Republic and Social Democracy in France: S&R articles

[Die Neue Zeit]

The book that didn't bark: Independent scholar Lars T Lih introduces excerpts from Karl Kautsky's 'Republic and social democracy in France', published in English for the first time (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004371)

Republic and Social Democracy in France (extract): For the first time in English, an extract from Karl Kautsky's 'Republic and social democracy in France', translated by Ben Lewis (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004372)

[Zanthorus]

Thanks for posting this DNZ, I found it very interesting.

With regards to Lih's introduction, I found it especially interesting in terms of refuting your stated view that RaSDiF was the 'real' State and Revolution. It's clear now that RaSDiF is not what 'The State and Revolution' was intended to be: a systematic theoretical work on the subject of the role of the state in capitalist society, involving a careful exposition of Marx and Engels' views on the subject. It is a review of French republican history. Despite the fact that they both draw similar conclusions with regards to the nature of the state, I think the difference in approach is enough to make it nonsense to say that one was the 'real' version of the other.

I'm also skeptical of drawing any definite conclusions from the piece. Lih believes that it refutes Lenin's statement in TSaR* that Kautsky was an opportunist on the question of the state. Although it does show that Kautsky thought about these issues, it's clear that this was not a major theoretical work by Kautsky, and as such the lack of any discussion of the state in the works which were major would still seem to suggest there is something to Lenin's interpretation. Nevertheless, it does show that Kautsky and SI Orthodoxy were not entirely uncritical with regards to the question of the state, and in that regard it is especially interesting and worth reading.

*hehe, I just noticed that The State and Revolution abbreviated is Tsar. Must be part of the authoritarian Bolshevik conspiracy to trample on the Russian working-class.

[Tower of Bebel]

Jacob, I remember how you once wrote that Kautsky was wrong about the minimum programme in 1902. In his The Social Revolution he wrote that social democracy would implement the political programme for which the radical bourgeoisie once stood. You wrote that this was wrong, that in essence it used to be a petty bourgeois programme.

This is what Kautsky has to say about the "programme":


But even back then this overthrow of the system of government would not have been possible without the intervention of the lower classes: petty bourgeois, peasants, proletarians. They armed themselves, stormed the Bastille, burned down the castles of the nobility, abolished feudal burdens and began the self-administration of their communities.

The National Constituent Assembly merely confirmed what the people had carried out. The law/decree of December 14 1789 recognised the complete self-administration of the municipality. No government official stood above it. The municipality also received its own armed forces in the form of the armed citizens, the national guard, which elected its own officers; the law/decree of December 22 laid down the self-administration of the départements: on May 5 1790 the election of judges by the people was established, on July 12 it was finally determined that every municipality would elect its own pastor, every département would elect its own bishop.
In that sence Kautsky could still have been correct, yet the absence of any historical context makes his characterisation in 1902 ("a programme for which the bourgeoisie once stood") a bit borderline to say the least. (Note: Bernstein interpreted the programme as the programme of the bourgeois revolution!) Though I concider Lenins contribution to the minimum programme equally borderline.


Although it does show that Kautsky thought about these issues, it's clear that this was not a major theoretical work by Kautsky, and as such the lack of any discussion of the state in the works which were major would still seem to suggest there is something to Lenin's interpretation.
Well, much of his work has disappeared. I think it's no coincidence that much of his early political work has disappeared! And many of his writings that you can find in English are badly translated. Very badly. I still support the Lih-thesis: Kautsky changed over time and Lenin respected him for his role as an educator of Marxism, not as an organiser. I think his opportunism has much to do with the assending labour (or trade union) bureaucracy to the top levels of the party between 1905 and 1914. But its still not clear to me how that happened.

[Zanthorus]

Well, much of his work has disappeared. I think it's no coincidence that much of his early political work has disappeared! And many of his writings that you can find in English are badly translated. Very badly.

