Pre-war SPD bureaucracy: historical question

[Die Neue Zeit]

Just before WWI, the then-Marxist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands had about a million members. Though the majority of members were not active (with regards to political branch meetings), the mass membership provided the base for an institutional apparatus of thousands of organizers. This apparatus organized the worker-class alternative culture of cultural societies, recreational clubs, etc. and also the mass media reach.

Since it was impractical for the party congress to fill every single position within this apparatus, how was it filled? Were there lists of key jobs in party administration to be filled by politically reliable and professionally competent personnel, along with accompanying procedures for selecting such personnel? Did the pre-war SPD pioneer the personnel system that was raised to a higher level by the nomenklatura process in the CPSU?

How were leading party bodies filled? Were they filled on the basis of individuals occupying key party positions outside the leading party bodies, such that each individual became a "job slot" in the relevant leading party body (say, for example, a regional party boss)?

[caramelpence]

Just before WWI, the then-Marxist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland

So Marxist, in fact, that they managed to sell out the workers of Germany and the world by cheering the war effort, despite having argued for years that they would call a general strike in cooperation with other European social-democratic parties in the event of war being declared. No, there was nothing Marxist about the SPD in 1914, it had ossified into a reformist party and the political arm of the trade union bureaucracy, as Bernstein himself recognized when he characterized his revisionist project as an attempt to provide a theoretical basis for what he viewed to be the party's already-reformist practice, rather than calling for a wholesale transformation in practice.

[caramelpence]

Also, the "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands"? What the fuck is wrong with you? Just call it the SPD. Would you call the CPC the Gongchandang? Exactly. So shut up.

[Lyev]

Also, the "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands"? What the fuck is wrong with you? Just call it the SPD. Would you call the CPC the Gongchandang? Exactly. So shut up.Just to interject here (can't contribute any historical knowledge): I think DNZ is from Germany, so it's understandable why he might speak German. I guess if you were Chinese then you might possibly say Gongchandang. And I don't think there is any need to swear at another user; don't be so grumpy.

[caramelpence]

Just to interject here (can't contribute any historical knowledge): I think DNZ is from Germany, so it's understandable why he might speak German. I guess if you were Chinese then you might possibly say Gongchandang. And I don't think there is any need to swear at another user; don't be so grumpy.

No, I wouldn't say Gongchandang in the middle of an English sentence and there's absolutely no good reason to say Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands either. Just like if I were speaking German I wouldn't randomly insert an English word by saying something like "Ich bin ein Mitglieder der Labour Party". I doubt most non-German speakers could actually tell you what the individual letters S, P, and D stand for, but if someone says SPD then everyone knows what they mean.

[Zanthorus]

I think DNZ is from Germany,

He's Canadian.

[Serge's Fist]

So Marxist, in fact, that they managed to sell out the workers of Germany and the world by cheering the war effort, despite having argued for years that they would call a general strike in cooperation with other European social-democratic parties in the event of war being declared. No, there was nothing Marxist about the SPD in 1914, it had ossified into a reformist party and the political arm of the trade union bureaucracy, as Bernstein himself recognized when he characterized his revisionist project as an attempt to provide a theoretical basis for what he viewed to be the party's already-reformist practice, rather than calling for a wholesale transformation in practice.

This is wrong. We should remember that USPD, KPD and KAPD were formed from the most advanced sections of the SPD. These Marxist cadres were educated and steeled in the SPD. You are committing a very typical superficial error that sees the SPD and the Second International as a homogeneous entity where all involved are equally culpable for the wretched betrayal of the right-wing and the capitulation of most of the centre.

[Rowan Duffy]

You are committing a very typical superficial error that sees the SPD and the Second International as a homogeneous entity where all involved are equally culpable for the wretched betrayal of the right-wing and the capitulation of most of the centre.

I'm not sure just painting it as a wretched betrayal is that useful either. It's probably more worthwhile to look at the systemic features which might have resulted in failure.

[Tim Finnegan]

Also, the "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands"? What the fuck is wrong with you? Just call it the SPD. Would you call the CPC the Gongchandang? Exactly. So shut up.
To be quite fair, it's standard practice to introduce less widely-known acronyms, especially when they are in a foreign (in this case non-English) language, in their full form. Perhaps unnecessary when he's making a request to people how will be familiar with the acronym, but not exactly reason for this sort of tantrum.

[caramelpence]

This is wrong. We should remember that USPD, KPD and KAPD were formed from the most advanced sections of the SPD.

