As The 100th Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Approaches ... Some Remembrances - Rosa Luxemburg, The Rose Of The Revolution-The Militia and Militarism-(1899)
In fact Isegrim-Schippel’s [‘Isegrim’ was a pseudonym for Schippel] crusade against our demand for a militia and in favour of militarism rests upon a very consistent socio-political Weltanschauung.
The most general standpoint upon which Schippel bases his defence of militarism is his belief in the necessity of this military system. Using all possible arguments of a technical, social and economic nature, he demonstrates the absolute necessity of a standing army. And from a certain point of view he is quite correct. A standing army and militarism are indeed indispensable – but for whom? For the present-day ruling classes and the contemporary governments. Now what can one conclude from this other than that, from the class standpoint of the present government and ruling classes, doing away with the standing army and introducing the militia, i.e. arming the people, must appear to be an impossibility, an absurdity? And if Schippel, for his part, likewise regards the militia as an impossibility and an absurdity, then he is only revealing that he himself shares the bourgeois point of view on the question of militarism, and that he views it through the eyes of the capitalist government or the bourgeois classes. This is also demonstrated clearly in each of his individual arguments. He claims that to equip all citizens with weapons, which is a basic tenet of the militia system, would be impossible because there is not enough money for this. ‘Culture suffers enough as it is,’ he says. He bases his argument simply on the present Prusso-German public economy; he cannot imagine a different economy, for example one which makes use of progressive taxation of the capitalist class in order to finance the militia system.
Schippel considers the military training of youth – another basic tenet of the militia system – as undesirable because, he says, the non-commissioned officers as military trainers would exert the most corruptive influence on youth. Here of course he bases his argument on the present Prussian non-commissioned barracks-officer and simply extrapolates him as an educator of youth into his imaginary militia system. Schippel’s view of the situation is a vivid reminder of Professor Julius Wolf,[1] who sees an important objection to the social order of socialism in that under its rule, according to his calculations, the general rate of interest would rise ...
Schippel considers the militarism of the present day to be economically indispensable because it ‘relieves’ the economic pressure on society. Kautsky makes every conceivable effort to guess how the Social Democrat, Schippel, might have conceived that this militarism could ‘release’ of pressure. Kautsky then accompanies each possible explanation with an excellent refutation. It seems, however, that Schippel has not taken up the matter as a Social Democrat, nor from the point of view of the working people at all. When he speaks of a ‘release’ of pressure, it is obvious that he is thinking of capitalism. And in this he is of course correct: for capitalism, one of the most important forms of investment is militarism; from capitalism’s point of view, militarism is indeed a ‘release’ of pressure. That Schippel here speaks as a real advocate of the interests of capitalism is revealed by the fact that he has found a qualified authority to support him in this point.
‘I claim, gentlemen,’ someone said in the Reichstag session of January 12th, 1899, ‘that it is quite incorrect to say that the Reich’s debts of two million concern only unproductive expenditures, and that these are not offset by productive income of any kind. I claim that there is no investment more productive than expenditures for the army.’ To be sure, the minutes of that session report ‘Mirth on the Left’ ... The speaker was Baron von Stumm. [A major German industrialist and armaments manufacturer.]
It is characteristic of all Schippel’s claims that not only are they intrinsically wrong, but they are also based on the perspectives of bourgeois society. Thus, considered from a Social-Democratic viewpoint, everything that Schippel says seems to be upside down: the standing army is indispensable, militarism is economically beneficial, the militia is impracticable, etc.
One is struck by the similarity between Schippel’s perspective on the question of militarism and his attitude to another important question of the political struggle, namely customs policy.
Firstly, and most strikingly, we find in his treatment of both questions a refusal to recognize their connection with positions on the issue of democracy and reaction. If we are to believe Schippel’s lecture at the Stuttgart Party Conference, the claim that free trade is identical with progress and that protective tariffs are identical with reaction is wrong. Long and broad historical experience, he continues, proves that one may well be simultaneously a freetrader, and a reactionary or, on the other hand, a supporter of protective tariffs and an ardent friend of democracy. We are now informed, in almost the same words, that: ‘There are militia enthusiasts who afflict our working life with endless disruptions and interruptions, and who themselves seek to transplant the non-commissioned officer’s mentality into our boys and young lads right down to the lowest school grades – which is much worse than the present militarism. There are opponents of the militia who are mortal enemies of each and every extension of this kind of military intrusion and requisition.’ [Die Neue Zeit (1898-9), 580-81]
The fact that in these, as in all questions, the bourgeois politicians do not adopt a position based on principle, that they follow a policy of opportunism, leads the Social Democrat, Schippel, to conclude that he too has the same right. He therefore necessarily fails to appreciate the inner reactionary core of protective tariffs and of militarism, and, conversely, the progressive significance of free trade and of the militia; that is, he too fails to adopt a position based on principle towards the two questions.
In the second place, we find in his position on both issues an opposition to the individual evils involved in the policy of protective tariffs and of militarism, with a determined refusal to combat both phenomena as such in their entirety. In Schippel’s lecture in Stuttgart we were informed of the necessity of combatting excessive individual protective tariffs, but at the same time we were warned not to ‘commit’ ourselves, not to ‘tie our hands’, which meant not to oppose the protective tariff always and everywhere. Now we are informed that, although Schippel would not reject ‘the struggle, carried on in parliament and through agitation, against concrete military demands’ [ Sozialistische Monatshefte, November 1898, p.495.], he warns against ‘taking purely external chance occurrences and very incidental, but admittedly also very conspicuous reactions (of militarism) in the remaining social spheres to be the essence and the core of militarism’. [Die Neue Zeit (1 no.19)]
Thirdly and finally, the foundation of the two viewpoints mentioned above is in both cases the evaluation of the phenomena exclusively from the point of view of the previous bourgeois development, that is, from their historically conditioned progressive aspect, while disregarding completely further imminent developments which reveal their reactionary aspect. For Schippel the protective tariff remains what it was at the time of the late Friedrich List, more than half a century ago: a great advance beyond the medieval-feudal economic fragmentation of Germany. That today universal free trade already represents the same necessary progression beyond the national economic structure to a unified global economy, thus making today’s national tariff barriers reactionary – this fact, as far as Schippel is concerned, does not exist.
The same is true of the question of militarism. He still approaches it from the point of view that it is the same great step forward as was the standing army based on universal and compulsory conscription vis-à-vis the former enlisted army and feudal army. But here the development stops as far as Schippel is concerned; history does not progress beyond the standing army, except for a further extension of universal conscription.
What then is the significance of these characteristic positions which Schippel adopts on both the tariff and military questions? They signify, firstly, an ad hoc policy rather than one based on principle. Secondly, and connected with this, they attack merely the abuses of the tariff and military systems rather than the system itself. But what is this policy other than our well-known acquaintance from recent party history – opportunism?
