SPD Erfurt Program: history questions

[Die Neue Zeit]

Shortly after what became known as the Erfurt Program was adopted by the then-Marxist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (http://www.revleft.com/vb/sozialdemokratische-partei-deutschlands-t79754/index.html), there was a fuss in that party over the agrarian question between Vollmar and Bebel on one side and Kautsky on the other, since peasants were a significant chunk of Germany's population. Those around Vollmar and Bebel wanted the Erfurt Program to have an agrarian program, while those around Kautsky didn't. Although the latter prevailed, Kautsky himself wrote The Agrarian Question and suggested in his book an agrarian program (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/404/capital_and_land.html).

Was that agrarian program incorporated into the Erfurt Program? Did the Erfurt Program undergo additional changes before the outbreak of the war?

[pastradamus]

Did the Erfurt Program undergo additional changes before the outbreak of the war?

Thats a serious question. I believe plainly speaking that it infact did undergo some kind of change. One must keep in mind that at that period Germany was one of the More rapidly changing day-to-day countries in revolutionary terms. It goes from a form of revolution to Social Democratic stonghold in a short period to an advocacy of communism. So in a Leftist sense Germany is an absolutely fascinating country and MUST be studied. In addition to the question I would say That it inevitable had to change/alter due to the outbreak of the war or otherwise would have deteriorated inevitabley. Good Post comrade.

[Invariance]

Was that agrarian program incorporated into the Erfurt Program? Erfurt Program - 1891. On The Agrarian Question - 1899. So probably not.


Did the Erfurt Program undergo additional changes before the outbreak of the war? I'm willing to bet yes. But I don't think the Program defined the party's actions anyway. The Program did state, however, 'legal equality of agricultural labourers and domestic servants with industrial workers.'


Although the latter prevailed, Kautsky himself wrote The Agrarian Question and suggested in his book an agrarian program. But what were the contents of this 'program?' I've never read the book - its several hundred pages long, but I read Lenin's comments on it:


Applying the results of his theoretical analysis to questions of agrarian policy, Kautsky naturally opposes all attempts to support or “save” peasant economy. There is no reason even to think that the village commune, says Kautsky, could go over to large-scale communal farming (p. 338, section, “Der Dorfkommunismus”[/URL] ; cf. p. 339). “The protection of the peasantry (der Bauernschutz) does not mean protection of the person of the peasant (no one, of course, would object to such protection), but protection of the peasant’s property. Incidentally, it is precisely the peasant’s property that is the main cause of his impoverishment and his degradation. Hired agricultural labourers are now quite frequently in a better position than the small peasants. The protection of the peasantry is not protection from poverty but the protection of the fetters that chain the peasant to his poverty” (p. 320). The radical transformation of agriculture by capitalism is a process that is only just beginning, but it is one that is advancing rapidly, bringing about the transformation of the peasant into a hired labourer and increasing the flight of the population from the countryside. Attempts to check this process would be reactionary and harmful: no matter how burdensome the consequences of this process may be in present-day society, the consequences of checking the process would be still worse and would place the working population in a still more helpless and hopeless position. Progressive action in present-day society can only strive to lessen the harmful effects which capitalist advance exerts on the population, to increase the consciousness of the people and their capacity for collective self-defence. Kautsky, therefore, insists on the guarantee of freedom of movement, etc., on the abolition of all the remnants of feudalism in agriculture (e.g., die Gesindeordnungen,[URL="http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/mar/kautsky.htm#fwV04P099F01"][3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/mar/kautsky.htm#fwV04P098F01) which place farm workers in a personally dependent, semi- serf position), on the prohibition of child labour under the age of fourteen, the establishment of an eight-hour working day, strict sanitary police to exercise supervision over workers’ dwellings, etc., etc.