Firstly, I don't know why you're including the USPD amongst the more revolutionary organizations that emerged from the SPD, as if that organization deserves to be mentioned as part of the same political movement as the KPD and KAPD. Secondly, yes, those organizations did draw many of their members from the SPD. So what? There are countless historical examples of revolutionary formations emerging out of reactionary organizations. The core elements of the Left Opposition in China, for example, were drawn from the CPC at a time when the party was suffering the implications of the first united front and many of China's most important Trotskyists had also been students in the Soviet Union during the second half of the 1920s. The fact that you can trace a line of development from a reactionary organization like the SPD to revolutionary formations that later emerged doesn't change the fact that the SPD itself and other organizations that played similar roles in other countries exerted a highly reactionary influence on the working class and constrained the development of genuinely internationalist responses to the war.

The key question really seems to be this - do you accept that by 1914 the SPD, taken as an organization, and whatever other political forces it might have contained, was playing a reactionary role, so that it was a barrier to the emancipation of the working class? If your answer is anything other than yes, then you don't have much business being a communist.


I'm not sure just painting it as a wretched betrayal is that useful either

Agreed, which is why it's important to be clear on the fact that the growth of opportunism was a trend whose roots dated back to the 19th century - that's why Bernstein saw his revisionist produce as a justification and explanation for the party's current focus on electoral organization and trade union work rather than a radical call for a change in the way that the party conducted itself. Of course, I wouldn't draw a straight line between Bernstein and the role of the party in 1914, not least because Bernstein objected to the war and joined the USPD, albeit on bourgeois pacifist rather than revolutionary grounds, but you are right in saying that the term betrayal has to be problematized, and there were certainly other aspects of Bernstein's revisionism, such as his acceptance of a socialist colonial policy in China and Africa, which point towards the specifically national-chauvinist dimension of the SPD's opportunism.


To be quite fair, it's standard practice to introduce less widely-known acronyms, especially when they are in a foreign (in this case non-English) language, in their full form. Perhaps unnecessary when he's making a request to people how will be familiar with the acronym, but not exactly reason for this sort of tantrum.

No tantrum, I don't really care, obviously, but in the case of DNZ everyone knows he does it because he likes being as obscure and confusing as possible, for one reason or another, as demonstrated by his absurd love of meaningless words that are known to hardly anyone except himself.

[Lyev]

No, I wouldn't say Gongchandang in the middle of an English sentence and there's absolutely no good reason to say Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands either. Just like if I were speaking German I wouldn't randomly insert an English word by saying something like "Ich bin ein Mitglieder der Labour Party". I doubt most non-German speakers could actually tell you what the individual letters S, P, and D stand for, but if someone says SPD then everyone knows what they mean.Whatever, I know what he meant. It doesn't really matter a great deal, does it? No-one else cares much.

He's Canadian.I thought he was German because his locations are in Germany, but they're also the locations of famous socialist/workers' party programmes.

Anyway, I'll suitably withdraw myself from this thread, after having contributed very little. :blushing:

[Android]

I thought he was German because his locations are in Germany, but they're also the locations of famous socialist/workers' party programmes.


I thought DNZ was American for some reason - close enough I suppose.

[Serge's Fist]

Firstly, I don't know why you're including the USPD amongst the more revolutionary organizations that emerged from the SPD, as if that organization deserves to be mentioned as part of the same political movement as the KPD and KAPD.

I know, how bad to mention the USPD considering that it turned the KPD from a small party into a mass party capable of fighting for leadership of the class.


Secondly, yes, those organizations did draw many of their members from the SPD. So what? There are countless historical examples of revolutionary formations emerging out of reactionary organizations. The core elements of the Left Opposition in China, for example, were drawn from the CPC at a time when the party was suffering the implications of the first united front and many of China's most important Trotskyists had also been students in the Soviet Union during the second half of the 1920s. The fact that you can trace a line of development from a reactionary organization like the SPD to revolutionary formations that later emerged doesn't change the fact that the SPD itself and other organizations that played similar roles in other countries exerted a highly reactionary influence on the working class and constrained the development of genuinely internationalist responses to the war.

So the hundreds of thousands of Marxists educated in the SPD in revolutionary Marxism are unimportant? Should we see the SPD as a completely negative experience at all times because of its degeneration? Obviously not. The SPD encapsulated the keenest minds of the Marxist movement in Germany and nurtured those tendencies and leaders who would find the strength to resist and break with the right of the party winning the support of the advanced sections of the class.

