⧠36 The collapse of the Second International and its causes

When the great world war began in August, 1914, the socialist and social-democratic parties of the various belligerent lands (with the exception of Russia, Serbia, and at a later date Italy), instead of declaring war upon the war and instead of inciting the workers to revolt, rallied to the side of their respective governments, and gave their assistance to the campaign for plunder. On one and the same day, the socialist deputies in France and Germany voted the war credits in parliament, thus solidarizing themselves with the robber governments. Instead of joining forces in a rising against the criminal bourgeoisie, the socialist parties took up separate stands, each under the banner of its 'own' bourgeois government. The war began with the direct support of the socialist parties; the leaders of these parties turned their coats and betrayed the cause of socialism. The Second International died an ignominious death.

It is interesting to note that, only a few days before the betrayal, the socialist press and the leaders of the socialist parties were holding forth against the war. Gustave Hervé, for example, the traitor to French socialism, wrote as follows in his newspaper 'La Guerre Sociale' [The Class War, subsequently rechristened Victory]: ' We are to fight in order to save the tsar's prestige!...How delightful to die in so glorious a cause!' Three days before the outbreak of war, the French Socialist Party issued a manifesto against it, and the French syndicalists wrote in their journal, 'Workers! If you are not cowards, protest!' The German social democrats held numerous great meetings of protest. The memory of the resolution passed at the Basle international congress was still fresh, a resolution to the effect that in case of war all possible means must be employed 'to incite the people to revolt and to hasten the collapse of capitalism'. But within a day or two these same parties and these same leaders were insisting upon the need for 'the defence of the fatherland' (this meaning the defence of the robber State of their 'own' bourgeoisie). In Austria the 'Arbeiter Zeitung' [Worker's Gazette] actually declared that the workers must rally to the defence of 'German humanity'

In order to understand the inglorious collapse of the Second International, we must study the development of the working class movement prior to the war. Before this conflict, capitalism in Europe and the USA had largely owed its development to the frantic plunder of the colonies. The loathsome and sanguinary aspects of capitalism were here displayed with exceptional clearness. By brutal exploitation, by robbery, fraud, and force, values were extracted from the colonial nations, and were transmuted into profit for the sharks of European and American financial capital. The stronger the position of any State capitalist trust in the world market, the larger were the profits it could derive from the exploitation of the colonies. Out of these surplus profits the trust could afford to pay its wage slaves a trifle more than the ordinary wages of labour. Not of course to all the wage workers, but only to those who are usually spoken of as skilled workers. These strata of the working class are thereby won over to the side of capital. Their reasoning runs as follows: 'If "our" industry finds a market in the African colonies, so much the better; it will flourish all the more; the boss will make larger' profits, and we shall have a finger in the pie.' Thus capital fetters its wage slaves to its own State, buying one section of them, who are attracted by a share in the colonial plunder.

The founders of scientific communism had already taken note of this phenomenon. Engels, for example in a letter to Kautsky, wrote in the year 1882: You ask me what the British workers think about colonial policy. Very much the same as what they think about politics in general. Here there does not yet exist a labour party; there are only conservatives and liberal radicals; while the workers gladly participate in those advantages which accrue to the British in virtue of their monopoly on the world market and in the colonies.' Upon this soil has flourished a peculiar form of servility, an attachment of the workers to the bourgeoisie of their own country, an abasement before them. Engels wrote in 1889: 'The most repulsive phenomenon here in England is the bourgeois respectability which soaks into the very marrow of the workers . . . . So deeply rooted is this inborn respect for "betters" and "superiors" that Mr Bourgeois finds it an easy matter to catch the workers in his nets. I really believe that, at the bottom of his heart, John Burns is more flattered by his popularity with Cardinal Manning and other notables, with the bourgeoisie generally, than by his popularity with his own class.'

The working masses were not accustomed to carry on a great fight upon the international scale. Indeed, they had no opportunity for anything of the sort. For the most part the activity of their organizations was confined within the limits of the State administered by their own bourgeoisie. 'Their own' bourgeoisie managed to interest in colonial policy a section of the working class, and chiefly the stratum of skilled workers. The same bait was swallowed by the leaders of the working class organizations, by the working class bureaucracy, and by the parliamentary representatives of the workers, these being all persons who had secured cosy corners, and were inclined to advocate 'peaceful', 'quiet', and 'law-abiding' methods. We have already pointed out that the bloodthirsty aspects of capitalism were especially displayed in the colonies. In Europe and the United States, industry was highly developed, and in these regions the struggle of the working class had assumed comparatively peaceful forms. Since 1871 there had been no great revolutions anywhere except in Russia, and in most countries there had been none since 1848. People were universally accustomed to the idea that the future development of capitalism would be peaceful, and even those who spoke of coming wars hardly believed their own words. A section of the workers, including the working class leaders, was more and more inclined to accept the idea that the working class was interested in colonial policy and that the workers ought to join forces with their own bourgeoisie in order to promote, in this matter, 'the common national welfare'. Consequently, large numbers of the lower middle class flocked into the socialist parties. In Germany, for example, among the members of the social-democratic parliamentary group, there was quite a number of publicans and keepers of working class restaurants. In 1892, out of 35 socialist MPs, there were 4 following these occupations; in 1905, there were 6 out of 81; in 1912, there were 12 out of 110.

It is not surprising that in critical moments their devotion to the imperialist robber State outweighed their devotion to international solidarity.

WE SEE, THEN, THAT THE CHIEF CAUSE OF THE BREAK-UP OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL WAS TO BE FOUND IN THE FACT THAT THE COLONIAL POLICY AND THE MONOPOLIST POSITION OF THE GREAT STATE CAPITALIST TRUSTS, HAD ATTACHED THE WORKERS AND ESPECIALLY THE ' UPPER STRATA' OF THE WORKING CLASS - TO THE IMPERIALIST BOURGEOIS STATE.

In the history of the working class movement it has often happened that the workers have made common cause with their oppressors. For example, in the very early stages of development, the worker who sat at the same table with his master, looked upon his master's workshop almost as if it had been his own, and regarded his master not as an enemy but as a 'giver of work'. Only in course of time did the workers in various factories come to unite one with another against all the masters. When the great countries had themselves been converted into 'State capitalist trusts', the workers continued to display towards these State capitalist trusts the same sort of devotion that in earlier days they had displayed towards individual masters.

Only the war has taught them that they must not take the side of their respective bourgeois States, but must join forces for the overthrow of these bourgeois States and for the realization of the dictatorship of the proletariat.