Again ‘practical politics’ celebrate their triumph in Isegrim-Schippel’s open renunciation of the militia postulate, one of the basic points in our whole political programme. From the party’s point of view, the real significance of Schippel’s appearance lies herein. This most recent Social-Democratic proclamation in favour of militarism can be judged and evaluated correctly only in connection with this whole current and from the view-point of the general foundations and consequences of opportunism.
In other words, by accepting militarism, the worker prevents his wages from being reduced by a certain amount, but in return is largely deprived of the possibility of fighting continuously for an increase in his wage and an improvement of his situation. He gains as a seller of his labour, but at the same time loses his political freedom of movement as a citizen, so that he must ultimately also lose as the seller of his labour. He removes a competitor from the labour market only to see a defender of his wage slavery arise in his place; he prevents his wages being lowered only to find that the prospects both of a permanent improvement in his situation and of his ultimate economic, political and social liberation are diminished. This is the actual meaning of the ‘release’ of economic pressure on the working class achieved by militarism. Here, as in all opportunistic political speculation, we see the great aims of socialist class emancipation sacrificed to petty practical interests of the moment, interests moreover which, when examined more closely, prove to be essentially illusory.
The question arises, however, as to how Schippel arrives at his seemingly absurd idea of declaring that, even from the standpoint of the working class, militarism is a ‘release’. Let us recall how the same question appears from the point of view of capitalism. We have demonstrated that for capitalism, militarism creates the most profitable and indispensable kind of investment. Now it is evident that the same monies which the government acquires through taxation serve to maintain militarism. Had they remained in the people’s hands, however, they would have represented an increased demand for foodstuffs; or, had the State used these monies on a larger scale for cultural purposes, a corresponding demand for social works would have been created. It is also evident that militarism is by no means a ‘release’ of pressure on society as a whole. This question takes on a different aspect only from the view-point of capitalist profit-making, from the entrepreneur’s point of view. For the capitalists, there is indeed a difference as to whether a certain demand for products comes from isolated private buyers or from the State. The State’s demand is distinguished by the fact that it is certain, that it orders in enormous quantities, and that its pricing is favourable to the supplier and usually monopolistic – all of which makes the State the most desirable customer and makes supplying it the most alluring business for capitalism.
But what makes supplying the military in particular essentially more profitable than, for example, State expenditures on cultural ends (schools, roads, etc.), is the incessant technical innovations of the military and the incessant increase in its expenditures. Militarism thus represents an inexhaustible, and indeed increasingly lucrative, source of capitalist gain, and raises capital to a social power of the magnitude confronting the worker in, for example, the enterprises of Krupp and Stumm. Militarism – which to society as a whole represents a completely absurd economic waste of enormous productive forces – and which for the working class means a lowering of its standard of living with the objective of enslaving it socially – is for the capitalist class economically the most alluring, irreplaceable kind of investment and politically and socially the best support for their class rule. Therefore, when Schippel abruptly declares militarism to be a necessary ‘release’ of economic pressure, not only does he apparently confuse societys interests with that of capitalism’s interests, thus – as we said at the outset – adoptng the bourgeois point of view, but he also bases his argument on the principle of a harmony of interests between capital and labour by assuming that every economic advantage to the entrepreneur is necessarily an advantage to the worker as well.
Schippel takes the same familiar perspective on the tariff question. Here, too, he has come out in favour of the protective tariff in principle, since, as he claims, he desires to protect the worker as producer against the ruinous competition of foreign industry. In this policy, just as in the military bill, he sees the worker’s immediate economic interests and overlooks his other social interests which are connected with the general social progress towards free trade or towards the abolition of the standing army. And in both cases, he assumes uncritically that the interest of capital is also the immediate economic interest of labour, since he believes that all that is advantageous to the entrepreneur is also advantageous to the worker. To sacrifice the ultimate ends of the movement to practical and momentary success, and to evaluate our practical interests from the viewpoint of a harmony of interests between capital and labour – these two principles are indeed interconnected harmoniously, for they are the essence of all opportunistic politics.
At first glance one might be surprised that an advocate of this policy finds it possible to invoke the authors of the Social-Democratic programme and in all seriousness (since his authority in the military question is Baron von Stumm) to consider Friedrich Engels as his authority in the same question. Schippel presumes to share Engels’s insight into the historical necessity and the historical development of militarism. This, however, only proves once again that, just as before with badly digested Hegelian dialectics, now the badly digested Marxist interpretation of history leads to the most hopeless confusion in one’s head. Once more it is demonstrated that both the dialectical method in general and the materialist philosophy of history in particular, however revolutionary they may be when understood correctly, produce dangerously reactionary consequences the moment they are comprehended wrongly. If one reads Schippel’s quotes from Engels, especially those from Anti-Dühring, concerning the development of the military system to the point where it dissolves itself and becomes a people’s army, it is at first glance unclear where the difference between Schippel’s and the party’s usual interpretation of the question actually lies. We regard militarism in its very essence as a natural and inevitable product of social development – so does Schippel. We believe that the further development of militarism leads to the people’s army – so does Schippel. Where then is the difference which can lead Schippel to his reactionary opposition to our demand for a militia? The answer is very simple: whereas we share Engel’s view that the logic of the development of militarism into the militia must entail the dissolution of militarism, Schippel believes that the people’s army of the future will grow of its own accord, ‘from within’ the present military system. Whereas we, supported by the material conditions given us by the objective development (namely the extension of universal conscription and the decrease in the length of service), aspire to bring about the militia system by means of political struggle, Schippel relies on the intrinsic development of militarism with its consequences, and brands as fantasy and hot-house politics every conscious intervention aimed at effecting the militia.
What he arrives at in this way is not Engels’s interpretation of history, but Bernstein’s. Just as for Bernstein the capitalist economy ‘grows into’ a socialist economy automatically, step by step and without a sudden transition, so for Schippel the people’s army automatically grows out of contemporary militarism. Both Bernstein and Schippel – the former with regard to capitalism as a whole, the latter with regard to militarism – fail to understand that objective developments merely provide us with the pre-conditions for a higher developmental stage; that, without our systematic intervention, without the political struggle of the working class for the socialist revolution or for the militia, neither will ever be realized. However, since the facile notion of a ‘natural growth’ is merely a chimera, an opportunistic subterfuge to avoid the resolute revolutionary struggle, the social and political changes attainable in this manner shrink into a wretched bourgeois patchwork. Now in Bernstein’s theory of a ‘gradual socialization’, all that we understand by the concept of socialism ultimately disappears, and socialism becomes ‘social control’, that is, a number of harmless bourgeois social reforms; in the same way Schippel’s notion of the ‘people’s army’ transforms our goal of a free people in arms, itself deciding on war and peace, into a system of universal conscription extending to all citizens fit for active service, modelled on the present system of the standing army, but with a shorter term of service. If applied to all the aims of our political struggle, Schippels concept leads directly to the abandonment of the entire Social-Democratic programme.