The SPD had a contradictory influence on the working class. It built a movement that armed workers with socialist ideas and at the same time grew a revisionist leadership that smothered the revolution. The history of the SPD is not simply one of reaction but of a struggle between reform and revolution within a mass party of the class. You can't understand the politics of the KPD, KAPD and the USPD without understanding their foundations are in the SPD.


The key question really seems to be this - do you accept that by 1914 the SPD, taken as an organization, and whatever other political forces it might have contained, was playing a reactionary role, so that it was a barrier to the emancipation of the working class? If your answer is anything other than yes, then you don't have much business being a communist.

The SPD by voting for war credits proved that it was an organisation that was not fit for revolution. In 1914 the SPD did play a reactionary role. However, this is not the whole story, it was SPD members and some leaders that organised anti-war activity and stood for an internationalist response to the war. Were comrades like Karl Liebknecht reactionaries?

We need a nuanced understanding of the SPD as a party that contained a multitude of politics and positions. Without the SPD there would never have been a KPD or the Bolsheviks.

[Tim Finnegan]

No tantrum, I don't really care, obviously, but in the case of DNZ everyone knows he does it because he likes being as obscure and confusing as possible, for one reason or another, as demonstrated by his absurd love of meaningless words that are known to hardly anyone except himself.
I thought your complaint was that he was going into unnecessary detail? How is that the same thing as being wilfully obscure? :confused:

[Red Future]

If I remember correctly ,Lenin is constantly praising the achievements of "Revolutionary Social Democracy" pre 1914 in some of his early pamphlets.

[Q]

Anyway...

Before this thread even started it was completely derailed by an unconstructive poster. Let's get back on track, yes?


Just before WWI, the then-Marxist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands had about a million members. Though the majority of members were not active (with regards to political branch meetings), the mass membership provided the base for an institutional apparatus of thousands of organizers. This apparatus organized the worker-class alternative culture of cultural societies, recreational clubs, etc. and also the mass media reach.

Since it was impractical for the party congress to fill every single position within this apparatus, how was it filled? Were there lists of key jobs in party administration to be filled by politically reliable and professionally competent personnel, along with accompanying procedures for selecting such personnel? Did the pre-war SPD pioneer the personnel system that was raised to a higher level by the nomenklatura process in the CPSU?

How were leading party bodies filled? Were they filled on the basis of individuals occupying key party positions outside the leading party bodies, such that each individual became a "job slot" in the relevant leading party body (say, for example, a regional party boss)?

You ask a good question. I'm overall unclear on how the SPD organised, being such a large organisation. All I do know really is that it had a dual chaimen position, a position revived by the contemporary Die Linke. I'm not even sure if Kautsky, the most important theoretician of the party and indeed Marxism before 1914, had any official position (was his position as editor of Die Neue Zeit seen as an official party position?).

Given however that I do know that today the official workers movement is organised such as it is, not only in the contemporary social-democracy and aligned unions, but also - as Serge's Fist pointed out - in the official communist movement, I rather expect that the SPD would at the very least have been pioneering in these forms. Although I would like to read more about it if there are sources.

Lastly I'm one of those that think we should learn from history and reflect our future society in the organisation we put up today. For this reason I think we should avoid individual occupation of key party positions and more rely, for example, on demarchy out of pools of verified competent membership.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Lastly I'm one of those that think we should learn from history and reflect our future society in the organisation we put up today. For this reason I think we should avoid individual occupation of key party positions and more rely, for example, on demarchy out of pools of verified competent membership.

To some extent there is less "individual occupation" in the nomenclature positions after personality-heavy eras such as Stalin's. There are instead institutionalization, institutional interests, institutional clout, etc.

Consider these Politburos. Ignore the names, the political and economic agendas, etc. Just look at what comes after their names:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Communist_Party_of_Vietnam#11th_P olitburo_members_.282011-present.29

And (in addition to the job slot system of the CC CPSU):

http://books.google.ca/books?id=KUjnEP9vr_0C&pg=PA58&dq=job+slots+politburo&hl=en&ei=MUDTTZuvO9LWiAKvh5zOAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CEsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=job%20slots%20politburo&f=false


The exact composition of the Politburo, fluctuating between eleven and fifteen, is governed more by bureaucratic custom than by rule. Nevertheless, its makeup for years has followed an unwritten law of ticket-balancing: four or five seats for the professional party organization [...]; representing the nominal government, the prime minister [...] and (if he is not the same as the General Secretary) the titular Chief of State; the Minister of Defense [...] the Foreign Minister [...] and the head of the KGB [...] and three or four key regional figures [....]

