The Proletarian Revolution and Kautsky the Renegade/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT IS INTERNATIONALISM?
Kautsky is most decidedly convinced of his Internationalism, and calls himself an Internationalist, while dubbing the Scheidemannites "Government Socialists." But when defending the Mensheviks (Kautsky does not publicly confess his solidarity with them, but reflects their views to the last detail), Kautsky has shown in a most instructive manner the sort of Internationalism which he prefers; and since Kautsky is not an individual aberration, but a representative of his school, which inevitably grew up in the atmosphere of the Second International (Longuet in France, Turati in Italy, Nobs and Grimm, Graber and Nain in Switzerland, Ramsay Macdonald in England, and so forth), it will be instructive to dwell a little on Kautsky's Internationalism.
After pointing out that the Mensheviks had also attended the Zimmerwald Conference (a diploma of rather doubtful validity now), Kautsky sets out in the following manner the veiws of the Mensheviks, with whom he agrees: "The Mensheviks wanted a general peace They wanted all the belligerents to adopt the formula: No annexations, no indemnities. Until this had been achieved the Russian army was, according to this view, to stand fully prepared for battle. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, demanded an immediate peace at any price; they were prepared, if need be, to make a separate peace; they endeavored to extort it by force, by increasing the disorganization of the army, which was great even without their efforts" (p. 27). In Kautsky's opinion the Bolsheviks ought not to have taken over the power in the State, and ought to have contented themselves with the Constituent Assembly.
The Internationalism of Kautsky and the Mensheviks is, therefore, this: To demand reforms from the Imperialist bourgeois Government, but to continue to support it, and to continue to support the war carried on by this Government until such time as all belligerents had accepted the formula: No annexations, no indemnities. Such a view was repeatedly expressed by Turati and by the Kautskians (Haase and others), and Longuet and Co., who used to add that they were for the defence of their respective fatherlands.
From a theoretical point of view, this is a complete inability to dissociate oneself from the Social Chauvinists and a complete muddle on the question of the defence of the fatherland. From the political point of view it is a substitution of petty bourgeois nationalism in the place of Internationalism, and a desertion to the reformists' camp, a renunciation of the revolution.
The recognition of the defence of the fatherland is a justification, from the point of view of the proletariat, of the present war, the admission of its lawfulness. And since the war remains Imperialist both under Monarchy and Republic, irrespectively of the territory—mine or the enemies'—occupied at the given moment by the епеmy troops, the recognition of the defence of the fatherland is, in point of fact, tantamount to the support of the Imperialist predatory bourgeoisie, to a complete betrayal of Socialism. The war continued to be Imperialist in Russia even under Kerensky, under the bourgeois democratic republic, since it was being carried on by the bourgeoisie in the position of a ruling class (war, it must be remembered, is a continuation of politics); and the most characteristic mark of the Imperialist character of the war was the secret treaties relating to the partition of the world and violation of other people's countries, which had been made by the ex-Tsar with the capitalists of England and France.
The Mensheviks were unscrupulously deceiving the people by calling this war a defensive or revolutionary war; and Kautsky, when approving the policy of the Mensheviks, is approving the deception practised on the people, is approving the part played by the petty bourgeois in helping Capitalism to trick the workers and to harness them to the chariot of the Imperialists. Kautsky is advocating a characteristically bourgeois and Philistine-like policy, imagining (and trying to instill into the minds of the masses the absurd idea) that a watchword can alter the real position of affairs. The entire history of bourgeois democracy refutes this illusion, since the bourgeois democrats have always put forward all sorts of attractive watchwords to deceive the people. What is necessary to test their sincerity, to compare their deeds with their words, to discard the idealistic charlatan phrases, and to seek for the class actuality. An Imperialist war does not cease to be Imperialist through the mere fact that charlatans or phrase-mongers or Philistines put forward and proclaim attractive watchwords. It ceases to be such only when the class which carries on the Imperialist war, and which is connected with it by millions of economic threads (in some cases, ropes), is overthrown and is replaced at the helm by the really revolutionary class, the proletariat. There is no other way of getting out of an Imperialist war, or of the necessarily following Imperialist predatory peace.