Schippel’s support for militarism is a palpable illustration of the whole revisionist current in our party and at the same time an important step in its development. Earlier we learned from a Social-Democratic deputy in the Reichstag, Heine, that under certain circumstances one might grant military requisitions to the capitalist government. But this was intended merely as a concession to the higher purposes of democracy. At least according to Heine, cannons were to serve only as objects of value to exchange for popular rights. Now Schippel declares that the cannons are necessary for their own sake. If in both cases the result is the same, namely support for militarism, at least in Heine’s case it rests upon a false conception of the Social-Democratic method of struggle, while in Schippel’s case it originates in his altering the object of struggle. The former proposes not Social-Democratic but bourgeois tactics, but the latter brazenly substitutes a bourgeois programme for the Social-Democratic programme.
Schippel’s ‘scepticism’ concerning the militia represents the logical conclusion of ‘practical politics’. They cannot become more reactionary, but can only extend into the other points in the programme; ‘practical politics’ can then only cast aside the remaining Social-Democratic garments with whose tatters they have draped themselves and stand revealed in their classical nakedness – as Pastor Naumann. [National Social Party in imperial Germany, advocate of ‘Christian Imperialism’]
Schippel’s attack is directed at only one point in our political programme. But this single point, in view of the fundamental significance of militarism to the present state, means in fact a renunciation of Social Democracy’s whole political struggle.
In militarism, the power and rule of both the capitalist state and the bourgeois class are crystallized; just as Social Democracy is the only party which opposes them in principle, so too, inversely, is the opposition in principle to militarism part of the nature of Social Democracy. To abandon the struggle against the military system amounts in fact to the same thing as renouncing the struggle against the present social order in general. We stated at the conclusion of the previous section that it remained only for opportunism to extend Schippel’s position on the military question to other points of the party programme in order to abjure Social Democracy completely. We were thinking only of the subjective, conscious development of the supporters of this policy. Objectively, considered in terms of the facts, this development is consummated in Schippel’s statement.
One more aspect of the recent opportunist pronouncements, and especially of Schippel’s contribution, is deserving of attention, at least in view of its symptomatic value. This is the playful ease, the imperturbable calmness, indeed even the serene grace with which principles are undermined, principles which must have entered the flesh and blood of every comrade who does not interpret the party’s good in a wholly superficial manner, and which, when they are shaken in this way, should occasion at least a serious crisis of conscience on the part of every sincere Social Democrat. Apart from everything else, these are unmistakable signs that a nadir in the revolutionary level has been reached, that the revolutionary instinct has been blunted - phenomena which in themselves might be unintelligible and inessential, but which are without doubt essential to a party such as Social Democracy, which is forced to rely at present largely not on practical but on abstract successes, and which necessarily makes great demands on its members’ individual intellectual level. Opportunism’s bourgeois manner of thinking is suitably complemented by its bourgeois manner of perception.
The implication of Schippel’s pronouncement, extending as it does in all directions, necessitate a corresponding counter-pronouncement by the party. What can and must this counter-action be? Firstly, a clear and unambiguous stand on this question by the entire party press, and a similar discussion of the matter at party congresses. If the party as a whole is not in agreement with Schippel’s point of view (according to which public meetings are merely occasions when one throws the bones of ‘slogans’ into the starving crowd so that at the right time it will elect its political ‘superiors’ to the Reichstag), then it also cannot regard the discussion of the most important party political principles as a ‘preserve of the nobility’, meant only for the selected few and not for the great mass of comrades. On the contrary, only when the discussion is carried into the broadest groups of the party can the possible spreading of Schippel’s views be successfully prevented.
Secondly, and even more important, the Social-Democratic Reichstag fraction must state its opinion. It above all is qualified to give the definitive word on the Schippel affair because, on the one hand, Schippel is a deputy of the Reichstag and a member of the fraction, and on the other, the question with which he deals is one of the major objects of its parliamentary struggle. We do not know whether or not the fraction has done anything in the matter. Since soon after the publication of Isegrim’s article it was an open secret as to whose name the pseudonym concealed, the parliamentary party has in all probability not looked on idly while one of their members has made a mockery of their own activity.
And, if they had not done so before, they could have made up for lost time after Kautsky had stripped Schippel of his wolf’s clothing. Regardless of whether or not the Reichstag fraction has taken a stand on Schippel’s case, the result is roughly the same so long as it has not informed the whole party of its stand. Forced to operate on the parquet floor of a bourgeois parliamentarism which is alien to its real nature, Social Democracy has apparently unwillingly and unconsciously adopted many of the customs of parliamentarism which cannot properly be made to agree with its democratic character. Among these, in our opinion, are included, for example, the parliamentary party’s behaving as a unanimous corporate body not only towards the bourgeois parties (which is entirely necessary), but also towards its own party – which can lead to an unhealthy situation. The parliamentary representatives of the bourgeois parties, whose parliamentary struggle is fought out largely in the insipid form of wire-pulling and bartering, have every reason to avoid the light of publicity. By contrast, the Social-Democratic parliamentary fraction neither needs nor has reason to consider the results of its deliberations as an internal matter the moment party principles or more important tactical questions are involved. To settle such questions only in secret meetings of the parliamentary party would be sufficient if we, like the bourgeois parties, were concerned solely with ultimately achieving a certain unanimous show of hands by the parliamentary party in the Reichstag. For Social Democracy, however, the parliamentary struggle of its Reichstag fraction is far more important from the point of view of agitation than practical activity; it is a question not of a formal majority decision by the parliamentary party, but of the discussion itself, of clarifying the situation. For the party it is at least as important to know what its representatives’ opinions on the parliamentary questions are as to know how they vote en bloc in the Reichstag. In a party which is democratic through and through, the relationship between voter and deputy may under no circumstances be considered as fulfilled by the act of voting and by the more outwardly formal and summary reports given at party conventions. Rather the parliamentary party must maintain as lively and continuous a contact as possible with the party masses, and this in particular will become the simple imperative of self-preservation, in view of the opportunistic currents which have recently come to light precisely among our party parliamentarians. A public stand on Schippel’s statements by the parliamentary party was and is necessary because the party masses, however much they might wish to, simply do not have the physical possibility of expressing their opinion as a whole on this question. The parliamentary faction is an appointed political representative of the whole party and should have helped the party indirectly, by taking the lead, to articulate its necessary position.
Thirdly and finally, the party as such must give direct expression to its views concerning the case of Schippel, and this it must do in the sole form at its disposal – at the next party congress.
In the discussion in Stuttgart concerning Bernstein’s articles, it was said that the party conference could not vote on theoretical questions. But now, in the case of Schippel, we have a purely practical question. It was said that Heine’s compensation proposals were only inopportune castles in the air which the party need not take into consideration. Now in Schippel’s case we have castles on the ground. Indeed, in Schippel’s stand on the militia question, the policy of opportunism, as already stated, is taken to its logical conclusion, and has become ripe for decision. It seems to us that the party must undertake the urgent task of drawing the correct conclusions from this development and must take a clear and unambiguous stand on it.
