l'Enfermé
3rd October 2012, 16:31
I've been re-reading pre-renagade Karl Kautsky's The Road to Power (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/index.htm) earlier today(read it for the first time on marxists.org, but I recently bought a physical copy) and so far I've gotten up to Chapter 5, and in the second half of Chapter 5 I found some paragraphs I didn't remember from before, namely;
There is, however, a faction that calls itself proletarian and social revolutionary which takes as its most favored task, next to fighting the Socialist party, the provoking of a policy of violence. The very thing that the statesmen of the ruling class desire, and which is alone capable of checking the victorious progress of the proletariat, is made the principal business of this faction, thereby gaining them the special favor of Puttkamer and his followers. The adherents of this faction do not seek to WEAKEN but to ENRAGE the capitalist.
The overthrow of the Paris Commune was, as has already been noted, the last great defeat of the proletariat. Since that time it has, in most countries, marched steadily forward. This has been due to the acceptance of the tactics just described, and if the progress has sometimes been slower than we might desire, it has been more certain than that of any previous revolutionary movement.
There have been but few instances since 1871 where the proletarian movement has suffered any setback, and in every instance these have been due to the interference by individuals with methods that we have come to designate as “anarchistic”, since they correspond to the tactics preached by the great majority of present-day anarchists as the “propaganda of the deed”.
Concerning the evils inflicted by the anarchists in the “International” and by the uprising in Spain in 1873 we can only make a passing reference. Five years after these uprisings came the incident of the popular rage excited by the attacks of Hodel and Nobiling, without which Bismarck would scarcely have been able to carry his anti-Socialist laws. It certainly could not have been so rigorously administered as it was during the first years of its existence, and the German proletariat would have been spared some terrible sacrifices, and its victorious progress would not have been checked even for a moment.
The next setback suffered by the labor movement was in Austria in 1884 as a result of the knavery and bestiality of Kammerer, Stellmacher, and their followers. The mightily growing Socialist movement there was over thrown at a single stroke without being able to offer a trace of resistance, crushed, not by the authorities, but by the general rage of the people, who charged the Socialists with the acts of the so-called anarchists.
Another setback came in America in 1886. The labor movement had been growing rapidly, and had attained great power. It had been progressing with such giant strides that many observers thought it possible that within a short time it would pass the European movement and stand on the apex of the labor movement of the world. In the spring of 1886 the unions made a tremendous concerted effort to secure the eight hour day. The labor organizations grew to colossal size. Strike followed strike. The most hopeful expectations ruled, and the Socialists, always the foremost and most active, began to attain to the leadership of the movement.
Then at one of the numerous clashes between the laborers and the police came the well known Chicago bomb affair of May 4. No one knows, even today, who was the real author of this affair. The anarchists who were hung upon the 11th of November and their associates, who were condemned to long terns of imprisonment, were the sacrifices of a judicial murder. But the deed had corresponded to the tactics so long preached by the anarchists. It released the rage of the entire bourgeoisie of America, confused the laborers and discredited the Socialists, whom the people did not know how to distinguish from the anarchists, and whom they often did not wish to distinguish.
The struggle for the eight hour day ended with the defeat of the workers. The labor movement collapsed and the Socialist movement sank into insignificance. Not until within recent years has it once more slowly arisen in the United States.
The only great injuries suffered by the labor movement during the last twenty years have come as a result of acts for which the anarchists were directly responsible, or else which were in accord with the tactics they preach. The anti-Socialist laws of Germany, the exceptional conditions in Austria, the judicial murder in Chicago, with its results, all were thereby made possible.
The possibility that anarchy will again gain a hold upon the masses, is today much less than ever before.
The two great causes which made the. people receptive to anarchy were lack of insight and hopelessness, and especially the apparent impossibility of securing the slightest improvement by means of political action.