By approving the foreign policy of the Mensheviks, and declaring it to have been Internationalist and Zimmerwaldian, Kautsky, first, proves thereby the hollowness of the opportunist Zimmerwaldian majority (from which we, the Left Zimmerwaldians, at once dissociated ourselves), and, secondly—and this is the most important thing—Kautsky passes from the position of the proletariat to that of the petty bourgeoisie, from the revolutionary to the reformist position.
The proletariat fights for the revolutionary overthrow of the Imperialist bourgeoisie, while the petty bourgeois fights for a reformist "improvement" of Imperialism, for adaptation and submission to it. When Kautsky was still a Marxist (for instance, in March, 1909, when he was writing his "Road to Power"), he was insisting upon the inevitability of a revolution in connection with the war, and spoke abobut the approach of an era of revolutions. The Basel Manifesto of 1912 definitely speaks of a proletarian revolution in connection with that very Imperialist war between the Germans and the British Coalition, which actually broke out in 1914. But in 1918, when these revolutions began in connection with the war, Kautsky, instead of pointing out their inevitable character and reflecting upon and thinking out to the end the revolutionary policy and the methods of preparing for revolution, sets out to represent the reformist tactics of the Mensheviks as Internationalism. Is not this a piece of apostasy?
Kautsky praises the Mensheviks for having insisted upon efficiency in the army, and he blames the Bolsheviks for having increased the disorganization of the army, which had been growing even without their intervention. This means praising reformism and submission to the Imperialist bourgeoisie, blaming the revolution and abjuring it. For the maintenance of the fighting efficiency of the army meant, under Kerensky, its maintenance under the bourgeois (albeit republican) command. Everybody knows, and the events have proved it, that this republican army was preserving what may be called a Korniloff spirit, thanks to the reactionary attitude of the command. The bourgeois officers could not help being of a Korniloff spirit; they could not help gravitating towards Imperialism and towards a forcible suppression of the proletariat. To leave as before all the foundations of the Imperialist war, all the foundations of bourgeois dictatorship intact, to correct details and to improve the little minor defects by means of so-called reforms—this is what, in practice, the Menshevik policy amounted to.
On the other hand, ,not a single great revolution ever did or could do without a so-called disorganization of the army, the strongest instrument of support of the old régime; since the army is the most hardened bulwark of bourgeois discipline, of the rule of capitalism, of the maintenance and the strengthening of servile submissiveness and subjection of the toiling masses to capitalist domination. The Counter-Revolution never tolerated, and never could tolerate, armed workers side by side with the army. In France, Engels wrote, after each revolution the workers were found to be armed: "Hence the first commandment in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, on seizing the helm of the State, was to disarm the workers." The armed workers were the germ of а new army, and the nucleus of organization of a new social order. For this reason the first act of the bourgeoisie was to crush this germ, to prevent it from growing. On the other hand, the first commandment of every triumphant revolution, as Marx and Engels repeatedly pointed out, was to smash up this old army and replace it by a new one. The new social class struggling for supremacy never could (and still cannot) attain such supremacy or consolidate it except by dissolving the old army ("disorganizing it," as the reactionary or cowardly Philistines invariably howl), except by passing through a most difficult and painful period of absence of any army (as was the case also with the French revolution) and by forging, in the midst of terrible civil war, a new army and a discipline and military organization of a new class. In old days Kautsky, the historian, knew it, but now Kautsky, the renegade, has forgotten it.
By what right does Kautsky dub the Scheidemannites "Government Socialists," when he approves of the policy of the Mensheviks in the Russian revolution? By supporting Kerensky and by participating in his Ministry, the Mensheviks were also Government Socialists. Kautsky will not escape this conclusion, if only he asks what was the ruling class which was waging the Imperialist war. But Kautsky avoids raising this question, which must be put by every Marxist, since by doing so he would have proved himself a renegade.