It has every reason for doing this. It is a question of a Reichstag deputy, a political representative of the party, who is, by virtue of his office, supposed to serve the party as a sword in its struggles and whose action should act as a dam against attacks by the bourgeois State. If, however, the dam can at any moment become transformed into papier mache and if the sword breaks in battle as though it were made of cardboard, may not the party for its part say to this policy:
The events leading up to World War I from the massive military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of the world’s resources to the supposedly eternal pledges by the Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the international working-class to stop those parties in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20th century history. The ability to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their way almost could not be avoided in the early 20th century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow exponentially with each new turn in the war machine.
The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last war. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain a big hold in the Asia seas. The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was committed to stopping the madness. A few voices were raised and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.
Over the next period as we lead up to the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I and beyond I will under this headline post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle against its outbreak before, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the battlefields.
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Teddy Martin had come from a long line of workers, some of his forbears had been among the first domestic weavers in Spitalfield, had been the first machine-tenders in Manchester and had been workers like him and his father in the London shipbuilding trade. He knew deep in his blood there was an “us” and “them” in the world without his party, the Labor Party, having to tell him word one on the subject. He had even read Karl Marx in his early teens when he was trying to figure out why his family was stuck in the faraway outer tenements with their squalor and their human closeness (he never could get over being in close quarters ever since then). So yes he was ready to listen to what some left members of the party had to say if the war clouds on the horizon turned any darker. But, and hear him true, his was like his forbears and his father before him as loyal a man as to be found in the country. Loyal to his king (queen too if it came to that) and his country. So he would have to think, think carefully, about what to do if those nasty Huns and their craven allies making loud noises of late threatened his way of life. Most of his mates to the extent that they had any opinion were beginning to be swept up in the idea that a little war might not be such a bad thing to settle some long smoldering disputes. Still he, Teddy Martin, was not a man to be rushed and so he would think, think hard, about what to do if there was a mass mobilization.
No question, thought Teddy Martin, his majesty’s government had gotten itself into a hard situation ever since that mangy Archduke somebody had got himself shot by a guy, a damn anarchist working with who knows who, maybe freemasons, over in Sarajevo, over in someplace he was not quite sure he knew where it was if somebody had asked him to point it out in a map. That seemingly silly little act (except of course to the Archduke and his wife also killed) apparently has exposed Britain, damn the whole British Empire that they claim the sun never sets on, to some pretty serious entanglements because if France were to go to war with Austria or someplace like that then the king is duty bound to come to France’s rescue. And Teddy Martin as thinking man, as a working man, as a member in good standing of the Labor Party ever since its inception was still not sure what he would do. Not sure that he would follow the war cries being shouted out by the likes of Arthur Henderson from his own party. All he knew was that the usual talk of football or the prizefights that filled the air at his pub, The Cock and Bull, was being supplanted by war talk, by talk of taking a nip out of the Germans and those who spoke in that way were gaining a hearing. All Teddy knew was that it was getting harder and harder for him to openly express thoughts that he needed to think about the issues more. That was not a good sign, not a good omen.
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The German Social-Democratic Party had given Fritz Klein everything. Had taken him from a small furniture-making factory(less than one hundred employees constituting in those days small) where he led the fight for unionization (against all odds for that woefully unorganized industry and against the then still standing laws against unionization pressed by the state as well as well as the outlaw status of the S-D Party in those pre-legal days) and brought him along into the burgeoning party bureaucracy (boasting of this number of party publications, that number of members, and the pinnacle the votes attained for the growing number of party parliamentarians in the Reichstag). Made him a local then regional shop steward agent. Later found him a spot in the party publications department and from there to alternate member of the party’s national committee. As he grew older, got married, had two lovely children the party had severely sapped the youthful idealism out of him. Still he was stirred whenever Karl Liebknecht, old Wilhelm’s son, the father whom he knew from the old days, delivered one of his intellectual and rational attacks against the war aims of the Kaiser and his cabal. Still too though he worried, worried to perdition, that the British and, especially the French were deliberately stepping on German toes. Although tired, endlessly tired, he hoped that he would be able to stick to the Second International’s pledge made at Basle in 1912 to do everything to stop war in case it came, as was now likely. He just didn’t know how he would react, didn’t know at all.
Fritz was furious, furious at two things. First that those damn whatever they were anarchists, nationalists, or whatever had assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand. Had threatened the peace of Europe, his peace, with their screwy theory of picking off various state officials thinking that would, unlike victory in the mass class struggles, change the world. Christ, they could have at least read Marx or somebody. Make no mistake Fritz had no truck with monarchy, certainly not the moribund Austro-Hungarian monarchy, despised the Kaiser himself right here in the German homeland (although on the quiet since the Kaiser was not above using his courts for the simple pleasure of skewering a man for lese majeste and had done so to political opponents and the idle wild-talkers alike). Still his blood boiled that some desperados would pick at a fellow Germanic target. Fritz was not at all sure that maybe the French, or the English, the bloody English were behind the activities. Hugo Heine thought so, his immediate regional director, so there could be some truth to the assertion.
Secondly, that same Hugo Heine had begun, at the behest of the national committee of the party, to clamp down on those who were trying to make the party live up to its promises and try to make a stand against any German, any Kaiser moves toward war over the incident at Sarajevo. The way Heine put it was that if war was to come and he hoped that it would not the Social-Democracy must not be thrown into the underground again like in the old days under Bismarck. Hugo had spent two years in the Kaiser’s jail back then for simply trying to organize his shop and get them to vote for the party then outlawed. The radical stuffing had come out of Hugo though and all he wanted was not to go back to jail now for any reason. Fritz cursed those damn anarchists again, cursed them more bitterly since they were surely going to disturb his peace.
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Jacques Rous (and yes he traced his family roots back to the revolution, back to the “red” priest who he was named after who had led some of the plebeian struggles back then that were defeated by those damn moderate cutthroats Robespierre and Saint Just) had long been a leader the anarchist delegation in his Parisian district, had been in a few fights in his time with the damn city bourgeoisie, and had a long, very long memory of what the Germans had, and not done, in Paris in ’71,in the time of the bloodedly suppressed Commune. Also Jacques had long memories of his long past forbears who had come from Alsace-Lorraine now in German hands. And it galled him, galled him that there were war clouds gathering daily over his head, over his district and over his beloved Paris.
But that was not what was troubling Jacques Rous in the spring of 1914. He knew, knew deep in his bones like a lot of his fellow anarchists, like a lot of the guys in the small pottery factory he had worked in for the past several years after being laid off from the big textile factory across the river that if war came they would know what to do. Quatrain from the CGT (the large trade union organization to which he and others in the factory belonged to) had clued them in, had told them enough to know some surprises were headed the government’s way if they decided to use the youth of the neighborhoods as cannon fodder. What bothered Jacques was not his conduct but that of his son, Jacques too named in honor of that same ancient red priest who was the lifeblood of the family. Young Jacques something of a dandy like many youth in those days, something of a lady’s man (he had reportedly a married mistress and somebody else on the side), had told one and all (although not his father directly) who would listen one night that he planned to enlist in the Grenadiers just as soon as it looked like trouble was coming. Old Jacques wondered if other fathers were standing in fear of such rash actions by their sons just then.