During the first half of the ‘80s, during the time when the laborers of Austria and the United States were captured by anarchistic phrases, both countries showed a most remarkable growth in the labor movement – but which was also almost entirely without leaders. The battalions of labor were formed almost entirely from undrilled recruits, without knowledge, without experience and without officers. And out of this condition arose the apparent impossibility of overthrowing the political domination of capital by political methods. The laborers of Austria did not possess the suffrage and had little hopes of obtaining it through legal methods in any conceivable time. In America the laborers were disheartened by the political corruption.
Even in other countries beside these two there was a pessimistic wave during the ’80s. Since then things have changed everywhere for the better. In Austria there was still another condition favoring the rise of anarchy – faith in the Socialists had been almost destroyed among the masses. When the political and economic weapons – the organization and the press – of the German proletariat were destroyed by the anti-Socialist laws, the just arising anarchists in Austria took advantage of this situation to accuse the party which had thus been rendered momentarily dumb, of having thrown away its weapons and renounced its revolutionary principles. The Austrian Socialists who defended their German comrades not only failed to rehabilitate the latter in the eyes of the majority of the Austrian laborers, but only succeeded in discrediting themselves. A government official, Count Lamezan, gave his assistance to the anarchists, who were naturally very much beloved by him, and sneeringly declared that the Socialists were only “revolutionists in dressing gowns”.
Even today the anarchists devote most of their activities to showing that the Socialists are only “revolutionists in dressing gowns”.
Up to the present time they have had little success. But if it should ever be possible for an anarchist movement to gain a foothold in Germany, it would not be because of the agitation of the “independents,” but either through such action of the ruling class as would destroy all hope among the laborers and inspire them with an attitude of extreme prejudice, or else through events among ourselves which would arouse the idea that we had relinquished our revolutionary attitude. The more “moderate” we become, therefore, the more water we supply to the mills of the anarchists, and thus give aid to just the movement that would substitute the most brutal forms of battle for the civilized forms of struggle. We may say that there is today one force that would cause the workers to turn of their own accord from the “peaceable” methods of struggles that we have just been considering – the loss of faith in the revolutionary character of our party. We can endanger the course of peaceful evolution only by too great peacefulness.
We do not need to state here what misfortunes will follow any wavering in our policy.
The opposition of the possessing classes will not thereby be diminished, and no trustworthy friends will be won thereby. It would, however, introduce confusion into our own ranks, render the indifferent more indifferent still and drive away the energetic.
The greatest force making for our success is the revolutionary enthusiasm. We will need this more in the future than ever before, for the greatest difficulties are before, not behind us. So much the worse for all these things that tend to weaken this power.
The present situation brings the danger that we will appear more “moderate” than we really are. The stronger we become the more practical tasks are forced into the foreground, the more we must extend our agitation beyond the circle of the industrial wage worker, and just so much the more we are compelled to guard against any useless provocation or any absolutely empty threats. It is very difficult to maintain the proper balance, to give the present its full due without losing sight of the future, to enter into the mental attitude of the farmers and the small capitalists without giving up the proletarian standpoint, to avoid all possible provocation and yet always maintain the consciousness that we are a fighting party, conducting an irreconcilable war upon all existing social institutions.
The above paragraphs were written in 1893. They also contain a prophecy that has since been fulfilled. What I feared in 1893 appeared a few years later. In France a portion of our party membership became temporarily a government party. The masses received the impression that the Socialists had renounced their revolutionary principles. They lost faith in the party. Not a small section of them fell under the influence of the latest variety of anarchism – syndicalism – which, like the old anarchism, follows the propaganda of the deed not so much to strengthen the proletariat as unnecessarily to frighten the bourgeoisie, to arouse its rage and provoke immature, inopportune tests of strength, to which the proletariat is not adequate in the existing conditions.
It is just the revolutionary Marxists among French Socialists who have presented the most determined opposition to this tendency. They fight syndicalism as energetically as ministerialism, and consider one just as injurious as the other.
The revolutionary Marxists are still standing today upon the standpoint developed by Engels and myself in the articles just quoted, written in 1892-1895.