The Kautskians of Germany, the Longuetists of France, the Turatis of Italy, reason in this way: Socialism implies the equality and freedom of nationalities, their self-determination: hence, when our country is attacked or invaded by enemy troops, the Socialists are justified and under an obligation to defend it. But such reasoning from a theoretical standpoint is either a hollow mockery of Socialism or a tricky manoeuvre, and, from the point of view of practical politics, is no better than the reasoning of the most backward and ignorant peasant who cannot even reflect upon the social, the class character of the war, and on the duties of a revolutionary party in time of a reactionary war.
Certainly Socialism is opposed to violation of the rights of nationality. But Socialism is altogether opposed to violence against man; yet, apart from Christian Anarchists and Tolstoyans, no one has as yet drawn the conclusion from this proposition that Socialism is opposed to revolutionary violence. Hence, to talk about violence in general, without examining the conditions distinguishing reactionary from revolutionary violence, is to abjure the revolution or to deceive oneself and others by sophisms.
The same holds good about violence against nations. Every war implies violence against nations, but that does not prevent the Socialists from being in favor of a revolutionary war. The class character of the war—that is the fundamental question which confronts a Socialist who is not a renegade. The Imperialist war of 1914–18 is a war between two coalitions of the imperialist bourgeoisie for the partition of the world, for the division of booty, and for the strangulation and spoliation of small and weak nationalities. Such was the view of the war, which was given in 1912 by the Basel Manifesto, which has since been confirmed by facts. He who abandons this point of view is not a Socialist, and if a German, under Wilhelm, or a Frenchman, under Clemenceau, says: "I am justified, and, indeed, it is my duty as a Socialist to defend my country if it is invaded by an enemy"; he reasons not as a Socialist, not as an Internationalist, not as a revolutionary proletarian, but as a bourgeois nationalist. For this reasoning leaves out of sight the revolutionary class-struggle of the workers against capitalism, and abandons all attempt at appraising the war as a whole from the point of view of the world-bourgeoisie and the world-proletariat; that is, discards Internationalism and adopts a miserable and narrow-minded nationalist standpoint. My country is being invaded, all the rest does not concern me—this is what such reasoning amounts to, and this is why it is bourgeois-nationalist narrow-mindedness. It is the same as if somebody, confronted by an individual outrage, were to reason: Socialism is opposed to outrage; therefore I prefer to be a traitor rather than to go to prison. The Frenchman, the German, or Italian who says: "Socialism is opposed to outrage on nations; therefore I defend myself when my country is invaded"—this man is betraying Socialism and Internationalism, since he only thinks of his own country, places above all his bourgeoisie, without reflecting upon the international connections which make the war an Imperialist war, and his bourgeoisie a link in the chain of Imperialist brigandage. All Philistines and "yokels" reason just like these renegades, the Kautskys, the Longuets, the Turatis: "My country is invaded and I do not care about anything else."[1]
As against these, the Socialist, the revolutionary proletarian the Internationalist, reasons differently. He says: "the character of the war (whether reactionary or revolutionary) does not depend upon who was the aggressor, or on whose territory the enemy is standing. It depends on what class is carrying on the war, and what is the politics of which the war is a continuation. If the war is a reactionary Imperialist war, that is being waged by two world-coalitions of the Imperialist predatory bourgeoisie, then every bourgeoisie, even of the smallest country, becomes a participant in the brigandage, and my duty as representative of the revolutionary proletariat is to prepare the world-proletarian revolution as the only escape from the horrers of the world-war. In other words, I must reason, not from the point of view of "my" country (for this is the reasoning of a poor stupid nationalist Philistine who does not realize that he is only a plaything in the hands of the Imperialist bourgeoisie), but from the point of view of my share in the preparation, in the propaganda, and in the acceleration of a world-proletarian revolution".