*******
George Jenkins dreamed the dream of many young men out in the heartland, out in the wheat fields of Kansas a dream that America, his America would keep the hell out of what looked like war clouds coming from Europe in the spring of 1914 (although dreams and dreamers were located not just on the farms since George was not a Kansas farm boy but a rising young clerk in Doc Dell’s Drugstore located in the college town of Lawrence). George was keenly interested in such matters and would, while on break or when things were slow, glance through the day later copy of the New York Times or Washington Post that Doc provided for his more worldly customers via the passing trains. What really kept George informed though was William White’s home grown Emporia Gazette which kept a close eye on the situation in Europe for the folks.
And with all of that information here is what George Jenkins, American citizen, concluded: America had its own problems best tended to by keeping out of foreign entanglements except when America’s direct interests were threatened. So George naturally cast skeptical eyes on Washington, on President Wilson, despite his protestations that European affairs were not our business. George had small town ideas about people minding their own business. See also George had voted for Eugene V. Debs himself, the Socialist party candidate for President, and while he was somewhat skeptical about some of the Socialist Party leaders back East he truly believed that Brother Debs would help keep us out of war.
********
Ivan Smirnov was no kid, had been around the block a few times in this war business. Had been in the Russian fleet that got its ass kicked by the Japanese in 1904 (he never called them “Nips” like lots of his crewmates did not after that beating they took that did not have to happen if the damn Czar’s naval officers had been anything but lackeys and anything but overconfident that they could beat the Johnny-come-lately Japanese in the naval war game). More importantly he had been in the Baltic fleet when the revolution of 1905 came thundering over their heads and each man, each sailor, each officer had to choice sides. He had gone with rebels and while he did not face the fate of his comrades on the Potemkin his naval career was over.
Just as well Ivan had thought many times since he was then able to come ashore and get work on the docks through some connections, and think. And what he was thinking in the spring of 1914 with some ominous war clouds in the air that that unfinished task from 1905 was going to come to a head. Ivan knew enough about the state of the navy, and more importantly, the army to know that without some quick decisive military action the monarchy was finished and good riddance. The hard part, the extremely hard part, was to get those future peasant conscripts who would provide cannon fodder for the Czar’s ill-thought out land adventures to listen up for a minute rather than go unknowingly head-long into the Czar’s arm (the father’s arms for many of them). So there was plenty of work to do. Ivan just that moment was glad that he was not a kid.
**********Rosa Luxemburg-The Militia and Militarism-(1899)
[Extract]
First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, February 20th-26th, 1899
Abstract: Only Sections 1-3 are published. Sections 4-5 are omitted (please help us get this online!), containing Schippel’s analysis of militarism as a mechanism for releasing the economic pressures of capitalism.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected political writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker
Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins
Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
Abstract: Only Sections 1-3 are published. Sections 4-5 are omitted (please help us get this online!), containing Schippel’s analysis of militarism as a mechanism for releasing the economic pressures of capitalism.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected political writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker
Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins
Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
I
This is not the first time, and hopefully not the last, that critical voices concerning particular points in our programme and tactics have been heard from the party’s rank and file. In itself this cannot be welcomed enough. However, the most important thing is how the criticism is made, and by this we do not mean the ‘tone’ which it has unfortunately become fashionable to employ in the party in calling for a show of hands on every occasion. Rather, we mean something far more important – the general basis of the criticism, the specific Weltanschauung that is expressed in the criticism.In fact Isegrim-Schippel’s [‘Isegrim’ was a pseudonym for Schippel] crusade against our demand for a militia and in favour of militarism rests upon a very consistent socio-political Weltanschauung.
The most general standpoint upon which Schippel bases his defence of militarism is his belief in the necessity of this military system. Using all possible arguments of a technical, social and economic nature, he demonstrates the absolute necessity of a standing army. And from a certain point of view he is quite correct. A standing army and militarism are indeed indispensable – but for whom? For the present-day ruling classes and the contemporary governments. Now what can one conclude from this other than that, from the class standpoint of the present government and ruling classes, doing away with the standing army and introducing the militia, i.e. arming the people, must appear to be an impossibility, an absurdity? And if Schippel, for his part, likewise regards the militia as an impossibility and an absurdity, then he is only revealing that he himself shares the bourgeois point of view on the question of militarism, and that he views it through the eyes of the capitalist government or the bourgeois classes. This is also demonstrated clearly in each of his individual arguments. He claims that to equip all citizens with weapons, which is a basic tenet of the militia system, would be impossible because there is not enough money for this. ‘Culture suffers enough as it is,’ he says. He bases his argument simply on the present Prusso-German public economy; he cannot imagine a different economy, for example one which makes use of progressive taxation of the capitalist class in order to finance the militia system.
Schippel considers the military training of youth – another basic tenet of the militia system – as undesirable because, he says, the non-commissioned officers as military trainers would exert the most corruptive influence on youth. Here of course he bases his argument on the present Prussian non-commissioned barracks-officer and simply extrapolates him as an educator of youth into his imaginary militia system. Schippel’s view of the situation is a vivid reminder of Professor Julius Wolf,[1] who sees an important objection to the social order of socialism in that under its rule, according to his calculations, the general rate of interest would rise ...
Schippel considers the militarism of the present day to be economically indispensable because it ‘relieves’ the economic pressure on society. Kautsky makes every conceivable effort to guess how the Social Democrat, Schippel, might have conceived that this militarism could ‘release’ of pressure. Kautsky then accompanies each possible explanation with an excellent refutation. It seems, however, that Schippel has not taken up the matter as a Social Democrat, nor from the point of view of the working people at all. When he speaks of a ‘release’ of pressure, it is obvious that he is thinking of capitalism. And in this he is of course correct: for capitalism, one of the most important forms of investment is militarism; from capitalism’s point of view, militarism is indeed a ‘release’ of pressure. That Schippel here speaks as a real advocate of the interests of capitalism is revealed by the fact that he has found a qualified authority to support him in this point.
‘I claim, gentlemen,’ someone said in the Reichstag session of January 12th, 1899, ‘that it is quite incorrect to say that the Reich’s debts of two million concern only unproductive expenditures, and that these are not offset by productive income of any kind. I claim that there is no investment more productive than expenditures for the army.’ To be sure, the minutes of that session report ‘Mirth on the Left’ ... The speaker was Baron von Stumm. [A major German industrialist and armaments manufacturer.]
It is characteristic of all Schippel’s claims that not only are they intrinsically wrong, but they are also based on the perspectives of bourgeois society. Thus, considered from a Social-Democratic viewpoint, everything that Schippel says seems to be upside down: the standing army is indispensable, militarism is economically beneficial, the militia is impracticable, etc.
