The Revolutionary Act/Preface
PREFACE.
In view of recent events, this thesis by Frederick Engels, appearing as an introduction to one of Karl Marx's pamphlets, "The Class Struggles in France, 1848–1850," comes at this time like a voice of warning from the tomb. For years past, the discussion has been going on, among groups which call themselves revolutionary, as to the proper tactics for accomplishing the Revolution; whether the Revolution could be accomplished peacefully or of necessity would have to be brought about by bloodshed, whether the political ballot backed by an adequate industrial force was sufficient to accomplish the Revolution; or whether military preparations and the necessary psychological attitude were indispensable prerequisites to enable the working class to bring the Revolution about; whether indeed the political ballot and its accompanying political agitation had any value whatsoever as a revolutionary weapon of the working class.
The physical-forcists, avowed anarchists, and veiled dynamiters, made a disproportionate amount of noise and consequently were able to find their way into the newspaper columns, but from the point of view of sound argument, the Socialist Labor Party, advocating the civilized, the political method, backed by the physical force of an integrally organized industrial union, had held the field against all comers. Anyone driven into a corner was usually willing to admit that we were absolutely right, but……
Then came the Russian revolution. By peculiar circumstances, which it is not necessary here to enumerate, the proletarian revolution in Russia was accomplished by an easy coup d'état, a victory backed by the workers and peasants in arms. As might have been expected, this caused all the anarchist and physical-forcists' pots throughout the whole world to boil and sizzle until the contents spluttered over into the fire. Here was a living example, a proletarian revolution, the first and only real proletarian revolution in the world carried to a successful issue. How was it done? By physical force, by military action; no further proof needed; all revolutions must be accomplished by physical violence—how else could they be revolutions at all? The political weapon was effeminate, compromising, COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY. "Mass movements," "military forces," had to be gathered and organized, even though of necessity this had to be done in secret and no hidden spot could be found for this extensive maneuver larger than a six by eight room, sub-cellars or rat-holes.
With brains made red hot by the Russian revolution, it was impossible to argue, it was useless for the time being to show by overwhelming argument and reasoning that the working class in the open field, armed with sticks, stones and mallets, or anything hard which they could pick up as they "mass-actioned" out of the factory, would be nothing but easy food for destruction by the well equipped capitalist military, even though this be far outnumbered.
Of course we were only the S. L. P. It was our word against the overwhelming evidence of Russia. To drown our voice the only thing considered necessary was to shout: "coward," "political compromiser," "reactionary." But here comes Engels—Marx's life-long co-worker—and who is more fit to interpret Marxism than he?—showing by facts and figures that the day of the barricade, of street corner revolution, of military action against the capitalist military forces, was a thing of the past already in the last half of the nineteenth century. Those shallow-minded phrasemongers, who have borrowed the plumage of the Russian revolution, have also continually bandied about the names of Marx and Engels. Naturally they were Marxian, Marxian to the core, since the Russian leaders were Marxian, and not to prate every moment of "mass action," street corner revolution and the "dictatorship of the proletariat," was nothing short of a betrayal of Marxism! Let them now get what comfort they can out of the authority of Engels on political vs. military action!
What is true of the strength of the military forces of capitalism, as enumerated by Engels, is true several hundred per cent at this day and hour. Not only would the revolutionary "mass-actionist" be met with improved guns and cannons, but with additional military improvements that Engels had never dreamed of; bombs thrown from aeroplanes, tanks, poison gas, tear gas and a number of other infernal things now accessible for use against the "rabble rot" of "riotous" workmen.
The fact that Engels looked to the German Social Democracy of his day as the model Socialist political organization and that the Social Democracy has since, at the crucial moment, proven utterly ineffectual, inadequate, yes, traitorous to the movement, does not alter the general truth and sound reasoning of Engels's argument. Curious enough, it was the Socialist Labor Party, the advocate of the civilized political method, that, in the decade immediately before the War, was the most severe; yes, perhaps the only real and consistent critic of the Social Democracy of Germany. This criticism, however, was not directed at it because it was political but because its leaders had become "socialist" politicians, parliamentarians, "socialist" reformers, log-rolling and temporizing with capitalist society. We criticized the Social Democracy because we perceived the tendency to swing away from revolutionary Socialism, because in exchange for reforms under the present system, it was sacrificing the Revolution. It was gathering voters by the thousands and millions, but the sound Socialist education of these voters was being neglected.
Moreover, we saw impending disaster if the political party was marching onward to political victory, as the Social Democracy was marching onward, without an adequate organized force to back up the victory at the ballot box. Force, did we say? Yes, we did, and we did so deliberately. All force is not manifested in fighting; sometimes, to be sure, the fighting force is weakness itself. Organized working class force does not necessarily (in fact we should say under modern conditions, as a rule, and certainly not previous to the political victory), imply military force. The Socialist Labor Party continually warned the Social Democracy in the decade before its fall, warned all purely political Socialists, that a victory at the ballot box without the adequately organized power of the proletariat to back it up, would mean the defeat of the Revolution.
This organized force of the Proletariat can exist only in the Socialist Industrial Union, organized in shop and factory, mill and mine, on the railroads and other means of communication, every place where the economic power of the capitalist holds sway today and wherever the worker, by the fact that he is the producer, the wielder and operator of the tools of production, will and must become the only true source of power the moment he is organized in a classconscious Socialist Revolutionary Union.
The working out of this theory which, applied, constitutes the essential and fundamental tactics of the modern revolutionary movement, that part is the contribution of Daniel De Leon and the Socialist Labor Party, building solidly upon the foundations laid in the previous generation by Marx and Engels.