This is what Internationalism is, and this is the duty of the international revolutionary worker, of the genuine Socialist. But Kautsky the renegade has "forgotten" this elementary truth, and his apostasy becomes still more palpable when he passes from the approval of the tactics of the petty bourgeois nationalists (the Mensheviks in Russia, the Longuetists in France, the Turatis in Italy, and the Haases and others in Germany), to a criticism of the Bolshevik tactics. This is what he says:
"The Bolshevik revolution was based on the supposition that it would became the starting point of a general European revolution, that the bold initiative of Russia would arouse the proletarians of all Europe to an insurrection. From this point of view it was, of course, immaterial what forms the Russo-German separate peace would assume, what hardships or mutilations it would bring—to the Russian people, and what interpretation of the self-determination of nations it would give. It was also immaterial whether Russia was able, or not, to defend herself. The European revolution would be the best protection of the Russian revolution, and would bring complete and genuine self-determination to all the nationalities on the former Russian territory. A revolution in Europe which would have established there a Socialist order was also to become the means of removing those obstacles which were placed in Russia by the economic backwardness of the country to the realization of Socialist production… This was all very logical, and was very well thought out. It only was conditioned by one assumption, namely, that the Russian revolution would necessarily let loose a European one. But how if it did not happen? So far the assumption has not been justified, and the proletariats of Europe are now being accused of having abandoned and betrayed the Russian revolution. This is an accusation levelled against unknown persons, since who could be made responsible for the behavior of the European proletariat?" (p. 28.)
Kautsky then goes on to repeat again and again that Marx and Engels and Bebel were more than once wrong in their prediction of the forthcoming revolutions, but that they never were basing their tactics on the expectation of a revolution at a "precise date" (p. 29), whereas, forsooth, the Bolsheviks have "staked everything on the one card of a general European revolution."
We have purposely quoted this long passage in order to show the reader how cleverly Kautsky mimics Marxism by palming off under its guise the reactionary platitudes of a bourgeois.
First, he ascribes to his opponent an obvious absurdity, and then he refutes it. This is the method of not over-clever people. If the Bolsheviks were really basing their tactics on the expectation of a revolution in other countries at a given date, it would certainly be a great folly. But the Bolshevik party has never been guilty of that. In my letter to the American workers on August 20th, 1918, I expressly repudiated such folly, saying that we were counting on an American revolution, but not by any given date. The same idea was more than once propounded by me in my controversy with the Left Social Revolutionaries and the Left Commnuists in January and March, 1918. Kautsky has committed a little forgery, on which he has based his criticism of Bolshevism. Kautsky has confounded a policy which counts on a European revolution, in a more or less near future date, with a policy relying upon a European revolution on a precise date. A little forgery, nothing more.
The last-named policy would have been a folly, but the first-named is obligatory on all Marxists and all revolutionary proletarians and Internationalists, because it alone takes proper and correct account in a Marxist way, of the objective situation in all European countries, which has been brought about by the war, and alone corresponds to the international duties of the proletariat. By substituting for the important question about the premises of revolutionary tactics in general the petty question about an error which the Bolshevik revolutionaries might have made, but did not, Kautsky has abjured all revolutionary policy. A renegade in practical politics, he has not been able, even in theory, to put the question about the objective prerequisites of a revolutionary policy properly.
But here we have come up to the second point.
Second, it is the duty of every Marxist to count on a European revolution, if the situation is revolutionary in tendency. It is an elementary axiom of Marxism that the policy of the Socialist proletariat must be different when the situation is revolutionary and when it is not. If Kautsky had put to himself this question, which is obligatory for every Marxist, he would have seen that the answer was absolutely against him. Long before the war, all Marxists, all Socialists, were agreed that the European war would bring about a revolutionary situation. Kautsky himself, before he became a renegade, expressly and clearly admitted it, both in 1902 (in his "Social Revolution"), and in 1909 (in his "Road to Power"). It was also proclaimed, in the name of the entire Second International, by the Basel Manifesto, and it is therefore not without reason that the Social Chauvinists and the Kautskians ("the men of the Centre," that is, those who are constantly oscillating between the revolutionists and the opportunists) of all countries are mortally afraid of the declarations of the Basel Manifesto on the subject. Hence, the expectation of a revolutionary situation in Europe was not an infatuation of the Bolsheviks, but the common opinion of all Marxists. When Kautsky tries to escape from this undoubted truth with the help of such Phrases as that the Bolsheviks "always believed in th omnipotence of force and will," he simply utters a sonorous and empty phrase to cover up his disgraceful failure to put the important, question about the revolutionary situation.