One is struck by the similarity between Schippel’s perspective on the question of militarism and his attitude to another important question of the political struggle, namely customs policy.
Firstly, and most strikingly, we find in his treatment of both questions a refusal to recognize their connection with positions on the issue of democracy and reaction. If we are to believe Schippel’s lecture at the Stuttgart Party Conference, the claim that free trade is identical with progress and that protective tariffs are identical with reaction is wrong. Long and broad historical experience, he continues, proves that one may well be simultaneously a freetrader, and a reactionary or, on the other hand, a supporter of protective tariffs and an ardent friend of democracy. We are now informed, in almost the same words, that: ‘There are militia enthusiasts who afflict our working life with endless disruptions and interruptions, and who themselves seek to transplant the non-commissioned officer’s mentality into our boys and young lads right down to the lowest school grades – which is much worse than the present militarism. There are opponents of the militia who are mortal enemies of each and every extension of this kind of military intrusion and requisition.’ [Die Neue Zeit (1898-9), 580-81]
The fact that in these, as in all questions, the bourgeois politicians do not adopt a position based on principle, that they follow a policy of opportunism, leads the Social Democrat, Schippel, to conclude that he too has the same right. He therefore necessarily fails to appreciate the inner reactionary core of protective tariffs and of militarism, and, conversely, the progressive significance of free trade and of the militia; that is, he too fails to adopt a position based on principle towards the two questions.
In the second place, we find in his position on both issues an opposition to the individual evils involved in the policy of protective tariffs and of militarism, with a determined refusal to combat both phenomena as such in their entirety. In Schippel’s lecture in Stuttgart we were informed of the necessity of combatting excessive individual protective tariffs, but at the same time we were warned not to ‘commit’ ourselves, not to ‘tie our hands’, which meant not to oppose the protective tariff always and everywhere. Now we are informed that, although Schippel would not reject ‘the struggle, carried on in parliament and through agitation, against concrete military demands’ [ Sozialistische Monatshefte, November 1898, p.495.], he warns against ‘taking purely external chance occurrences and very incidental, but admittedly also very conspicuous reactions (of militarism) in the remaining social spheres to be the essence and the core of militarism’. [Die Neue Zeit (1 no.19)]
Thirdly and finally, the foundation of the two viewpoints mentioned above is in both cases the evaluation of the phenomena exclusively from the point of view of the previous bourgeois development, that is, from their historically conditioned progressive aspect, while disregarding completely further imminent developments which reveal their reactionary aspect. For Schippel the protective tariff remains what it was at the time of the late Friedrich List, more than half a century ago: a great advance beyond the medieval-feudal economic fragmentation of Germany. That today universal free trade already represents the same necessary progression beyond the national economic structure to a unified global economy, thus making today’s national tariff barriers reactionary – this fact, as far as Schippel is concerned, does not exist.
The same is true of the question of militarism. He still approaches it from the point of view that it is the same great step forward as was the standing army based on universal and compulsory conscription vis-à-vis the former enlisted army and feudal army. But here the development stops as far as Schippel is concerned; history does not progress beyond the standing army, except for a further extension of universal conscription.
What then is the significance of these characteristic positions which Schippel adopts on both the tariff and military questions? They signify, firstly, an ad hoc policy rather than one based on principle. Secondly, and connected with this, they attack merely the abuses of the tariff and military systems rather than the system itself. But what is this policy other than our well-known acquaintance from recent party history – opportunism?
Again ‘practical politics’ celebrate their triumph in Isegrim-Schippel’s open renunciation of the militia postulate, one of the basic points in our whole political programme. From the party’s point of view, the real significance of Schippel’s appearance lies herein. This most recent Social-Democratic proclamation in favour of militarism can be judged and evaluated correctly only in connection with this whole current and from the view-point of the general foundations and consequences of opportunism.
II
The most fundamental characteristic of opportunistic policy is that it always and consistently leads to the sacrifice of the movement’s ultimate goal, namely the liberation of the working class, to its most immediate, indeed imaginary interests. That this is the case with Schippel’s policy can be demonstrated clearly by one of his main tenets on the question of militarism. The most important economic reason which, according to Schippel, compels us to retain the system of militarism is that this system is a ‘release’ of economic pressure on society. Let us set aside the fact that this peculiar claim ignores the simplest economic facts. On the contrary, let us assume for a moment, in order to characterize this point of view, that this preposterous claim is true, that militarism does in fact ‘release’ the pressure on society created by surplus productive forces.
How can this phenomenon operate on behalf of the working class? Ostensibly in such a way as to rid it of a part of its reserve army, i.e. those who force down wages, by maintaining a standing army; in this way its working conditions improve. And what does this mean? Only this: in order to reduce the supply in the labour market, in order to restrict competition, the worker in the first place gives away a portion of his salary in the form of indirect taxes in order to maintain his competitors as soldiers. Secondly, he makes his competitor into an instrument with which the capitalist state can contain, and if necessary suppress bloodily, any move he makes to improve his situation (strikes, coalitions, etc.); and thus this instrument can thwart the very same improvement in the worker’s situation for which, according to Schippel, militarism was necessary. Thirdly, the worker makes this competitor into the most solid pillar of political reaction in the State and thus of his own enslavement.In other words, by accepting militarism, the worker prevents his wages from being reduced by a certain amount, but in return is largely deprived of the possibility of fighting continuously for an increase in his wage and an improvement of his situation. He gains as a seller of his labour, but at the same time loses his political freedom of movement as a citizen, so that he must ultimately also lose as the seller of his labour. He removes a competitor from the labour market only to see a defender of his wage slavery arise in his place; he prevents his wages being lowered only to find that the prospects both of a permanent improvement in his situation and of his ultimate economic, political and social liberation are diminished. This is the actual meaning of the ‘release’ of economic pressure on the working class achieved by militarism. Here, as in all opportunistic political speculation, we see the great aims of socialist class emancipation sacrificed to petty practical interests of the moment, interests moreover which, when examined more closely, prove to be essentially illusory.
The question arises, however, as to how Schippel arrives at his seemingly absurd idea of declaring that, even from the standpoint of the working class, militarism is a ‘release’. Let us recall how the same question appears from the point of view of capitalism. We have demonstrated that for capitalism, militarism creates the most profitable and indispensable kind of investment. Now it is evident that the same monies which the government acquires through taxation serve to maintain militarism. Had they remained in the people’s hands, however, they would have represented an increased demand for foodstuffs; or, had the State used these monies on a larger scale for cultural purposes, a corresponding demand for social works would have been created. It is also evident that militarism is by no means a ‘release’ of pressure on society as a whole. This question takes on a different aspect only from the view-point of capitalist profit-making, from the entrepreneur’s point of view. For the capitalists, there is indeed a difference as to whether a certain demand for products comes from isolated private buyers or from the State. The State’s demand is distinguished by the fact that it is certain, that it orders in enormous quantities, and that its pricing is favourable to the supplier and usually monopolistic – all of which makes the State the most desirable customer and makes supplying it the most alluring business for capitalism.
