It is a fact that the entire Social-Democratic part of Germany does only what is agreeable to Sudekum or, at least, what Sudekum can abide. Nothing else can be done in a lawful way.
Whatever honorable, really Socialist, action is taken by the German party, is against the wishes of its center, without the consent of its leaders, in violation of the discipline of the party, by factions, in behalf of the anonymous center of a new party, like, for instance, the anonymous appeal from the German "left" printed in the Berner Tagewacht for May 31 of this year. A new party is indeed in the process of organization and growth, a real labor party, a genuine social-democratic party, very different from the old and rotten national liberal party of Legien, Sudekum, Kautsky, Haase, Scheidemann and others.[1]
It was a deep historical truth whkh the hopeless conservative, who signs himself Monitor, expressed in the Prussian Yearbook, when he said that it would fare badly with the opportunists (read bourgeoisie) if the present-day social democracy should mend its ways, for the workers would get out of it. Opportunists and bourgeois need the party as it is now, "uniting" the right and left wings and officially represented by Kautsky, who knows how to reconcile all the factions by his smooth, "Marxist" phrases.
In appearance it represents Socialism and the revolutionary spirit of the nation, the masses, the workers; in reality, it is pure Sudekumism, always ready to ally itself with the bourgeoisie whenever a serious crisis arises.
I said "whenever a crisis arises," for it is not only in wartimes, but whenever a serious political strike takes place that feudal Germany and "free-parliamentary" England and France adopt under this or that name military measures of repression. No one who is of sane mind and has a good memory can gainsay this.
- ↑ What took place before the famous vote of August 4 is very characteristic The official party threw over the affair the veil of its official hypocrisy. The majority ruled and the party voted like one man for the war. But Strebel in the review Die Internationle unveiled that hypocrisy and told the truth. There were in the Social-Democratic faction two groups ready with their ultimatums, that is with their dissenting resolutions. One group of opportunists numbering some 30 men, had decided to vote yes in any case. Another group, the left group, with some 15 men, had decided, less resolutely however, to vote no. When the center or "frog pond" which did not stand on firm ground, cast its votes with the opportunists the left wing saw itself beaten and submittted.
The so-called unity of the German Social-Democratic party is a piece of low hypocrisy, an attempt at concealing the fact that the whole party (had to submit to the ultimatum presented by the opportunists.