Further, has the revolutionary situation really supervened or not? This question. too. Kautsky has not been able to face. The economic facts of the situation are a sufficient answer: famine and ruin, brought about by the war everywhere, mean a revolutionary situation. The political facts also constitute a good answer to the question: ever since 1915 a scission has been taking place in all countries among the old and foul Socialist parties, a process of desertion of the masses of the proletariat from the Social-Chauvinist camp of the Left, to the ideas and moods of revolution, and the revolutionary leaders.
Only a person afraid of revolution, and betraying it, could have failed to note these facts on August 5th, 1918, when Kautsky was writing his pamphlet. And now, at the end of October, 1918, the revolution is growing in a number of European countries, very rapidly and under our very eyes. Kautsky, the "revolutionary," who wants to be still regarded as a Marxist, has shown himself to be a short-sighted Philistine, unable to see the approaching revolution, like those Philistines of 1847, who were so pitilessly derided by Marx.
And here we come up to the third point: what are to be the peculiarities of a revolutionary policy at the time of a European revolutionary situation? Kautsky, having become a regenade, was too timid to ask this question, which is obligatory for every Marxist. Kautsky reasons like a typical Philistine: Has a general European revolution broken out or not? If it has, then he also is prepared to become a revolutionary. But then, we may observe, every scoundrel (after the manner of those who are now trying to ingratiate themselves with the victorious Bolsheviks) would be prepared to proclaim himself a revolutionary. But if the revolution has not arrived, Kautsky will turn away his face from it. Kautsky has no understanding at all of that truth that a revolutionary Marxist is distinguished from the ordinary Philistine by his ability and willingness to preach to the still ignorant masses the necessity of the approaching revolution, to prove its inevitableness, to explain its advantage to the people, and to prepare for it the proletariat and all the toiling and exploited masses.
Kautsky has attributed to the Bolsheviks an absurdity by saying that they had staked everything on the card that a European revolution would break out by a given date. This absurdity has turned against Kautsky himself, because what he implied was this: the tactics of the Bolsheviks would have been correct if a European revolution had broken out by August 5th, 1918, on which date, as Kautsky tells us, he was writing his pamphlet. But since, a few weeks after this August 5th, it became clear that a revolution was approaching in a number of European countries, the whole apostasy of Kautsky, his whole method of falsifying Marxism, and his inability to reason revolutionary, or even to put the question in a revolutionary manner, have been exhibited in all their nakedness.
When the proletarians of Europe are accused of treachery, Kautsky writes, it is an accusation against unknown persons. You are mistaken, Mr. Kautsky. Look in the glass, and you will see these "unknown persons" against whom the accusation is levelled. Kautsky assumes an air of innocence, and pretends not to understand who it is that has levelled the accusation, and what is its meaning. In reality Kautsky knows perfectly well that the accusation has been and is being still levelled by the German Left, by the Spartacists, by Liebknecht, and his friends. The accusation means that the German proletariat was committing a betrayal of the Russian, as well as of the international revolution when it was strangling Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia, and Esthonia. This accusation is directed chiefly and above all, not against the masses, who are always downtrodden, but against those leaders who, like the Scheidemanns and Kautskys, were failing in their duty of revolutionary agitation and revolutionary work among the masses in combating their inertness, who were practically working against the revolutionary instincts and aspirations ever а-glow in the depths of the hearts of the oppressed classes. The Scheidemanns were betraying the proletariat and deserting to the bourgeoisie, openly, grossly, cynically, and, for the most part, for corrupt motives. The Kautskys and the Longuets were doing the same thing, only in a hesitating and halting manner, cowardly casting side glances at those who might be strongest at the particular moment. Kautsky throughout the war was putting out the revolutionary spirit, instead of maintaining and fanning it.
It will remain an historical monument of the "Philistinization" of the "average" leader of the German Official Social-Democracy that Kautsky does not even understand what an enormous theoretical importance, and what a still greater importance from the point of view of agitation and propaganda, lies in the "accusation" of the proletarians of Europe that they were betraying the Russian revolution. Kautsky does not understand that owing to the censorship prevailing in Germany this "accusation" is almost the only form in which the German Socialists who have not betrayed Socialism, that is Liebknecht and his friends, could clothe their appeal to the German workers to throw off the Scheidemanns and the Kautskys, to emancipate themselves from their soporific and vulgar propaganda, to rise in spite of them and march over their heads towards revolution.