But what makes supplying the military in particular essentially more profitable than, for example, State expenditures on cultural ends (schools, roads, etc.), is the incessant technical innovations of the military and the incessant increase in its expenditures. Militarism thus represents an inexhaustible, and indeed increasingly lucrative, source of capitalist gain, and raises capital to a social power of the magnitude confronting the worker in, for example, the enterprises of Krupp and Stumm. Militarism – which to society as a whole represents a completely absurd economic waste of enormous productive forces – and which for the working class means a lowering of its standard of living with the objective of enslaving it socially – is for the capitalist class economically the most alluring, irreplaceable kind of investment and politically and socially the best support for their class rule. Therefore, when Schippel abruptly declares militarism to be a necessary ‘release’ of economic pressure, not only does he apparently confuse societys interests with that of capitalism’s interests, thus – as we said at the outset – adoptng the bourgeois point of view, but he also bases his argument on the principle of a harmony of interests between capital and labour by assuming that every economic advantage to the entrepreneur is necessarily an advantage to the worker as well.
Schippel takes the same familiar perspective on the tariff question. Here, too, he has come out in favour of the protective tariff in principle, since, as he claims, he desires to protect the worker as producer against the ruinous competition of foreign industry. In this policy, just as in the military bill, he sees the worker’s immediate economic interests and overlooks his other social interests which are connected with the general social progress towards free trade or towards the abolition of the standing army. And in both cases, he assumes uncritically that the interest of capital is also the immediate economic interest of labour, since he believes that all that is advantageous to the entrepreneur is also advantageous to the worker. To sacrifice the ultimate ends of the movement to practical and momentary success, and to evaluate our practical interests from the viewpoint of a harmony of interests between capital and labour – these two principles are indeed interconnected harmoniously, for they are the essence of all opportunistic politics.
At first glance one might be surprised that an advocate of this policy finds it possible to invoke the authors of the Social-Democratic programme and in all seriousness (since his authority in the military question is Baron von Stumm) to consider Friedrich Engels as his authority in the same question. Schippel presumes to share Engels’s insight into the historical necessity and the historical development of militarism. This, however, only proves once again that, just as before with badly digested Hegelian dialectics, now the badly digested Marxist interpretation of history leads to the most hopeless confusion in one’s head. Once more it is demonstrated that both the dialectical method in general and the materialist philosophy of history in particular, however revolutionary they may be when understood correctly, produce dangerously reactionary consequences the moment they are comprehended wrongly. If one reads Schippel’s quotes from Engels, especially those from Anti-Dühring, concerning the development of the military system to the point where it dissolves itself and becomes a people’s army, it is at first glance unclear where the difference between Schippel’s and the party’s usual interpretation of the question actually lies. We regard militarism in its very essence as a natural and inevitable product of social development – so does Schippel. We believe that the further development of militarism leads to the people’s army – so does Schippel. Where then is the difference which can lead Schippel to his reactionary opposition to our demand for a militia? The answer is very simple: whereas we share Engel’s view that the logic of the development of militarism into the militia must entail the dissolution of militarism, Schippel believes that the people’s army of the future will grow of its own accord, ‘from within’ the present military system. Whereas we, supported by the material conditions given us by the objective development (namely the extension of universal conscription and the decrease in the length of service), aspire to bring about the militia system by means of political struggle, Schippel relies on the intrinsic development of militarism with its consequences, and brands as fantasy and hot-house politics every conscious intervention aimed at effecting the militia.
What he arrives at in this way is not Engels’s interpretation of history, but Bernstein’s. Just as for Bernstein the capitalist economy ‘grows into’ a socialist economy automatically, step by step and without a sudden transition, so for Schippel the people’s army automatically grows out of contemporary militarism. Both Bernstein and Schippel – the former with regard to capitalism as a whole, the latter with regard to militarism – fail to understand that objective developments merely provide us with the pre-conditions for a higher developmental stage; that, without our systematic intervention, without the political struggle of the working class for the socialist revolution or for the militia, neither will ever be realized. However, since the facile notion of a ‘natural growth’ is merely a chimera, an opportunistic subterfuge to avoid the resolute revolutionary struggle, the social and political changes attainable in this manner shrink into a wretched bourgeois patchwork. Now in Bernstein’s theory of a ‘gradual socialization’, all that we understand by the concept of socialism ultimately disappears, and socialism becomes ‘social control’, that is, a number of harmless bourgeois social reforms; in the same way Schippel’s notion of the ‘people’s army’ transforms our goal of a free people in arms, itself deciding on war and peace, into a system of universal conscription extending to all citizens fit for active service, modelled on the present system of the standing army, but with a shorter term of service. If applied to all the aims of our political struggle, Schippels concept leads directly to the abandonment of the entire Social-Democratic programme.
Schippel’s support for militarism is a palpable illustration of the whole revisionist current in our party and at the same time an important step in its development. Earlier we learned from a Social-Democratic deputy in the Reichstag, Heine, that under certain circumstances one might grant military requisitions to the capitalist government. But this was intended merely as a concession to the higher purposes of democracy. At least according to Heine, cannons were to serve only as objects of value to exchange for popular rights. Now Schippel declares that the cannons are necessary for their own sake. If in both cases the result is the same, namely support for militarism, at least in Heine’s case it rests upon a false conception of the Social-Democratic method of struggle, while in Schippel’s case it originates in his altering the object of struggle. The former proposes not Social-Democratic but bourgeois tactics, but the latter brazenly substitutes a bourgeois programme for the Social-Democratic programme.
Schippel’s ‘scepticism’ concerning the militia represents the logical conclusion of ‘practical politics’. They cannot become more reactionary, but can only extend into the other points in the programme; ‘practical politics’ can then only cast aside the remaining Social-Democratic garments with whose tatters they have draped themselves and stand revealed in their classical nakedness – as Pastor Naumann. [National Social Party in imperial Germany, advocate of ‘Christian Imperialism’]
III
If Social Democracy were a club for discussing socio-political questions, it could consider the case of Schippel as closed after a theoretical argument with him. Since it is a party of political struggle, however, it does not consider that demonstrating the theoretical errors involved in Schippels point of view solves the problem, but rather only raises it. Schippel’s publication on the militia is not only an expression of a certain idea, it is also a political act. Thus the party must answer it not only by refuting its views, but also through political action. And this action must correspond to the significance of Schippel’s remarks.
