the, government in its attitude towards those spirits, which it has conjured up, which are certainly capable of committing with impunity horrible deeds of revenge, but which are nevertheless incapable themselves of guiding the State:

This striving for dictatorship, whether from the Left or the Right, cannot lead to a real dictatorship, but only to anarchy and complete ruin, which. will lead us, not to any higher forms of life but to cannibalism, when all production will be at an end, and all food commodities will have been consumed. And even before it can get so far, it may happen that all attempts to introduce a dictatorship will only lead, as the one result of its activity, to an increase of the cruelty and brutality with which political and economic struggles are being fought out, as well as to an increase in the number of victims. This will render any positive construction quite impossible. This is just as true of Noske’s regime as of the Soviet dictatorship.

At the present moment propaganda is being made for a certain form of dictatorship, which is to be only temporary, and which, in any case, is not to have recourse to violence. This is the worst of all possible illusions. In a country in which all classes have already awakened to the importance of political life, no party can exercise a dictatorship without same recourse to despotism. However peaceful their views may be, however great their determination to use the dictatorship merely as a. means of acquiring the strength necessary for positive work, it will soon happen, after they have once started their regime, that nothing will remain over of their dictatorial methods but despotism itself.

Democracy alone offers the one means of avoiding despotism, and of coming to some calm and positive construction. But at the present moment democracy has been overpowered theoretically by the Left, and practically by the Right Wing of the Socialist Party. The National Assembly itself is far from being a democracy; for no democracy is possible without the representation of the people by means of a universal and equal vote. The one and only institution at the present moment that might to same extent keep the Empire together can come, not through Workmen’s Councils, nor through a dictatorial government, but only through a National Assembly, consisting of representatives from all parts of the Empire. Certainly the present constitution is highly unsatisfactory, but who has elected the majority in it? It is the active population, the very people who are to elect the Workmen’s Councils, so soon as these latter have been erected into a system. The votes of the Independent Social Democrats in the constitution form not one-tenth of the. National Assembly. The working classes represent nine-tenths of the whole nation.

The Workman’s Councils present a. very different picture from the National Assembly, only so long as they embrace the wage-earners of the great industries. As such, they can become important for progressive policy, and they are, indispensable for all attempts at socialisation. But, as such alone, they are incapable of being an adequate substitution for the National Assembly. For the more this system of councils is extended over the whole province of large industry, and the more it embraces the whole of the working population, so much the more must the central council in its constitution approximate to the National Assembly, without investing its majority with that authority which the majority of the National Assembly possesses, as the result of its openly claiming to be the majority of the nation.

Nothing can be more erroneous than the assertion, which has also figured lately in the discussions of the recent Congress of the Third International in Moscow, that parliamentarianism and democracy in their very essentials are bourgeois institutions. They are forms which may be utterly different in content, according to the kind of people they represent. If in any parliament the bourgeois elements are to be in the majority, then parliamentaranism will be bourgeois in character; and if these parties prove to be of no use their parliamentarianism is also useless. But as soon as a Socialist. majority appears in Parliament, the whole situation is radically changed. Now it has been said that such a Socialist majority is out of the question, even with the most liberal and complete secret ballot, because the capitalists dominate the Press and buy off the workers. But if the capitalists are really in a position to buy off the workers in this manner, especially after a revolution like the present, they should be just as capable of influencing those who have the right of voting for these Workmen’s Councils. The further assertion that, for the Socialists, even by the complete secret ballot, and even with a majority of wage-earners in the population, it is impossible to gain a majority in any parliament, on account of the financial power which the capitalists exercise over the proletariat, is equivalent to calling the proletariat nothing but a feeble and cowardly band of illiterates, and simply announces the bankruptcy of the proletarian cause. For if the proletariat were of such poor and wretched constitution, then no institution in the world can help it, however elaborately it might be decked out to ensure victory in spite of its moral and intellectual impotence.

If the German National Assembly of the present day has a specifically bourgeois character, it is the Bolshevik propaganda which has contributed not a little to that. It has caused among the working-classes, and also among the independents, a certain mistrust of the National Assembly, and has further impaired the latter’s interests in the elections. And the other working-class elements, namely, the Catholics, who were on the point of disassociating themselves from the bourgeois cliques, were likewise weakened, and given over to bourgeois guidance.