Kautsky does not understand all this. How is he to understand the policy of the Bolsheviks? Can one expect a person who is renouncing the revolution to weigh and to appraise the conditions of the development of the revolution in an exceedingly difficult case? The tactics of the Bolsheviks were correct; they were the only internationalist tactics since they were based not on the cowardly fear of a world revolution, not on a Philistine lack of faith in it, not on the narrow nationalist desire to protect "one's own" fatherland (that is, the fatherland of one's own bourgeoisie), and to snap one's fingers at all the rest, but on a correct (and universally admitted, before the war and before the treachery of the Social Chauvinists and Social Pacifists) estimation of the revolutionary situation in Europe. These tactics were the only internationalist tactics, because they contributed the maximum impetus possible for any single country to give to the development, maintenance and awakening of the revolution in all countries. These tactics have been justified by their enormous success because Bolshevism (not at all owing to the merits of the Russian Bolsheviks, but owing to the most profound sympathy of the masses with a policy which is revolutionary in practice) has become world-Bolshevism, and is giving to the world an idea, a theory, a programme, and a policy, which practically and concretely differ from those of Social-pacifism and Social-Chauvinism. Bolshevism has finally disposed of the old foul Internationalism of the Scheidemanns and Kautskys, the Renaudels and Lcnguets, the Hendersons and Macdonalds, who will henceforth be stumbling against one another in their vain dreams of unity and of reviving a corpse. Bolshevism has created, the theoretical and tactical foundations of a Thrid International, a really proletarian and Communist International, which will take into consideration both the conquests of the peaceful period and the experience of the revolutionary period which has now begun.
Bolshevism has popularized throughout the world the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, has translated the words from the Latin, first into Russian, and then into all the languages of the world, by showing, by the living example of the Soviet régime, that the workers and poorer peasantry, even of a backward country, even with the least experience and education and habits of organization, have been able for a whole year, amidst gigantic difficulties and amidst the continuance of the fight against the exploiters (supported by the bourgeoisie of the entire world), to maintain the authority of the laboring masses, to create a democracy higher than all the previous democracies of the world, and to begin, by scores of millions of workers and peasants, the constructive work for the practical realization of Socialism.
Bolshevism has helped in a practical manner to further proletarian revolution in Europe and America in such a way as no party has ever succeeded in doing anywhere before. While the workers of the entire world are realizing more and more clearly that the policy of the Scheidemanns and the Kautskys is not calculated to free them from the Imperialist war and from wage slavery under the Imperialist bourgeoisie, and that this policy cannot serve as a model for any country, they at the same time realize more and more that Bolshevism has shown the right way to escape from the horrors of war and imperialism, and is suitable as a model of tactics for all. Not only the European, but also the universal world proletarian revolution is maturing under everybody's eyes, and it has been assisted, has been accelerated, has been supported, by the victory of the proletariat in Russia. Is all that enough for a complete victory of Socialism? Certainly not. One country cannot do more, but this one country, thanks to the Soviet régime, has nevertheless achieved so much that even if the Soviet régime were crushed by World Imperialism, by way, for instance, of an agreement between the German and the Anglo-French Imperialism—even in this worst possible case, the Bolshevik policy would still have brought a gigantic benefit to Socialism, and would have rendered the greatest assistance to the growth of the invincible world revolution.
- ↑ The Social-Chauvinists (the Scheidemanns, Renaudels. Hendersons, Gomperses) refuse altogether to talk about Internationalism during the war, and regard the enemies of their respective bourgeoisies as "traitors to Socialism." They are in favor of the predatory policy of their respective bourgeoisies. The Social Pacifists, on the other hand, that is, thse who are Socialists in words and bourgeois pacifists in practice, proclaim all sorts of internationalist sentiments, protest against annexations, etc., but in pratice continue to support their respective bourgeoisies. The difference between the two types is not profound. It is like the difference between the two capitalists—one with rude, and the other with sweet words on his lips.