The Second International and social conservatism

[Die Neue Zeit]

Were the successes and mass character of the Second International due to its revolutionary-centrist and vulgar-"centrist" positions on sociocultural issues?



Internationalism

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/626/macnair.htm


The Second International offered mainly symbolic unity of the international workers’ movement. But this symbolic unity was profoundly important to the development of workers’ parties in the individual countries.

[...]

Even in distorted forms, then, the struggle for international unity of the working class and the struggle for class independence stand and fall together.



Identity Politics (based on the discussion in the Discrimination forum)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/18/labour-jon-cruddas?commentpage=4


Working class culture isn't just conservative with a small 'c', its Conservatism minus the neo-liberal economics. It used to be social conservatism plus socialist economics. But not even Cruddas really believes in socialist economics anymore.

If you want to see what's left of working class culture read The Sun, it expresses it perfectly. There's a reason the BNP draw their support almost entirely from the working class, you know.

The various organizations of the Second International were atheist, but were open to those who are privately religious. They supported homosexual rights (especially since Bernstein's little known analysis of it during his revisionist years), but were open to those who personally had issues with homosexuality. They supported abortion rights and other womens' rights (especially given Bebel's Woman and Socialism), but were open to those who personally opposed abortion and had problems with feminist excesses. They were for the end of the economic family as we know it in their "holiday speechifying" (to quote Trotsky), but were open to those who had families and exploited the labour of their housewives by means of chores.



Thoughts?

[Pogue]

This is the international now known as the Socialist International, with the labour, social democrat and third way parties in it. It failed, due to reformism, basically.

[Tower of Bebel]

The mass character of the 2nd International was achieved through class struggle. Because labour and capital opposed each other both economically, socially and politically labour had to create its own politcal organization. Any program, be it a marxist or a reformist one, could attrackt workers' organizations to it because the economic struggle automaticly lead to the political struggle. Marx for example wrote in his draft for the program of the Parti Ouvrier that "this very brief document in its economic section consists solely of demands that actually have spontaneously arisen out of the labour movement itself". It were economic demands which enabled the political "independence" of the working class. This is almost unlikely to happen today.

Social conservatism, derived from reformism, played a certain role because it served vulgar centrism well in a period of early imperialism (Let's say 1904-1914). It served those leaders who were frightened when they saw the emerging conflict between two opposing tendencies within the labour movement (the revolutionary left and reformist right). It served to unite different fractions. It did not yet play a decisive role in relation to the international's mass character.
But its success in the long term (after World War One) is merely a product of the tendency of capitalism in its imperialist fase to buy out several layers of the working class. Classical centrism (of the Kautsky-Bebel tandem for example) died out after World War one. In some parties there was never a real centrist tendency (the Belgian workers' Party for example). In these parties social conservatism served the ideas of the reformists (in Belgium the congress of 1913 decided that class struggle was obsolete).
But it was the actual class struggle (like the mass strike) which made the party's steady growth successful. In countries where there was a vulgar-centrist tendency leading the 2nd International before World War One social conservatism had to play a new role. And this new role was to replace the concept of class struggle with populism. Most workers' parties were starting to subordonate the political independence of the working class to the vital interests of capital. Class struggle and democracy were repressed by the rule of capital over the workers' movement. In this context social conservatism was a succesful tool, but only because the workers' movement had an objective interests in the defence of the profits that could buy out the workers' movement (or according to Bucharin: the working class). It had an objective interest in the replacement of class struggle by class collaboration.

So social conservatism, IMO, served the centrists in there futile attempt to delay the underlying conflicts within the workers' movement and it served the reformists to tie the working class ideologically to the bourgeoisie in the "decadent" phase of capitalism. But it could not prevent the workers from leaving the workers' movement over time. The politcally independent class struggle however served to create mass parties.

The Third International did not fail to gain a real mass character because it wasn't social-conservative. It failed because of the undemocratic, suffocating influence of capital on the old labour movements. And of course because of tactical and maybe strategic mistakes.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In countries where there was a vulgar-centrist tendency leading the 2nd International before World War One social conservatism had to play a new role. And this new role was to replace the concept of class struggle with populism.

Your mentioning of populism is a very poignant point. :(

While skepticism towards social liberalism may be valid, social conservatism can dominate class politics later on.

[Tower of Bebel]

Why do workers need social conservatism? Symbolic unity must be created by an ideology of the class struggle. This ideology must reflect the liberation of gays, women, people of other "races" and many other minorities. Social conservatism only serves the evasion of any radical rupture with the opportunist trends within the movement. It supports the policy of class collaboration.

Of course we shouldn't hunt for those who, for example, think women are inferior or believe the social order is created by God. But that doesn't mean we cannot criticize those who're conservative. We should rather educate them. And there is no greater teacher than the class struggle (instead of class collaboration, centrism and opportunism). We need tolerance and (symbolic) unity on the basis of social class and class struggle, not deplomacy and vagueness.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why do workers need social conservatism? Symbolic unity must be created by an ideology of the class struggle. This ideology must reflect the liberation of gays, women, people of other "races" and many other minorities. Social conservatism only serves the evasion of any radical rupture with the opportunist trends within the movement. It supports the policy of class collaboration.

I said in the Identity Politics thread that one of the side effects of class struggle being conducted properly is the winning over of skeptical folks to minority struggles, thereby enhancing such.


Of course we shouldn't hunt for those who, for example, think women are inferior or believe the social order is created by God. But that doesn't mean we cannot criticize those who're conservative. We should rather educate them. And there is no greater teacher than the class struggle (instead of class collaboration, centrism and opportunism). We need tolerance and (symbolic) unity on the basis of social class and class struggle, not diplomacy and vagueness.

There is nothing in your remarks that I disagree with. I started this thread as a critique of what is known as the "New Left."