All of these men enjoy their Politburo seats by virtue of their specific office; rarely would they be retained if they lost that office. By the same token, to remove them from the Politburo means removing them from the offices that conferred Politburo rank, a step that is not taken lightly or too often.

[Rjevan]

Verbal warning to caramelpence. This is now the second thread after the "Mission Impossible" one you deralied with troll posts and unprovoked insults against DNZ. I'd like to remind you of our rules against flaming:
Repeated flaming in posts containing nothing of substance except flames will result in warning points, and incorrigible offenders may be banned.

[caramelpence]

I know, how bad to mention the USPD considering that it turned the KPD from a small party into a mass party capable of fighting for leadership of the class.

I don't agree with that characterization, the USPD was foremost a party of parliamentary socialism, which is not surprising, given Kautsky's own views on the matter.


So the hundreds of thousands of Marxists educated in the SPD in revolutionary Marxism are unimportant?

I don't see what you're getting at here. In the first place, you've yet to explain what exactly you mean by the party's educative role. My impression is that the party was pretty limited in this respect because a defining feature of its approach to education and theory was an emphasis on popular summations of Marx's works rather than detailed study of the primary texts and the issues arising from them. Kautsky's Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx, which includes a theoretically impoverished account of commodity fetishism despite the importance of that concept for Marx's account of how capitalism reproduces itself, is a paradigmatic example of this approach, in that this text was important not only in the immediate German context, but was also often one of the main texts available to Marxist study groups outside of Germany, such as those in China, with unfortunate implications for how emerging revolutionaries understood Marx's contributions, insofar as he was often viewed as an economist and an economic determinist, rather than the full scope of his ideas being acknowledged. By way of illustration, the average number of copies printed by the SPD press per edition of the Communist Manifesto before 1905 (the Manifesto not exactly being the most penetrating or theoretical of Marx's texts) was only between two thousand and three thousand copies, even though the size of the print runs increased from that date onwards, whereas, in contrast, the party's 1891 Erfurt Program was distributed in 120,000 copies - the point here being that I don't find the party's educative role that impressive, because it was characterized by a rejection of theory in favor of the mass distribution of simplified accounts by contemporary authors. This was despite the fact that Bernstein had been made executor of Marx and Engels' wills and therefore had control of their entire body of texts.

In this context it's significant that Rosa Luxemburg, the individual who is most associated with a revolutionary response to the war and who also contributed in decisive ways towards our understanding of the revolutionary party and the character of a revolutionary situation, was, whilst being a formal member of the SPD, much closer to Polish and Russian social democracy in both cultural and political terms, or, if not definitively part of those sections, a transnational revolutionary who was not tied to any single section of international social democracy. The fact that she led the response without having taken advantage of the SPD as a site for education and political development suggests that the party could not have been that decisive or progressive in those respects. In any case, even if the party did have some kind of educative role, this still doesn't mean that the party was anything other than a deeply reactionary organization, because there are, again, also lots of other revolutionaries who have gained much of their political education in other organizations only to reject them once they became conscious of their reactionary character. James P. Cannon was a member of the Workers Party of America before he became a Trotskyist and was expelled - that doesn't mean the WPA should be taken as a model for revolutionary organization.


it was SPD members and some leaders that organised anti-war activity and stood for an internationalist response to the war. Were comrades like Karl Liebknecht reactionaries?

The very fact that Liebknecht initially voted in favour of war credits under the pressure of party discipline and that the party leadership was so hesitant to call for violent action against the war, even after it had taken something like an anti-war position, just shows that, when members did take an internationalist stand, they did it in spite of their SPD-alliegances, and not because of them. The same is true of the revolutionary formations that came out of the SPD - it was their ultimate rejection of the SPD that made them able to have a revolutionary role! Your defense of the SPD is half-hearted, it amounts to saying that because some revolutionaries had originally been members of the SPD, and because there were differences of opinion within the SPD before 1914, that means that the party somehow has to be credited with supporting the emergence of revolutionary ideas. I don't know about other people here, but I don't find that kind of argument plausible.


Before this thread even started it was completely derailed by an unconstructive poster. Let's get back on track, yes?

Not unconstructive, if someone says that a party that cheered the butchering of the working class was "Marxist" before 1914, they should be prepared to defend that position.