He also said "It is absurd to think that the peasant in modern society can go over to communal production"

In 1924, however, Kautsky wrote:

It will be the task of a socialist regime to discover by experiment the most appropriate ways for combining industry with agriculture, so that industry may not only find a location on the countryside and agricultural enterprise may not only be considered as a source of supply for industrial workers. In addition, labour-power must be so trained and organized that industrial workers will be able to assist in field labour during the busiest periods of agriculture, and the land-workers must be enabled to enter industry during the slack periods, especially in winter.

A still higher form of the union of industry with agriculture will be attained where it is found possible for every worker to be engaged regularly day in and day out for a few hours in the open air, in field labour, and a few hours in the factory, thus abolishing the soul and body-destroying monotony of one-sided labour.

The health and interest of the workers would surely gain enormously if each of them were engaged four hours in industry and four hours in agriculture, making an eight-hour day. By the employment of three shifts, the total working time expended in both cases would be twelve hours daily.
These periods could of course be adapted to the fluctuating labour requirements of agriculture.

As we have said, experience in this sphere has yet to be acquired. It goes without saying that attempts in this direction should not follow a rigid plan. The same organization will not suit every industry, and each industry has its special location where it best thrives.

[ComradeOm]

Did the Erfurt Program undergo additional changes before the outbreak of the war?I do know that the USPD 'readopted' the Erfurt Programme at their founding congress (ironically held at Gotha) but I can't say whether this was because:

1) The SPD had formally adopted a new programme in the preceding years
2) The SPD had retained the Erfurt Programme but in practice departed from it
3) The USPD's adoption of the Programme was entirely symbolic

Edit: Given the sheer amount of nostalgia swirling around the Gotha Congress, I strongly suspect it was the last. Kautsky desired little more than the trappings of old pre-war Social Democracy

[Tower of Bebel]

I don't think Kautsky wanted the program to be changed. Not necessarily because of nostalgia or conservatism, but because of fear of a growing gap between new (opportunist) elements and well-trained, marxist militants:

And why all this [the agrarian question, reform of the program, etc.]? Haven't our theoretical foundations, our tactics, proven to be sufficient?

I think they have been brilliantly successful, never better than in the past four years. Why give them up? Why doing away with the old agitational forms, which have achieved so much? Why the nervous haste for a new tactic and a new program? Right now seems to us the worst moment to give it all up. In the face of the enemy you don't change without compelling reasons the basics which we once used.

The great difficulty for our party today is not excessive slowness, but the rapidity of its growth. Since 1890 we are so overwelmt by new elements that the old comrades don't suffice to educate and enlighten them, and the least could be said about the practical tasks which grow enormously and absorb all our trained forces. What we are suffering from are not supporters, but clear, well-trained party comrades. Their number is becoming relatively low. That gap is now one of our most important, perhaps even the most important, of our next tasks. A solution is not aided by attracting elements, who don't want to know anything of our final goal, and by the policies of the homeopathic doses (?).
Das Erfurter Programm und die Landagitation (http://www.marx.org/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1895/xx/landagi.htm)


Edit: Given the sheer amount of nostalgia swirling around the Gotha Congress, I strongly suspect it was the last. Kautsky desired little more than the trappings of old pre-war Social Democracy
However, if I'm not mistaken, in 1922 Kautsky wrote an intirely new program for the party that would emerge from merging those parties he called Germany's two social democratic parties (a remainder of the USPD, called the VSPD, and the SPD).

[gilhyle]

Kautsky did come to recognse that the dissolution of small agriculture that he had predicted did not subsequently happen, for reasons he was a bit slow to analyse, but did in principle recognise.

He also recognised, as he put it in the Materialist Concpetion of History, of the peasantry that "a constantly growing part, especially of their poorer strata will be drawn to the proletariat and make the proletarian cause their own ....." What seems to me to remain unclear in his view is why, if small agricultural production is not squeezed out that a large strata increasingly moves towards the proletarian position.

I have not read his programe from the 1920s so I cant say what his position was in that.