Revolutionary socialists take as their fundamental stand "intransigent opposition" to the entire capitalist system in which we live. But sometimes capitalist governments do things which help us, or are at least lesser evils.
For example, socialists are for European unity, even under the bourgeoisie. Does that mean we should support those bourgeois politicians who are or may be promoting European unity? We say no.
For example, Solidarity thinks it good that the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq has been smashed. Does that mean that we should have supported Bush or Blair's war? Does the political judgment that the smashing of Saddam's regime was a good thing necessarily imply support for those who smashed it? Again, we say, no.
These sorts of issues and dilemmas have always existed for Marxist socialists. The Marxists in the German Reichstag before the First World War operated under the general policy summed up by the slogan "Not a man, not a penny, for this system." They said that every measure of the government, the "good" as well as the bad - those that in isolation, they might support, as well as those they would oppose in any circumstances - had to be seen in the context of what the system as a whole, capitalism did and was.
They regulated their responses to government policy and government proposals not by heedlessly intoning "no", but by way of honestly assessing issues on their merits. They told the truth about issues and policies and their likely consequences even when these were "good" measures, which they would be voting against in the Reichstag as an expression of their attitude to the system as a whole.
They did not, like our contemporaries of the SWP, use any argument to hand to justify "opposition". They were opposed to the system, not to everything about it. Indeed they saw the capitalist system as preparing the possibility of socialism; the limited bourgeois democracy of Germany at the time as a school of politics in which the German working class would learn to govern society. Negativist demagogy towards everything in bourgeois society was no part of their outlook; demagogy no part of their method.
The Marxists campaigned against what they saw as positively harmful and undesirable. But sometimes they would let things go without loud opposition, voting no in the Reichstag only as a means of asserting that even "good" policies were aspects of the whole capitalist system which they existed to fight. When the German Marxist party collapsed into German nationalism in 1914, the collapse took the form of abandoning that posture and voting for war credits.
In the following two articles, Rosa Luxemburg in 1898 and Karl Liebknecht during the First World War discuss this Marxist approach.
Class struggle is the slogan of the day
By Karl Liebknecht
Firstly let us consider some practical-opportunist considerations which exercised a major influence on the attitude of the Reichstag (parliamentary) faction, even though they cannot be regarded as being of decisive importance in determining principled programmatic policies - which, at a more profound level, constitute the only practical policies. However, it is worth taking the trouble to analyse these considerations, given the role which they played and which they continue to play.
The argument about the mood of the popular masses can be dealt with in a couple of sentences. Who knew and who knows this mood? The roaring, screaming, raging crowd which filled the streets and which tore the clothes off and attacked anyone who was or appeared to be foreign - this crowd must be a matter of revulsion, not an example, for every social democrat. No freedom of the press, no meetings, no opportunity to come into contact with the people!
But even if the great majority of the people demanded approval of the war credits: social democracy will certainly always take appropriate account of such mass moods, examine them, and learn from them - but it will not follow them uncritically.
Social Democracy [ie the terminology of the time, the Marxist movement] has to be the leader of the masses, not led by them, and has never been of the opinion that it could serve its ideals by yielding and adapting to the instincts of the masses. It grew in struggle with the instincts of the masses, and even today it is a party of the minority of the people. It has the role of representing the interests of the masses and bringing the masses to an understanding of their interests so that, thus enlightened, they can pursue the struggle for their interests, freed from the suggestive influences of the ruling classes.
Never were these suggestive influences more damaging to the masses than in the time around August 4; never were they more fateful, never was social democracy more obliged to defy these influences, to adopt a blunt and firm attitude, and to educate the people. No popular mood is less deserving of attention than that condition of artificially produced fervour which is used to justify the approval of war credits.
These patriots, out of fear of the "destruction of the organisations," fail to recognise, because of their wretched opportunism, the essential nature of the workers' movement and the roots of its strength and greatness: a great organisation which is dominated by the spirit of petty calculations and despondency, and by inner weaknesses and uncertainties about its goals - this is not an advantage but a hindrance, a negative quantity.
An organisation of resolute militancy, however small that organisation may be, is a driving, moving force and a positive quantity in all circumstances. An organisation, even one of the most enormous size in terms of membership and resources, which fails at the decisive moment, has thereby collapsed.
An opposition combat organisation which happily subordinates itself to the government's guardianship at the decisive moment and which settles down to a cosy existence under a state of emergency has ceased to exist as an opposition combat organisation. What applies to an organisation which abandons even a trace of its revolutionary honour and its socialist spirit in order to preserve or even expand its structures is this: "What does it help if you were to win the entire world, if you were thereby to inflict damage on your soul." The damage is immeasurably greater than that which would have occurred in the event of the destruction of the external structures.
The experience of the anti-socialist laws [which made the German socialist movement illegal between 1878 and 1890] fervently preaches to us what can make a party indestructible. What has since forced the ruling classes to restrain their fervent desire for the declaration of new states of emergency? The experience of the anti-socialist laws! The conviction that social democracy, the workers' movement, is something quite different from an external technically completed organisation. The conviction that this external organisation is only the clothing and the home of this movement.