[caramelpence]

I thought your complaint was that he was going into unnecessary detail? How is that the same thing as being wilfully obscure? :confused:

No, I've never complained he goes into too much detail - if someone has something theoretically insightful to say, then detail is a good thing. DNZ is simply without substance, even though he seeks to present a facade of theoretical and historical insight. He has a penchant for inventing words and drawing absurd ahistorical comparisons that indicates a wish to make others feel inadequate just because they don't understand his ridiculous vocabulary.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the first place, you've yet to explain what exactly you mean by the party's educative role. My impression is that the party was pretty limited in this respect because a defining feature of its approach to education and theory was an emphasis on popular summations of Marx's works rather than detailed study of the primary texts and the issues arising from them. Kautsky's Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx, which includes a theoretically impoverished account of commodity fetishism despite the importance of that concept for Marx's account of how capitalism reproduces itself, is a paradigmatic example of this approach, in that this text was important not only in the immediate German context, but was also often one of the main texts available to Marxist study groups outside of Germany, such as those in China, with unfortunate implications for how emerging revolutionaries understood Marx's contributions, insofar as he was often viewed as an economist and an economic determinist, rather than the full scope of his ideas being acknowledged.

Economic Doctrines is a much, much better read than Capital, Volume I. Paradoxically, if one were to read this work in combination with the more left-communist Fundamentals of Communist Production and Distribution, such reading would be more productive than drudging through the three mostly muddled volumes of Capital.


By way of illustration, the average number of copies printed by the SPD press per edition of the Communist Manifesto before 1905 (the Manifesto not exactly being the most penetrating or theoretical of Marx's texts) was only between two thousand and three thousand copies, even though the size of the print runs increased from that date onwards, whereas, in contrast, the party's 1891 Erfurt Program was distributed in 120,000 copies - the point here being that I don't find the party's educative role that impressive, because it was characterized by a rejection of theory in favor of the mass distribution of simplified accounts by contemporary authors.

The Communist Manifesto is too brief for an educative read when compared to the commentary on the party program, Kautsky's Das Erfurter Programm. I'm not surprised that Lenin and various Old Bolsheviks valued Das Erfurter Programm more than the Communist Manifesto for being clearer on the "merger formula."

Heck, Lassalle's Open Letter should have been distributed to workers more than the Manifesto, since the stress on political parties was clearer.

However, one work by Marx and Engels should have been distributed more in Germany in comparison to the Manifesto, and that was the Principles of Communism.

[Rjevan]

I'm overall unclear on how the SPD organised, being such a large organisation.
You're not alone there, one article in the study "Generationen in der Arbeiterbewegung" (Generations in the Working Class Movement, http://books.google.de/books?id=pPLivL-TjZAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Generationen+in+der+Arbeiterbewegung&hl=de&ei=bzvWTZj3BdCKswaFzc2KBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false) notes: "While the theoretical orientation of the SPD and the Free Trade Unions is comparatively well-researched and scientifically prepared, there is no comprehensive account of the organisational development of German Social Democracy in its phase of reorganisation [after the Anti-Socialist Laws] at hand, even after decades of intensive research in the Federal Republic and the GDR."

This article discusses the "professionalisation and bureaucratisation" of the SPD with the rise of paid party functionaries in 1904. The Party Congress authorised first regional party leaders and then the Executive Committee to appoint full-time officials where deemed necessary. It really kinda reminds of the nomenklatura process, activists known for their committment and reliability in voluntary posts were approached with "informal agreements". This sometimes led to "multi-functionaries" (and considerable criticism).

The procedure for party secretaries was different, whenever one was needed a "job advertisement" was started and those interested had to apply.

Not much but that's all I could get on this topic...

[Zanthorus]

Economic Doctrines is a much, much better read than Capital, Volume I.

I'm sorry, is this supposed to be a joke? The section on value doesn't even mention abstract labour!


I'm not surprised that Lenin and various Old Bolsheviks valued Das Erfurter Programm more than the Communist Manifesto for being clearer on the "merger formula."

That's probably because there is no 'merger formula' in the Manifesto.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ As Lars Lih noted, comrade, the merger formula was first noted in Conditions of the Working Class in England. In both the Principles and the Manifesto, it was demonstrated through the negative form (i.e., how not to achieve it).


I'm sorry, is this supposed to be a joke? The section on value doesn't even mention abstract labour!

I did say "in combination with the more left-communist Fundamentals of Communist Production and Distribution" for a reason. There's the analytical/critical/diagnosis part, while the latter is the normative/prescriptive part.

[caramelpence]

^^^ As Lars Lih noted, the merger formula was first noted in Conditions of the Working Class in England. In both the Principles and the Manifesto, it was demonstrated through the negative form (i.e., how not to achieve it).

