The Social Revolution/Part 1/Chapter 4
sign of social revolution will find plenty of such revolutions in earlier ages. But those who conceive social revolution as the conquest of political power by a previously subservient class and the transformation of the juridical and political superstructure of society, particularly in the property relations, will find no social revolution there. Social development proceeded piece-meal, step by step, not through single great catastrophies but in countless little broken-up, apparently disconnected, often interrupted, ever renewing, mostly unconscious movements. The great social transformation of the times we are considering, the disapperance of slavery in Europe, came about so imperceptibly that the contemporaries of this movement took no notice of it, and one is to-day compelled to reconstruct it through hypotheses.
SOCIAL REVOLUTION UNDER CAPITALISM.
Things took on a wholly different aspect as soon as the capitalist method of production was developed. It would lead us too far and would be only to repeat things well known if j I were here to go into the mechanism of capitalism and its consequences. Suffice it to say that the capitalist method of production created the modern State, made en end to the political independence of communities and at the same time their economic independence ceased, each became part of a whole, and lost its special rights and special peculiarities. All were reduced to the same level, all were given the same laws, the same taxes, same courts, and were made subject to the same government. The modern State was thus forced to become a National State and added to the other equalities the equality of language.
The influence of governmental power upon the social life was now something wholly different from what it was through antiquity or the Middle Ages. Every important political change in a great modern State influences at once with a single stroke and in the profoundest manner an enormous social sphere. The conquest of political power by a previously subject class must, on this account, from now on, have wholly different social results than previously.
As a result the power at the disposal of the modern State has grown enormously. The technical revolution of capitalism reaches also to the technique of arms. Ever since the Reformation the weapons of war have become more and more perfect, but also more costly. They thus become a privilege of governmental power. This fact alone separates the army from the people, even in those places where universal conscription prevails, unless this is supplemented by popular armament, which is not the case in any great State. Most important of all, the leaders of the army are professional soldiers separated from the people, to whom they stand opposed as a privileged class.
The economic powers also of the modern centralized State are enormous when compared with those of the earlier States. They comprehend the wealth of a colossal sphere whose technical means of production leave the higher culture of antiquity far behind.
The modern State also possesses a bureaucracy far more centralized than that of any previous State. The problems of the modern State have grown so enormously that it is impossible to solve them without an extensive division of labor and a high grade of professional knowledge. The capitalist manner of production robs the ruling class of all the leisure that they previously had. Even, if they do not produce but are living from the exploitation of the producing classes, still they are not idle exploiters. Thanks to competition, the motive force of present economic life, the exploiters are continuously compelled to carry on an exhausting struggle with each other, which threatens the vanquished with complete annihilation.
The capitalists have therefore neither time nor leisure, nor the previous culture necessary for artistic and scientific activity. They lack even the necessary qualifications for regular participation in governmental activities. Not only in art and science but also in the government of the State the ruling class is forced to take no part. They must leave that to wage-workers and bureaucratic employees. The capitalist reigns but does not govern. It is satisfied, however, to rule the government.
In the same way the decaying feudal nobility before it, satisfied itself by taking on the forms of a royal nobility. But while with the feudal nobility the renunciation of its social functions was the product of corruption, with the capitalists this renunciation arises directly from their social functions and is an essential part of their existence.
With the help of such a powerful government a class can long maintain itself, even if it is superfluous. Yes, even if it has become injurious. And the stronger the power of the State, just so much the more does the governing class rest upon it, just so much more stubbornly will it cling to its privileges and all the less will it be inclined to grant concessions. The longer, however it maintains its domination in this manner, the sharper become class antagonisms, the more pronounced must be the political collapse when it finally does come, and the deeper the social transformation that arises out of it, and the more apt the conquest of political power by an oppressed class to lead to revolution.
Simultaneously the warring classes become more and more conscious of the social consequences of their political struggle. The capitalist system of production tends to greatly accelerate the march of economic evolution. The economic transformation for which the century of invention has prepared the way is continued by the introduction of machines into industry. Since their introduction our economic relations are subject to continual change, not only by the rapid dissolution of the old but by the continuous creation of the new. The idea of the old, of the past, ceases to be equivalent to the tested, to the honorable, to the inviolable. It becomes synonymous with the imperfect and the outgrown. This idea is transplanted from the economic life into the field of art and science and politics. Just as in earlier days people clung without reason to the old, so to-day one gladly throws the old aside without reason just because it is old. And the time which is necessary in order to make a machine, an institution, a theory outgrown becomes ever shorter. And if in former days men worked with the intention of building for eternity with all the devotedness that flows from such a consciousness, so to-day one works for the fleeting effect of a moment with all the frivolity of this consciousness. So that the creation of to-day is within a short time not simply unfashionable but also useless.