With no more than a stroke of a pen the complete and utter destruction of all workers' organisations could be achieved, and could have been achieved in the past, on any day of the week. Child's play for even the most mediocre policeman's mentality. What is it that prevents that from happening if not the concerns that the movement will gain in inner strength in the event of external attack, and that the movement - driven out of the home of its organisation - will pour scorn on its persecutors?
To save the external existence of the organisation at the price of abandoning what it holds most sacred is to throw away the indestructible and to save the destructible. It is to preserve what can be extinguished by a stroke of a pen, and to preserve what even the most fervent opponents will no longer have any interest in destroying.
These patriots out of fear are often at the same time haggler-patriots, patriots of the good hope, of the longing to be rewarded for good behaviour. Not "cannons in exchange for popular rights", no, certainly not - but cannons without anything in return, cannons because of idealism, because of good 100%-genuine patriotism, combined with the secret heartfelt desire for the appropriate political customer's tip. But, for Christ's sake, if there is going to be haggling, then it should all be open and above-board, and you should make sure that no-one pulls a fast one on you.
Haggler-politicians who do their business based on the uncertain prospects that one good turn deserves another cut a sorry figure, fearful of straightforward up-front haggling. It must be repeated: if there is going to be haggling, then it should be wholehearted and properly done. You philistines of haggling! You should take as your model the noble Junkers who, for ever and a day, have used war and the danger of war in order to strip, bit by bit, the emperor-by-the-grace-of-God of his political and economic power. They dealt on the basis of a straight exchange, not on the basis of gold and blood in exchange for wait-a-bit-longer.
We have nothing in common with this politics of haggling, and especially not given that it is a matter of a crippled half-hearted haggling, anaemic and devoid of the serious business of bold political immorality.
The species of patriots out of fear can emerge in its pure form. But in the patriots of hope and haggling there is always a certain proportion of patriotism out of fear. But this combination is full of contradictions.
Patriotism out of fear is a fateful danger for all prospects of the hoped-for blessing of future benefits. Once fear has proved its value as a factor which helps preserve the state, then it becomes a question of preserving and increasing this opportunity for the future as well. But how? Through a strong and, if possible, ever stronger and stronger state power!
They have learnt how to defeat us: with a scrap of paper and printer's ink which declare a state of emergency. Never before was the neck of a goose twisted so quickly. Government terrorism has been victorious - long live government terrorism! The result? The parroting politicians of fear and the clever haggler-politicians who hold out their hand for the customer's tip are left empty-handed and high and dry.
The "politicians of realism" of the latter variety certainly had a lot to say in the decisive discussions in the parliamentary fraction. In the meantime, however, they have already become notably quiet.
As early as September 1914 you could hear in the reactionary press the melody: the German victories are victories of Prussian-German order over lazy indiscipline. Then the crescendo: German militarism, the decried drill, is victorious over popular disorder. And finally fortissimo: triumph of that Prussian peculiarity of the Dreiklassenwahlrecht (limited franchise) over democracy!
Will an apotheosis of Prussian reaction be the final verse of the song?
That depends on a lot of circumstances: military and economic developments during the war, the result of the war, and what happens after the war. But it also depends above all on the proletariat, the popular masses themselves, and their attitude. Here alone can we make an impact - in the class struggle. As a gift, the people will receive not a penny, neither now nor after the war.
Today the masses are a tool in the hands of the imperialists, a tool for capitalist purposes. Nothing more, but also nothing less: the most indispensable tool, and a living tool. And such a living tool has the dangerous characteristic that it can revolt against those who are using it. And it will revolt when it has been played around with for too long.
The working masses who depart for the front in a spirit of obedience and self-sacrifice return as different people. And those who remain at home, women and children, have become different, quite fundamentally different. Policies of realism demand that we reinforce this process of change. Preserving and encouraging the spirit of class struggle are the means to achieve this.
The certain disappointment, the inevitable hangover after the intoxicating euphoria, will do the rest to frustrate the plans of the intriguers and the imperialists. The proletariat can secure rights only through struggle. Not conciliation and concessions but redoubled struggle is the slogan of the day.
And should people fall victim, then, as ever, their sacrifice will bear fruit a thousandfold. But the hope of gains without struggle, of a voluntary and generous granting of popular rights just at a time of a state of emergency, of military dictatorship, of the suspension of all popular rights - this hope deserves a place of honour in the museum of political illusions.
Many supporters of these politics of illusions already feel the ground giving way beneath them. Now they are searching for scapegoats. The "troublemakers" are there, as if created for the purpose. But this is just too convenient! Do not count too much on the forgetfulness of the people: months ago, before the troublemakers began with their "mischief", the Prussian intriguers unmasked themselves in the euphoria of victory. There is no hiding this, no chance of burying one's head in the sand. And anyone with an ounce of political common sense could have seen that coming, with all the certainty of a chemical process.
Class struggle is the slogan of the day. Not class struggle only after the war has ended, but class struggle during the war and against the war. If the party does not begin that struggle today, during the war, then after the war there will be those both in the working masses and also in the ranks of their opponents who will not believe in its commitment to struggle.