It is quite certain that Germany cannot recover her health under the present National Assembly. The process of convalescence will not be furthered, but on the other hand hindered, if the struggle against the existing Assembly is transformed into a fight against democracy, against universal suffrage, and against the constitution of the National Assembly as such. For in this way a hindrance will be caused, which will prevent the struggle from concentrating on the one point where reform can proceed, namely, the election of a National Assembly, in which the representatives of the proletariat shall form the majority, and be prepared to set about as energetically as they can the socialising of the country, in so far as it is possible. They must also be determined unhesitatingly to carry on the democratisation of Germany, which has only just begun. This, and not a dictatorship, must be the programme of any purely Socialist Government that may came into power. In this way it would also gain the allegiance of the Catholic workers, and indeed of all bourgeois circles, if they could see in such a programme the means to help rescue the Republic from the civil war, which has arisen as a result of the dictatorial tendencies among those parties struggling for pre-eminence. If the Communists assert that democracy is none other than the method of bourgeois domination, the answer to that would be, that the alternative to democracy, namely, the dictatorship itself, could lead to nothing else but a revolution, and to methods of violence characteristic of bygone days. Democracy, with its universal equal suffrage, does not represent the domination of the bourgeoisie; for the bourgeoisie in its period of revolution did not introduce equal suffrage, but only suffrage according to census, which was introduced into France, England, Belgium and elsewhere. It was only after long and bitter struggle that the proletariat succeeded in acquiring universal and equal suffrage – a perfectly well-known fact, which, however, all Communists and their friends seem to have completely forgotten. Democracy, with its universal equal suffrage, is the method to transform the class-struggle out of a hand-to-hand fight into a battle of intelligence, in which one particular class can. triumph only if it is intellectually and morally on a level with its opponent. Democracy is the one and only method through which the higher form of life can be realised, and which Socialism declares is the right of civilised men. Dictatorship leads only to that form of Socialism which has been called Asiatic; but unjustly, for Asia has give birth to a Confucius and a Buddha. It would be more exact to call it Tartar Socialism.

Quite apart from the terrible consequences of the world war, which naturally bear the greater responsibility, it is due in a great measure to the subversive and destructive activity of the Communists, to their dissipation of the strength of the proletariat by fruitless adventures, that the working-classes of Germany have gained little from their own victory, and have not understood how to make democracy an adequate instrument for their own emancipation,

Democracy offers far better prospects for Socialism in Western Europe and America. These regions, especially the Anglo-Saxon countries, have issued from the world-war less weakened economically than the others. Every form of progress, and every gain of power on the part of the proletariat, must immediately bring with it an improvement in the conditions of life.

But at the same time the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeois world must assume more intensive forms than ever it did before the war.

The period of patriotic exuberance, which war and, after it, victory, had given rise to, is rapidly passing. The change has already begun, and will proceed at an increasing rate, when once peace has been signed. For, however great the burdens placed by the Peace Treaty on the conquered, the sacrifices entailed by the victorious peoples will be felt none the less, since everywhere saw the chief interest will be turned from external problems to problems of home policy.

The opposition of the proletariat will, in such case, always assume more and more energetic forms, according as its self-consciousness increases. The German, and still more the Russian, Revolution has in this respect acted as an incentive. Whatever one may think of the Bolshevik methods, the fact that a proletarian government in a great State has not only come to power, but been able to maintain itself for nearly two years under the most difficult conditions conceivable, naturally increases the feeling, of power among the proletariat of all countries. For the world-revolution therefore, in this respect, the Bolsheviks have rendered an enormous service, far more than they have through their emissaries and propagandists, who have been responsible for more harm to the proletarian cause than for any revolutionary achievement.

The proletariat of the whole world has now been set in motion, and its international pressure will be strong enough to cause all economic progress of the future to develop on Socialist, and no longer on capitalist lines.

In this respect, therefore, the world-war has made this epoch significant; for it has meant the end of capitalist and the beginning of Socialist development. Clearly, we shall not be able to leap at one bound out of a capitalist into a Socialist world. Socialism is not a piece of mechanism, which one can put together on a pre-conceived plan, and which, once it has been set in motion, can go on working in a regular manner. On the contrary, it is in reality a process of social co-operation, which has its own special laws just like any other form of social activity; which however, within these laws can assume the most varied forms, and is also capable of fuller development, the outcome of which it is impossible for us at the present moment to see.

We of the present day have no “ready-made Utopias to introduce by popular decision.” What is now happening is the liberating of those elements that mark the beginning of Socialist development. If we care to call that the world-revolution, because this is happening throughout the world, then we are certainly confronted with a world-revolution. It will not proceed on the lines of a dictatorship, nor by means of cannons and guns, nor through the destruction, of one’s political and social adversaries, but only through democracy and humanity. In this way alone can we hope to arrive at those higher forms of life, the working out of which belongs to the future task of the proletariat.