But we don't know what the content of that early political work was if it has dissapeared, which I think means that we can't really conclude decisively in favour of either side. And even if it's true that the current English translations of Kautsky's main works are bad, that doesn't seem relevant. I think if the main works in the original German refuted Lenin's thesis, Lih would've written something about it by now.


I still support the Lih-thesis: Kautsky changed over time and Lenin respected him for his role as an educator of Marxism, not as an organiser.

I agree that Lenin still respected and grounded himself in Kautsky's work, but I don't see how that's relevant to an assessment of Kautsky. I should clarify that I'm not a Leninist, and the proofs that Lenin drew so heavily on Kautsky reinforces that more than not. I think there are serious problems with Kautsky's work, in particular the voluntarism implied by the famous thesis on consciousness, that are also a problem with modern Leninist organisations.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In that sence Kautsky could still have been correct, yet the absence of any historical context makes his characterisation in 1902 ("a programme for which the bourgeoisie once stood") a bit borderline to say the least. (Note: Bernstein interpreted the programme as the programme of the bourgeois revolution!) Though I concider Lenins contribution to the minimum programme equally borderline.

Kautsky doesn't emphasize the role of the singular worker-class party-movement enough. Lenin, OTOH, overemphasizes the role of a singular organization that isn't a real movement ("the leading role of the Communist Party").

The five points that Lih identifies re. Kautsky's critique of French republicanism (average workers' wage) obviously aren't enough. Recallability of all officials isn't mentioned.

[Then there's my past letter advocating a "standing" military in the naval, air, air defense, strategic rockets, etc. forces because of specialized knowledge.]


I agree that Lenin still respected and grounded himself in Kautsky's work, but I don't see how that's relevant to an assessment of Kautsky. I should clarify that I'm not a Leninist, and the proofs that Lenin drew so heavily on Kautsky reinforces that more than not. I think there are serious problems with Kautsky's work, in particular the voluntarism implied by the famous thesis on consciousness, that are also a problem with modern Leninist organisations.

Where's the voluntarism of educated workers introducing things into some worker movement? I think you're misreading it for the "bourgeois intelligentsia" sound bite. :confused:

[Zanthorus]

DNZ, the voluntarism of the thesis comes not from who does the introducing of consciousness, but the idea that 'socialist consciousness' is something above and beyond the ordinary movement of the working-class and needs to be 'introduced' by a privileged group which has attained consciousness in the first place. Without going more into detail on the way my thinking has developed on this issue, have you read Gilles Dauvé's 'The "Renegade" Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin (http://libcom.org/library/renegade-kautsky-disciple-lenin-dauve)'?

[Q]

DNZ, the voluntarism of the thesis comes not from who does the introducing of consciousness, but the idea that 'socialist consciousness' is something above and beyond the ordinary movement of the working-class and needs to be 'introduced' by a privileged group which has attained consciousness in the first place. Without going more into detail on the way my thinking has developed on this issue, have you read Gilles Dauvé's 'The "Renegade" Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin (http://libcom.org/library/renegade-kautsky-disciple-lenin-dauve)'?

But communist consciousness isn't the natural result of the "ordinary movement of the working-class". This movement by itself will only lead to mere trade-unionist consciousness. It is the task of communists to educate, agitate and organise around communist goals. This is why a mass party, with alternative culture institutes, etc are necessary bits of infrastructure in preparing the class for the revolution.

This, to me, sounds a whole lot better as a strategy than hoping for the "magical moment" when the working class will, through "fight, fight, fight", suddenly "get it" that they'll have to seize power, or are tricked into taking power through the strategy of the general/mass strike.

[Zanthorus]

But communist consciousness isn't the natural result of the "ordinary movement of the working-class". This movement by itself will only lead to mere trade-unionist consciousness.

I don't know what exactly 'trade-unionist consciousness' means, I think workers' can gain a much higher level of awareness than that without becoming communists, as evidenced by the opposition to official union structures which was demonstrated in several mass movements in the 60's to early 80's periods and even in the late 1910's/early 20's in Germany with the Arbeiter-Unionen movement. However, I agree that communist consciousness doesn't magically spring into the brains of workers one day, I don't know where anyone has disputed that part of the thesis. Dauvé in the piece I linked to agrees that 'socialist consciousness' is generally held by only a minority of intellectuals and working-class militants, but that's not the issue at stake.