During the course of the past year, the absolute validity of virtually all the postulates which until now have been considered as the cornerstones of Social Democracy has been shaken by attacks from our own ranks. Eduard Bernstein declared that the ultimate goal of the proletarian movement meant nothing to him. Wolfgang Heine demonstrated with his proposals for compensation that the established Social-Democratic tactics in fact mean nothing to him. Now Schippel proves that he too is superior to the political programme of the party. Virtually not a single principle of the proletarian struggle has been spared from being dissolved into nothing by a few deputies of the party, On the face of it, this is hardly a gratifying picture. However, one must differentiate among these very significant proclamations as regards the party’s interest. Bernstein’s critique of our theoretical assets is without doubt portentous. Practical opportunism, however, is incomparably more dangerous to the movement. So long as it is strong and healthy in its practical struggle, the movement can itself simply shrug off any scepticism concerning its ultimate goal. However, the moment the immediate goal, that is, the struggle itself, is called into question, then the whole party with its ultimate goal and movement – not only in the subjective interpretation of this or that party philosopher, but also in objective reality – becomes nothing.Schippel’s attack is directed at only one point in our political programme. But this single point, in view of the fundamental significance of militarism to the present state, means in fact a renunciation of Social Democracy’s whole political struggle.
In militarism, the power and rule of both the capitalist state and the bourgeois class are crystallized; just as Social Democracy is the only party which opposes them in principle, so too, inversely, is the opposition in principle to militarism part of the nature of Social Democracy. To abandon the struggle against the military system amounts in fact to the same thing as renouncing the struggle against the present social order in general. We stated at the conclusion of the previous section that it remained only for opportunism to extend Schippel’s position on the military question to other points of the party programme in order to abjure Social Democracy completely. We were thinking only of the subjective, conscious development of the supporters of this policy. Objectively, considered in terms of the facts, this development is consummated in Schippel’s statement.
One more aspect of the recent opportunist pronouncements, and especially of Schippel’s contribution, is deserving of attention, at least in view of its symptomatic value. This is the playful ease, the imperturbable calmness, indeed even the serene grace with which principles are undermined, principles which must have entered the flesh and blood of every comrade who does not interpret the party’s good in a wholly superficial manner, and which, when they are shaken in this way, should occasion at least a serious crisis of conscience on the part of every sincere Social Democrat. Apart from everything else, these are unmistakable signs that a nadir in the revolutionary level has been reached, that the revolutionary instinct has been blunted - phenomena which in themselves might be unintelligible and inessential, but which are without doubt essential to a party such as Social Democracy, which is forced to rely at present largely not on practical but on abstract successes, and which necessarily makes great demands on its members’ individual intellectual level. Opportunism’s bourgeois manner of thinking is suitably complemented by its bourgeois manner of perception.
The implication of Schippel’s pronouncement, extending as it does in all directions, necessitate a corresponding counter-pronouncement by the party. What can and must this counter-action be? Firstly, a clear and unambiguous stand on this question by the entire party press, and a similar discussion of the matter at party congresses. If the party as a whole is not in agreement with Schippel’s point of view (according to which public meetings are merely occasions when one throws the bones of ‘slogans’ into the starving crowd so that at the right time it will elect its political ‘superiors’ to the Reichstag), then it also cannot regard the discussion of the most important party political principles as a ‘preserve of the nobility’, meant only for the selected few and not for the great mass of comrades. On the contrary, only when the discussion is carried into the broadest groups of the party can the possible spreading of Schippel’s views be successfully prevented.
Secondly, and even more important, the Social-Democratic Reichstag fraction must state its opinion. It above all is qualified to give the definitive word on the Schippel affair because, on the one hand, Schippel is a deputy of the Reichstag and a member of the fraction, and on the other, the question with which he deals is one of the major objects of its parliamentary struggle. We do not know whether or not the fraction has done anything in the matter. Since soon after the publication of Isegrim’s article it was an open secret as to whose name the pseudonym concealed, the parliamentary party has in all probability not looked on idly while one of their members has made a mockery of their own activity.
And, if they had not done so before, they could have made up for lost time after Kautsky had stripped Schippel of his wolf’s clothing. Regardless of whether or not the Reichstag fraction has taken a stand on Schippel’s case, the result is roughly the same so long as it has not informed the whole party of its stand. Forced to operate on the parquet floor of a bourgeois parliamentarism which is alien to its real nature, Social Democracy has apparently unwillingly and unconsciously adopted many of the customs of parliamentarism which cannot properly be made to agree with its democratic character. Among these, in our opinion, are included, for example, the parliamentary party’s behaving as a unanimous corporate body not only towards the bourgeois parties (which is entirely necessary), but also towards its own party – which can lead to an unhealthy situation. The parliamentary representatives of the bourgeois parties, whose parliamentary struggle is fought out largely in the insipid form of wire-pulling and bartering, have every reason to avoid the light of publicity. By contrast, the Social-Democratic parliamentary fraction neither needs nor has reason to consider the results of its deliberations as an internal matter the moment party principles or more important tactical questions are involved. To settle such questions only in secret meetings of the parliamentary party would be sufficient if we, like the bourgeois parties, were concerned solely with ultimately achieving a certain unanimous show of hands by the parliamentary party in the Reichstag. For Social Democracy, however, the parliamentary struggle of its Reichstag fraction is far more important from the point of view of agitation than practical activity; it is a question not of a formal majority decision by the parliamentary party, but of the discussion itself, of clarifying the situation. For the party it is at least as important to know what its representatives’ opinions on the parliamentary questions are as to know how they vote en bloc in the Reichstag. In a party which is democratic through and through, the relationship between voter and deputy may under no circumstances be considered as fulfilled by the act of voting and by the more outwardly formal and summary reports given at party conventions. Rather the parliamentary party must maintain as lively and continuous a contact as possible with the party masses, and this in particular will become the simple imperative of self-preservation, in view of the opportunistic currents which have recently come to light precisely among our party parliamentarians. A public stand on Schippel’s statements by the parliamentary party was and is necessary because the party masses, however much they might wish to, simply do not have the physical possibility of expressing their opinion as a whole on this question. The parliamentary faction is an appointed political representative of the whole party and should have helped the party indirectly, by taking the lead, to articulate its necessary position.
Thirdly and finally, the party as such must give direct expression to its views concerning the case of Schippel, and this it must do in the sole form at its disposal – at the next party congress.
In the discussion in Stuttgart concerning Bernstein’s articles, it was said that the party conference could not vote on theoretical questions. But now, in the case of Schippel, we have a purely practical question. It was said that Heine’s compensation proposals were only inopportune castles in the air which the party need not take into consideration. Now in Schippel’s case we have castles on the ground. Indeed, in Schippel’s stand on the militia question, the policy of opportunism, as already stated, is taken to its logical conclusion, and has become ripe for decision. It seems to us that the party must undertake the urgent task of drawing the correct conclusions from this development and must take a clear and unambiguous stand on it.
It has every reason for doing this. It is a question of a Reichstag deputy, a political representative of the party, who is, by virtue of his office, supposed to serve the party as a sword in its struggles and whose action should act as a dam against attacks by the bourgeois State. If, however, the dam can at any moment become transformed into papier mache and if the sword breaks in battle as though it were made of cardboard, may not the party for its part say to this policy:
Away with the pap,
I have no need of it! No swords will I forge with paste! |
At TheaterLab (357 W 36th St, 3rd Floor, NYC) journalists, activists and artists who attended the trial will read from a new graphic book 