The new is, however, just that thing that one observes, criticizes and investigates the most closely. The ordinary and the commonplace pass as a matter of course. Mankind studied the causes of eclipse much earlier than the rising and setting of the sun. In the same way the incentive to investigate the laws of social phenomena was very slight so long as these phenomena were the ordinary, the matter-of-course, the "natural." This incentive must at once be strengthened as soon as new, hitherto unheard of formations appeared in the social life. It was not the old hereditary feudal economics, but rather the newly appearing capitalist economics that first roused scientific observation at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Economic science was encouraged still more by another motive. Capitalist production is mass production, social production. The typical modern capitalist state is the great state. Modem economics, like modern politics, must deal with mass phenomena. The larger the number of similar appearances that one observes, the greater the tendency to notice the universal—those indicating a social law—and the more the individual and the accidental disappear, the easier it is to discover the laws of social movements. The mathematical mass-observation of social phenomena, statistics, and the science of society that rises from political economy and reaches its highest point in the materialistic conception of history, has only been possible in the capitalist stage of production. Now for the first time classes could come to the full consciousness of the social significance of their struggles, and for the first time set before themselves great social goals, not as arbitrary dreams and pious wishes destined to be shattered on the hard facts, but as results of scientific insight into economic possibilities and necessities. To be sure this scientific thought can err, many of its conclusions can be shown to be illusions. But however great these errors may be, it cannot be deprived of the characteristic of every true science, the striving after a uniform conception of all phenomena under an indisputable whole. In social science this means the recognition of the social whole as a single organism in which one cannot arbitrarily and for itself alone change any single part. The socially oppressed class no longer directs its theoretical criticism against individual persons and tendencies, but against the total existing society. And just because of this fact every oppressed class which conquers political power is driven to transform the whole social foundations.
The capitalist society which sprang from the revolution of 1789 and its outcome was foreseen in its fundamental outlines by the physiocrats and their English followers.
Upon this distinction between the modern states and society and the organizations of antiquity and the Middle Ages rests the difference in the manner of their development. The former was predominantly unconscious, split up into local and personal strifes and the rebellion of countless little communities at different stages of development; the latter grows more and more self-conscious and strives towards a great recognized social goal which has been determined and is propagated by scientifically critical work. Political revolutions are less frequent, but more comprehensive and their social results more extensive.
The transition from the civil wars of antiquity and the Middle Ages to social revolutions in the previously used sense of the word was made by the Reformation, which belonged half to the Middle Ages and half to modern times. On a still higher stage was the English revolution of the middle of the seventeenth century, and finally the great French revolution becomes the classical type of social revolution, of which the uprisings of 1830 and 1848 were only faint echoes.
Social revolution in the sense here meant is peculiar to the stage of social development of capitalist society and the capitalist state. It does not exist previous to capitalism, because the political boundaries were too narrow and social consciousness too undeveloped. It will disappear with capitalism because this can only be overthrown by the proletariat, which as the lowest of all social classes can use its domination only to abolish all class domination and classes and therewith also the essential conditions of social revolution.
There now arises a great question, a question that to-day affects us profoundly, because it has the greatest influence upon our political relations to the present: Is the time of social revolution past or not? Have we already the political conditions which can bring about a transition from capitalism to socialism without political revolution, without the conquest of political power by the proletariat, or must we still expect an epoch of decisive struggles for the possession of this power and therewith a revolutionary epoch? Does the idea of social revolution belong with those antiquated ideas which are held only by thoughtless echoers of outgrown conceptions or by demagogical speculators upon the applause of the unthinking masses, and which every honest modern person who dispassionately observes the facts of modern society must put aside?
That is the question. Certainly an important question which a couple of phrases will not serve to dismiss.
We have discovered that social revolution is a product of special historical conditions. They presuppose, not simply a highly developed class-antagonism, but also a great national state rising above all provincial and communal peculiarities, built upon a form of production that operates to level all local peculiarities, a powerful military and bureaucratic state, a science of political economy and a rapid rate of economic progress.
None of these factors of social revolution have been decreasing in power during the last decade. Many of them, on the contrary, have been much strengthened. Never was the rate of economic development more rapid. Scientific economics make, at least, a great extensive, if not intensive growth, thanks to the newspapers. Never was economic insight so broadly dispersed; never was the ruling class, as well as the mass of people, so much in a condition to comprehend the far-reaching consequences of its acts and strivings. This alone proves that we shall not make the tremendous transition from capitalism to socialism unconsciously, and that we cannot slowly undermine the dominion of the exploiting class without this class being conscious of this, and consequently arming themselves and using all their powers to suppress the strength and influence of the growing proletariat.
If, however, the insight into social relations was never so extensive as to-day, it is equally true that the governmental power was never so strong as now, nor the military, bureaucratic and economic forces so powerfully developed. It follows from this that the proletariat, when it shall have conquered the governmental powers, will have thereby attained the power to at once bring about most extensive social changes. It also follows from this that the personal governing class with the help of these powers can continue its existence and its plundering of the laboring class long after its economic necessity has ceased. The more, however, that the ruling classes support themselves with the State machinery and misuse this for the purposes of exploitation and oppression, just so much more must the bitterness of the proletariat against them increase, class hatred grow, and the efforts to conquer the machinery of State increase in intensity.
To be sure it has been claimed that this comprehension of the newest socialist phenomena does not take account of the undeniable fact that the development proceeds in other directions also. It is claimed also that the contrast between proletariat and bourgeoisie is not increasing, and in every modern State there are enough democratic arrangements to make it possible for the proletariat, if not to gain the power, still to gain power gradually, step by step and steadily increasing, so that the necessity of a social revolution ceases. Let us see in how far these exceptions are justified.
THE SOFTENING OF CLASS ANTAGONISMS.
Let us turn next to the first objection that the social antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat is diminishing. I do not here refer to the question of industrial crises whose amelioration was claimed a few years ago. This idea has been so energetically confuted since then by notorious facts that I only need to refer to it here without attempting to enter upon a discussion which would lead us too far away. I do not wish either to make any further contribution to the debate over the already over-discussed, so-called theory of increasing misery, which, with a sort of cleverness, when one desires, can be endlessly spun out and which with us has more and more tended to turn on the definition of the word "misery" than on the determination of