It is the task of communists to educate, agitate and organise around communist goals.

It is the task of ists to agitate around [insert ideology here] goals, that much is generally evident. The question is how this agitation is carried out. One view is the 'educationalist' one shared by the Utopian Socialists and Kautsky alike, that the task of communists is to distribute propaganda and raise the workers up to the level necessary to achieve socialism in a voluntaristic fashion. The classic thesis put forward by Marx and Engels state, on the contrary, that the communists become the most militant section of the workers' movement and agitate around the movements immediate goals.

This is because the situation of the working-class makes it's struggles directly antagonistic to capital. In order to combat the attacks of the employing class the working-class creates various forms of organisation (trade-unions and co-operatives initially, then strike committees, soviets and factory councils) which point beyond the system of 'free' wage-labour. Free wage-labour is, on Marx's analysis, the basis of capital. By replacing the freedom of labour with the organisation of labour, the working-class opposes itself not only to the individual capitalists, but also "constitute the working class as a class antagonistic to the respectable [I]category of masters, entrepreneurs and bourgeois" (Marx, Political Indifferentism).

Observe also Marx's comments in the Manifesto that as capitalism organises labour, it undercuts it's own basis: "Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products."

For this reason, there is no need to imbue the class with 'socialist consciousness', it's practical struggle already constitutes a struggle against capital, hence the real task is merely to support and further the existing struggle, and theory is not a set of principles derived from thin air, but the expression of the real movement itself. Your statement that you find it hard to believe that the working-class will suddenly 'get it' without being imbued with consciousness by revolutionaries is all well and good, but they certainly 'got it' in the struggles of 1848, 1871, 1905, 1917-21, 1927, and 1968-81 without any mass socialist consciousness emerging. 'Socialist consciousness' really has no relevance to the siezure of power, all that needs to be understood for it to occur is that the working-class can only further it's interests by taking power out of the hands of the bourgeoisie. That, in itself, does not require any 'socialist consciousness'. The only thing that does require 'socialist consciousness' is the final moment as such when socialism is actually constituted, but such would happen at the late stage of the revolution, as would the point when the masses become imbued with 'socialist consciousness', not through some Kautskyite-Leninist propaganda sect, but through the practical failure of capitalism to fulfill the needs of the working-class.

[Die Neue Zeit]

*hehe, I just noticed that The State and Revolution abbreviated is Tsar. Must be part of the authoritarian Bolshevik conspiracy to trample on the Russian working-class.

It's not as big a controversy as the Latin pronunciation of Julius's last name: Kai-czar, evoking both the German Kaiser and the Russian Czar. :D


DNZ, the voluntarism of the thesis comes not from who does the introducing of consciousness, but the idea that 'socialist consciousness' is something above and beyond the ordinary movement of the working-class and needs to be 'introduced' by a privileged group which has attained consciousness in the first place. Without going more into detail on the way my thinking has developed on this issue, have you read Gilles Dauvé's 'The "Renegade" Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin (http://libcom.org/library/renegade-kautsky-disciple-lenin-dauve)'?

I specifically mentioned Dauve's work in my old CSR pamphlet.

[Jose Gracchus]

Kaiser and Czar are themselves corruptions of Caesar's name. Caesar became a title through first the peculiar naming conventions of Republican Rome's elites, and precedent. It was then reproduced over the next few hundred years where "Caesar" automatically signified "the Roman emperor". The Germans and Slavs simply used his name as a basis for their conception of the highest-ranking sovereigns, while in the Romance states and England, it was the honorific of "imperator" which came to signify most-powerful monarchs.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrade Ben Lewis noted:

The text is the first of a seven-part series of articles published in 1905. Translation work on the other six parts is ongoing. Many thanks to Maziec Zurowski for proofing the translation, and Jacob Richter for his technical assistance in accessing the original German files.