Stop diverting the issue. I don't care about the "merger formula" and it strikes me as intellectually weak to try and read it back into Marx, especially given that Marx and Engels (especially Marx himself) simply did not understand the concept of the party in the same way as later Marxists, in that they understood it in broad terms, to mean those who were partisans of the communist project, rather than in the sense of a disciplined organization. You've made the absurd assertion that Kautsky's Economic Doctrines is superior to Capital Vol. 1, without having given any explanation of what makes it superior, and why it was right of the SPD to focus on popular summations in its educative activities rather than treating its members and supporters seriously by pursuing the study of more complex theoretical and analytical issues, including the study of Marx's most penetrating texts. The only thing you've made clear so far is that you've never read Capital Vol. 1 and have probably never read the Manifesto either, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to toss Capital aside in favor of Kautsky, given Kautsky's numerous oversimplifications and shortcomings.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You're the diverter, the detractor, not me. I have read Volume I, such as on M-C-M', unemployment, and working hours.


Marx and Engels (especially Marx himself) simply did not understand the concept of the party in the same way as later Marxists, in that they understood it in broad terms, to mean those who were partisans of the communist project, rather than in the sense of a disciplined organization.

That's your petty excuse for justifying deficiencies in organization, such as in 1968.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You're not alone there, one article in the study "Generationen in der Arbeiterbewegung" (Generations in the Working Class Movement, http://books.google.de/books?id=pPLivL-TjZAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Generationen+in+der+Arbeiterbewegung&hl=de&ei=bzvWTZj3BdCKswaFzc2KBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false) notes: "While the theoretical orientation of the SPD and the Free Trade Unions is comparatively well-researched and scientifically prepared, there is no comprehensive account of the organisational development of German Social Democracy in its phase of reorganisation [after the Anti-Socialist Laws] at hand, even after decades of intensive research in the Federal Republic and the GDR."

This article discusses the "professionalisation and bureaucratisation" of the SPD with the rise of paid party functionaries in 1904. The Party Congress authorised first regional party leaders and then the Executive Committee to appoint full-time officials where deemed necessary. It really kinda reminds of the nomenklatura process, activists known for their committment and reliability in voluntary posts were approached with "informal agreements". This sometimes led to "multi-functionaries" (and considerable criticism).

The procedure for party secretaries was different, whenever one was needed a "job advertisement" was started and those interested had to apply.

Not much but that's all I could get on this topic...

Comrade, I thought the SPD had paid party functionaries way before then. :confused:

[caramelpence]

You're the diverter, the detractor, not me. I have read Volume I, such as on M-C-M', unemployment, and working hours.



That's your petty excuse for justifying deficiencies in organization, such as in 1968.

If you've read Capital Vol. 1, and understood it, which I doubt, you should know that it contains insights that are absent from Kautsky's Economic Doctrines. As for "deficiencies in organization", I didn't actually say that I agreed with Marx's understanding of the party, which is not immediately relevant, I was simply pointing out that it's poor form to try and read back later concepts and pet terms of yours like the "merger formula" into Marx and Engels without taking account of how concepts and terms were understood in different ways by different groups of theorists, and in particular how the term "party" underwent a change of meaning. If there's anyone who has a deficient understanding of organization, it's you, because you take as a model a party that betrayed millions of workers to their deaths, and you can't give any explanation of how that situation came about.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'd place full reading of the three volumes of Capital into a more "academic" curriculum, including the context they were meant to be in (Capital being only one part of a six-part project). Kautsky's Economic Doctrines and Road to Power, the left-communist Fundamental Principles, IWMA material, Principles of Communism, and various other works by Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Hilferding, Lenin, etc. should be the basis for initial education. Maybe parts of Volume I, Volume II, and Volume III could be introduced, but only parts, and only insomuch as there's political content (such as on the working hours).

[Rjevan]

Comrade, I thought the SPD had paid party functionaries way before then. :confused:
Yeah, that sentence is a bit unclear, sorry. The first cases were as early as 1871 but apparently it were the Party Congresses 1904 in Bremen and 1905 in Jena which prepared their large-scale emergence.

[Zanthorus]

^^^ As Lars Lih noted, comrade, the merger formula was first noted in Conditions of the Working Class in England. In both the Principles and the Manifesto, it was demonstrated through the negative form (i.e., how not to achieve it).

Provide evidence to back up this assertion or stop blabbering (What Lars Lih says does not count as evidence).


I did say "in combination with the more left-communist Fundamentals of Communist Production and Distribution" for a reason. There's the analytical/critical/diagnosis part, while the latter is the normative/prescriptive part.