Now it is a matter of standing firm. Only thus can the party achieve credibility for the future, credibility in the eyes of friend and foe alike, credibility in preparation for the decisive tests of the future, credibility which - bought with the sacrifices of today - will make its power all-conquering in the future.
- From Collected Speeches and Writings, Volume 8 (August 1914 to April 1916) by Karl Liebknecht.
Opportunism and the art of the possible
By Rosa Luxemburg
The art of the possible and opportunism: Heine believes that the party's aversion to these trends rests entirely upon a misunderstanding of the true linguistic meaning of these foreign words.
Ah! Comrade Heine, like Faust, has studied jurisprudence with zealous endeavour, but alas, unlike Faust, not much else. And in the true spirit of juridical thought, he says to himself, "In the beginning was the word. If we wish to know whether the art of the possible and opportunism are harmful or useful to Social Democracy, we need only consult the dictionary of foreign words and the question is answered in five minutes."
For the dictionary of foreign words informs us that the art of the possible is "a policy which endeavours to achieve what is possible under given circumstances". Heine then proclaims, "Indeed, I ask all rational men, should a policy attempt to achieve what is impossible under given circumstances?"
Yes, we as rational men reply, if questions of policy and tactics could be solved so easily, then lexicographers would be the wisest statesmen and, instead of delivering Social-Democratic speeches, we should have to begin holding popular lectures in linguistics.
Certainly our policy should and can only endeavour to achieve what is possible under given circumstances. But this does not say how, in what manner, we should endeavour to achieve what is possible. This, however, is the crucial point.
The basic question of the socialist movement has always been how to bring its immediate practical activity into agreement with its ultimate goal. The various "schools" and trends of socialism are differentiated according to their various solutions to this problem. And Social Democracy is the first socialist party that has understood how to harmonize its final revolutionary goal with its practical day-to-day activity, and in this way it has been able to draw broad masses into the struggle.
Why then is this solution particularly harmonious? Stated briefly and in general terms, it is that the practical struggle has been shaped in accordance with the general principles of the party programme. This we all know by heart; should anyone challenge us, our answers are as clever as they always were. Now we believe that, despite its generality, this tenet constitutes a very palpable guide to our activity. Let us illustrate it briefly by two topical questions of party life - by militarism and customs policy.
In principle - as everyone who is familiar with our programme knows - we are against all militarism and protective tariffs. Does it follow from this that our representatives in the Reichstag must oppose all debate on bills concerning these matters with an abrupt and blunt no? Absolutely not, for this would be an attitude befitting a small sect and not a great mass party. Our representatives must investigate each individual bill; they must consider the arguments and they must judge and debate on the basis of the existing concrete relationships, of the existing economic and political situation, and not of a lifeless and abstract principle.
The result, however, must and will be - if we have assessed correctly the existing relationships and the people's interest - no. Our solution is: not a man and not a penny for this system! But, given the present social order, there can be no system which would not be this very system. Each time tariffs are increased we say that we see no reason for agreeing to the tariff in the present situation, but for us there can be no situation in which we could reach a different decision. Only in this way can our practical struggle become what it must be: the realisation of our basic principles in the process of social life and the embodiment of our general principles in practical, everyday action. And only under these conditions do we fight in the sole permissible way for what is at any time "possible".
Now if one says that we should offer an exchange - our consent to militaristic and tariff legislation in return for political concessions or social reforms - then one is sacrificing the basic principles of the class struggle for momentary advantage, and one's actions are based on opportunism. Opportunism, incidentally, is a political game which can be lost in two ways: not only basic principles but also practical success may be forfeited. The assumption that one can achieve the greatest number of successes by making concessions rests on a complete error.
Here, as in all great matters, the most cunning persons are not the most intelligent. Bismarck once told a bourgeois opposition party, "You will deprive yourselves of any practical influence if you always and as a matter of course say no." The old boy was then, as so often, more intelligent than his Pappenheimer.*
Indeed, a bourgeois party, that is, a party which says yes to the existing order as a whole, but which will say no to the day-to-day consequences of this order, is a hybrid, an artificial creation, which is neither fish nor flesh nor fowl. We who oppose the entire present order see things quite differently. In our no, in our intransigent attitude, lies our whole strength. It is this attitude that earns us the fear and respect of the enemy and the trust and support of the people.
Precisely because we do not yield one inch from our position, we force the government and the bourgeois parties to concede to us the few immediate successes that can be gained. But if we begin to chase after what is "possible" according to the principles of opportunism, unconcerned with our own principles, and by means of statesman like barter, then we will soon find ourselves in the same situation as the hunter who has not only failed to slay the deer but has also lost his gun in the process.
We do not shudder at the foreign terms, opportunism and the art of the possible, as Heine believes; we shudder only when they are "Germanised" into our party practice. Let them remain foreign words for us. And, if occasion arises? Let our comrades shun the role of interpreter.
* A reference to the soldiers of General Pappenheim in the Thirty Years War.
- First published in Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung, 30 September 1898