I'm just glad the software assistance didn't botch things up, because I still wonder how he could read the woefully imperfect "scan-and-modernize" rendition of the original Fraktur. :)

[Q]

How anyone could ever read Fraktur for any longer texts is a little beyond me anyway.

Different times I guess.

http://oi55.tinypic.com/2vi5nwk.jpg

I mean srsly

[Die Neue Zeit]

How anyone could ever read Fraktur for any longer texts is a little beyond me anyway.

Different times I guess.

http://oi55.tinypic.com/2vi5nwk.jpg

I mean srsly

Translation: Abby Reader is overrated.

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=864

Real deal

Congratulations are in order to comrade Ben Lewis for his start in translating what I consider to be the real State and Revolution. Since Lenin’s pamphlet was incomplete and blindly uncritical of Marx’s Civil War in France, ‘Republic and Social Democracy in France’ (April 28) is a refreshing take on the Marxist view of the state.

Nonetheless, it should be stressed that certain themes are outdated, such as “abolition of the standing army” (Letters, December 9) and localism, whether of bourgeois federalism or decentralisation fetishes. Hence new themes need to be introduced, as has been discussed by comrades such as Mike Macnair, Paul Cockshott and even Moshé Machover.

The article on electoral tactics is very disappointing (‘Propaganda and agitation’, April 28). It doesn’t address abstentions versus spoiled ballots and spoilage campaigns, and ‘communal parliaments’. Spoilage campaigns help delegitimise the political system for workers, while being immune to the adage ‘If you don’t vote, don’t complain’.

It’s acknowledged around here that some kind of amplified public platform is needed to get our points across. Those who argue against participation in the parliamentary system say however that such a traditional position would be instilling mass confusion. On the one hand, they say parliament is an illegitimate institution which must be overthrown, but, on the other hand, we must participate in parliament.

When the Bolsheviks participated in the duma, that body wasn’t an established institution and had very little power over an absolutist tsar. When the SPD participated in the Reichstag, that body too was not yet an established institution and had little power over an absolutist kaiser (that doesn’t excuse the war credits vote whatsoever).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Same hymn sheet (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004397) by Ben Lewis

Ben Lewis introduces another excerpt from his translation of Karl Kautsky's 'Republic and social democracy in France'- published in English for the first time

Second Republic and the Socialists (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004398) by Karl Kautsky

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Second Empire and the Paris Commune (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004409)


Marxism substituted the organisation of the economic struggle - the strike organisation, the union - for the peaceful economic organisations of petty bourgeois Proudhonism like insurance institutions, exchange and credit banks, cooperatives, etc. At the same time it also recognised the need to use the available political means to wrest as much as possible from the contemporary state, to carry out measures through the bourgeois state in favour of the workers.

[...]

It was a most democratic measure when you come to think that the new battalions of the national guard were conceded the right to choose their officers and non-commissioned officers themselves. It was their fear of the victorious Germans, and even more so of the outraged Parisians, which on August 11 forced the reactionaries in the chamber to accept this proposal of the radicals. But when the empire collapsed and the people of France again became the master of their own destiny, the bourgeoisie was seized by an even greater fear: the fear of the battalions of the Paris national guard.

How exactly did Marx come up with the notion that the standing army was "abolished" simply because officers and non-commissioned officers were chosen democratically?


Of course, in the hours of the Commune’s distress the proletariat did not think about its specific class interests. It unhesitatingly put up with the fact that the bourgeois republicans in the chamber simply formed a centrist government, without consulting any proletarian elements.

[...]

It was initially a struggle for the national guard, in which the proletariat was victorious in Paris. On March 26 it then gave itself its own government in the Commune.

Unfortunately it was not a united one: within it we again find the three directions of French socialism present. Alongside the Proudhonists were the Blanquists. Alongside these there was a third tendency, admittedly no longer a theoretically based one like that represented by Louis Blanc, but a mere petty bourgeois-proletarian mishmash - devoid of any particular programme, but boasting a lot of passion and drive. Above all, this tendency was steeped in the traditions of the Great Revolution.