...which does nothing to cover the fact that in an entire chapter on value not once did Kautsky mention abstract labour, which is somewhat significant considering that use-values only take on the form of values insomuch as they are products of abstract labour. Nor does it do anything to cover for Kautsky's defficient understanding of the fetishism of commodities. Nor has anything you've said been at all relevant to defending Kautsky's work.


Marx and Engels (especially Marx himself) simply did not understand the concept of the party in the same way as later Marxists, in that they understood it in broad terms, to mean those who were partisans of the communist project, rather than in the sense of a disciplined organization.

I think this part is not quite correct. In the Manifesto Marx speaks of 'working-class parties' and mentions the English Chartists as a prime example. At the end of 1849 when Marx and Engels decisively broke with the vacillating petty bourgeois democrats they made the call for the various German workers' associations to unite into a national party of labour. It is true that throughout the 1850's they talk about 'the party' as themselves and their followers in the German emigre community who were partisans of the communist project. But in the 1870's they also referred to Liebknecht and Bebel's Social-Democratic Workers' Party as 'our party', especially after Liebknecht and Bebel used their positions in the Reichstag to vote against war credits during the Franco-Prussian war, which was used by Engels as a prime example of the benefits of an organised party with an independent working-class platform. And of course there was the Parti Ouvrier whose split with the possibilists they supported and whose programme Marx drafted.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Provide evidence to back up this assertion or stop blabbering (What Lars Lih says does not count as evidence).

"It is evident that the worker movement is divided into two sections, the Chartists and the Socialists. The Chartists are the more backward, the less developed, but they are genuine proletarians all over, the representatives of their class. The Socialists are more far-seeing, propose radical remedies against distress, but, proceeding originally from the bourgeoisie, are for this reason unable to amalgamate completely with the working class. The merger of Socialism with Chartism, the reproduction of French Communism in the English style, will be the next step, and has already begun. Then only, when this has been achieved, will the worker class be the true leader of England." (Engels, Conditions)

The very format of both the Principles and the Manifesto suggest the merger formula logic. Described first are worker movements and conditions. Described next is the political program. Described afterwards are the classes and forces incapable of attaining this program.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yeah, that sentence is a bit unclear, sorry. The first cases were as early as 1871 but apparently it were the Party Congresses 1904 in Bremen and 1905 in Jena which prepared their large-scale emergence.

Actually, I thought that the large-scale bureaucratic emergence occurred right after the Anti-Socialist Laws expired. :confused:

[Zederbaum]

In the early days of the party local branches maintained contact with the central executive via an active volunteer known as the Vertrauensmann. Over time, as the party expanded rapidly in the wake of the repeal of the anti-socialist law, these came to be replaced by officers nominated from above. As the SPD became increasingly competitive in elections the party developed a more systematic approach to organising for them (adapting questionnaires, recording sympathisers etc) which in itself created a need for competent administrators.

With the focus on elections. local branches were grouped according to electoral districts. Secretaries were nominated by the party leadership and paid by the central party. Local organisations could choose their own officials if they could pay him. Naturally, they often chose to forgo this option.

Many of the local secretaries attempted to be neutral in the ongoing confrontation between revisionists and radicals. In fact they may have been chosen for this very characteristic as it was their duty to work for the party as a whole and they needed to have a reputation for impartiality if they were to be able to carry out their work at all. Given their primary political activity was to organise for elections they tended to view criticism of this tried and tested strategy with hostility. This criticism generally came from from the radical left and thus over time they began to identify with whoever was against them. It no doubt helped that the leadership itself, upon whose sponsership they largely relied, increased its distance from the radicals

In urban areas where the party was of middling size, the rank and file could exert sufficient influence on the party organisers to maintain their somewhat leftward orientation. In rural districts, where the SPD was relatively weak, the officials mirrored their constituents and sided with the revisionist tendency. Interestingly, in urban areas where the party was quite large, delegations to its congresses could still be surprisingly conservative, despite representing the more militant rank and file. This was because the organisational hierarchy in the very large urban areas was sufficiently layered so that ordinary members could not exert the control that their colleagues in cities with middle-sized party organisation.

The trade unions also carried enormous weight within the party and far from being a creature of the SPD, they were independent organisations and ones whose leadership reflected the positions of their members. That is, the average party member tended to be more political than the average trade unionist; to join the party was to express a political choice and one which was not necessarily going to pay dividends any time soon. To join a union was to express an interest in defending one's immediate material interests and was by no means a declaration of political loyalty.