[...]

Anybody who, coming over from the side of the bourgeoisie, does not possess the courage and abjuration to wholeheartedly join the fighting proletariat against the bourgeoisie and to break all ties with it can eventually, notwithstanding all of their proletarian sympathies, all too easily be pushed onto the side of the proletariat’s opponents at the decisive moment.

As bad as the theoretical fragmentation and ignorance of the Parisian proletariat was, it was not so much damaged by this as it was by its lack of a uniform organisation. This was indeed partly caused by theoretical disjointedness and partly by the absence of the right to association and assembly, which had rendered the creation of any proletarian mass organisation impossible since 1794. We shall return to the latter point further on.

Even Marx and Lenin never mentioned any such absence of class-strugglist assembly and association! Damn, I really, really have to edit Chapter 5 (and maybe even Chapter 6) to incorporate as much of the REAL State and Revolution as much as possible! :ohmy: :scared:

Continued:


Where the Commune utterly failed, however, was in military affairs and politics. In these matters it completely lost its way. Whilst it could doubtless boast some serious, capable men in these areas too, their effectiveness was more than paralysed by vain dandies, bawlers and do-nothings who stayed away from organisational and administrative work, preferring those aspects of work where one could feign greatness with sabre-rattling and rhetoric. Above all, however, it was here in particular that the disjointed character of the Commune had the most severe consequences.

Whatever the individual socialists’ theoretical quirks may have been, when they were faced with the practical work of social and political organisation, their instincts led them to quickly unite around what was necessary and to work out what the most indispensable tasks were, even if this ran contrary to their outdated theories.

Things were different when it came to the military and political struggle against the enemy. It became apparent that the modern mode of production and its elemental [urwüchsig] social struggles might by themselves develop the proletariat’s capacity for social and political organisation, but not the higher art of war and high politics. We can easily appreciate the absence of the former.

To cap off the chapter, Kautsky then cites The Civil War in France. :)

[Jose Gracchus]

Kautsky's yearning for the petty bourgeoisie intellectuals to impart their privileged knowledge upon the workers. Am I to be surprised? How does the professional officer corps "remain" authentically the same if their position is solely at the pleasure of the soldiers and workers?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I wrote in recent letters to the Weekly Worker that "abolition of the standing army" has numerous problems. The notion of "militias" replacing such armed forces comes across as turning swords into plowshares more than increasing democratic rights within the military.

I would think that any democratically (s)elected officer corps retains much from the processes associated with the older officer corps. There is still the basic hierarchy of somebody giving orders and everyone else below him taking it (chain of command). Some positions from the older officer corps would have to be (s)elected based on technical knowledge. For example, the US Army Field Manuals may be available on the Internet, but only a few hundred are in use. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Field_Manuals)

[Jose Gracchus]

It is not the task of the working-class to field modern professional armed forces (which are intrinsically instruments of bourgeois war and conquest), but to struggle for the social revolution of the global working-class. You'd have the working-class manage itself back into an alienated, exploited class, which is exactly what would happen if one were to follow your advice.

[Die Neue Zeit]

"Professional" armed forces existed long before the bourgeoisie came into existence. They date further back than the days of Rome.

The political revolution of the global working class may need military toys, going back to the end of my older theoretical pamphlet.


war and conquest

"War and conquest" also includes counter-assault to the fullest, which ultimately means attacking aggressor territory and staking your victorious flag in the heart of the aggressor's center of power.

BTW, I forgot to mention this here earlier (but did so in the Learning thread):

"There should still be an unambiguous chain of command, 'standing' operations over nuclear weapons, naval forces, combat aircraft, etc., and, parallel to the democratically (s)elected commanding officers, an apparatus of political officers and security surveillance over the armed forces."

This means that something like "consensus democracy" can't work in the lower rungs of a democratized military structure (beyond (s)electing commanding officers), unless applied to higher levels like the General Staff / Joint Chiefs of Staff.