The union leadership were adamant that their duty was to represent their members and not to make them into adjuncts of the party. They held the line on this remarkably well. The large growth of the unions and their leaderships' increasing influence within the upper echelons of the SPD was a contributory factor in boosting the conservative elements within the party.

The parliamentary representatives were very influential, as one would expect the public figures primarily associated with Social Democracy to. Their profile was helped significantly by the anti-socialist law which saw them remain one of the few groups of Social Democrats who were immune from persecution.

Schorske says that up until around 1900 that propagation of socialist ideas via the parliamentary delegation and its press was the primary activity of the leadership. This reflected (and was reflected by) the greater weight that the political elements in the leadership carried compared to that of the purely administrative elements. After that, the focus switched to being more on elections, with its concomitant need for systematic administration.

In 1900 the party leadership was constituted as an executive "with two chairmen, two secretaries, a treasurer, and two associates, and a nine-man control commission with powers of review over all actions of the executive"

In 1905, as Rejevan said, the party adapted its classic bureaucratic reforms (under the impetus of the radicals, it ought to be noted; they wanted to discipline the revisionists). After the 1905 Jena Congress, the electoral district organisation was the primary unit and its officers were, to quote Schorske "directly responsible to the party executive and were to report to it annually on membership, financial condition, activity etc. At the same time, provision was made for the establishment of a uniform organisation at the regional level. All electoral district associations were to band together into Land, provincial, or agitational district organisations. Their officers were likewise to be responsible for a full annual report to the party executive, and were to be under the latter's control".

Interestingly, the revisionists, who were strongest in southern Germany, opposed the centralisation of the party authority.

The 1905 Congress also altered the composition of the party executive in order to cope with the increasing administrative demands placed upon it. It enabled the number of secretaries to be increased but retained the limit on the "political" members at four. This resulted in the administrators fairly quickly outnumbering the politicals.

The SPD had a voting system which was weighted in favour of smaller branches and since these were primarily located in rural districts, the delegates sent to congresses reflected to a disproportionate degree the more conservative tendency.

It seems there were a number of factors (the above description isn't exhaustive by any means) that pushed the SPD towards being led by a conservative leadership who controlled a loyal bureaucracy. In some ways, it is remarkable that the radicals retained such influence given the accumulating pressures of being a mass, and as each year went by, an increasingly massive, party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Impressive! Source?

[Zederbaum]

Impressive! Source?
Merci beaucoup :)

Gary Steenson: "Not one man, not one penny": German Social Democracy 1862 - 1914.
Carl Schorske: German Social Democracy 1905 - 1917: The development of the great schism.

[Zanthorus]

"It is evident that the worker movement is divided into two sections, the Chartists and the Socialists. The Chartists are the more backward, the less developed, but they are genuine proletarians all over, the representatives of their class. The Socialists are more far-seeing, propose radical remedies against distress, but, proceeding originally from the bourgeoisie, are for this reason unable to amalgamate completely with the working class. The merger of Socialism with Chartism, the reproduction of French Communism in the English style, will be the next step, and has already begun. Then only, when this has been achieved, will the worker class be the true leader of England." (Engels, Conditions)

This quote doesn't at all suggest the Kautsky-Lenin thesis on consciousness (Or 'merger formula') in fact it suggests quite the opposite. The Chartist party was an independent working-class party formed 'spontaneously' from the workers' struggle against capitalist society, it was not the creation of enlightened Socialist intellectuals. One of the points made explicitly in Engels' conditions of the working-class is how the movement through it's own force developed beyond the trade-union form to the class union or political party. A similar development is suggested in the Manifesto and indeed if this was not the case then the whole problem of the relation between the communists and other working-class parties would have been superfluous. Further, there is no real indication in this Engels' quote of how exactly the 'merger' is concieved of as being achieved and given his hostility in other texts towards 'bourgeois socialism' and belief in the political worthlessness of utopian socialist sects I highly doubt he had in mind the socialist propagandists going into the Chartist movement to force Owenite schemas down their throats.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrade, you confuse the class movement (also called the "class for itself" when one considers that genuine class awareness stems from general political awareness, the degree of internal institutionalization or lack thereof, etc.) with the class as a whole. As I've posted before and written before, socialism was created outside the class movement. The existence of different class-based socialisms means that some were created by worker intellectuals and others were created outside the class as a whole.

[Binh]

Comrade, I thought the SPD had paid party functionaries way before then. :confused:

Based on what I read here, I think the change was appointment from above, not the fact that they were paid. Appointing paid officials and functionaries from above (instead of electing them from below) can create a system of patronage.