We are neither men of legality at any price, nor are we revolutionists at any price. We know that we cannot create historical situations to suit our desires, and that our tactics must correspond to such situations.
At the beginning of the ’90s I had recognized that further peaceful development of the proletarian organizations and the proletarian class struggle, upon the then existing governmental foundations, would best advance the proletariat in the situation existing at that time. Neither can I be accused of being drunk with r-r-revolution and r-r-radicalism when my observation of the present situation leads me to the conclusion that the situation which existed at the beginning of the ’90s has fundamentally changed, and that today we have every reason to believe that we are entering upon a period of fighting for governmental institutions and governmental power; that these battles under manifold conditions and changes of fortune may continue for a decade, and that the form and duration of these battles cannot now be foretold, but which it is highly probable will within a comparatively short time bring about important changes in relative power in favor of the proletariat, if they do not bring its complete domination in Western Europe. The reasons for these views will be indicated in the following chapters.
Well, maybe a bit more than just a few paragraphs...
It's pretty interesting for me because I've never realized that Kautsky, and if Kautsky did so, many other Marxists must have followed in his step, placed so much blame for the various defeats of working class after 1870-1871 on Anarchists.
Do any anarchists want to counter what Kautsky wrote?
Also, Kautsky made references to:
The 1873 Summer revolt in Spain, on which Engels has written (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1873/bakunin/index.htm).
Karl Nobiling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Nobiling) and Max Hodel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_H%C3%B6del), anarchist would-be propogandists of the deed who tried to assassinate the German Emperor.
Hermann Stellmacher and Anton Kammerer (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammerer_et_Stellmacher), Austrian anarchist murderers and bombers
And the Haymarket Affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair), which he calls the Chicago bomb affair of May 4(1886).
There is, however, a faction that calls itself proletarian and social revolutionary which takes as its most favored task, next to fighting the Socialist party, the provoking of a policy of violence. The very thing that the statesmen of the ruling class desire, and which is alone capable of checking the victorious progress of the proletariat, is made the principal business of this faction, thereby gaining them the special favor of Puttkamer and his followers. The adherents of this faction do not seek to WEAKEN but to ENRAGE the capitalist.
The overthrow of the Paris Commune was, as has already been noted, the last great defeat of the proletariat. Since that time it has, in most countries, marched steadily forward. This has been due to the acceptance of the tactics just described, and if the progress has sometimes been slower than we might desire, it has been more certain than that of any previous revolutionary movement.
There have been but few instances since 1871 where the proletarian movement has suffered any setback, and in every instance these have been due to the interference by individuals with methods that we have come to designate as “anarchistic”, since they correspond to the tactics preached by the great majority of present-day anarchists as the “propaganda of the deed”.
Concerning the evils inflicted by the anarchists in the “International” and by the uprising in Spain in 1873 we can only make a passing reference. Five years after these uprisings came the incident of the popular rage excited by the attacks of Hodel and Nobiling, without which Bismarck would scarcely have been able to carry his anti-Socialist laws. It certainly could not have been so rigorously administered as it was during the first years of its existence, and the German proletariat would have been spared some terrible sacrifices, and its victorious progress would not have been checked even for a moment.
The next setback suffered by the labor movement was in Austria in 1884 as a result of the knavery and bestiality of Kammerer, Stellmacher, and their followers. The mightily growing Socialist movement there was over thrown at a single stroke without being able to offer a trace of resistance, crushed, not by the authorities, but by the general rage of the people, who charged the Socialists with the acts of the so-called anarchists.
Another setback came in America in 1886. The labor movement had been growing rapidly, and had attained great power. It had been progressing with such giant strides that many observers thought it possible that within a short time it would pass the European movement and stand on the apex of the labor movement of the world. In the spring of 1886 the unions made a tremendous concerted effort to secure the eight hour day. The labor organizations grew to colossal size. Strike followed strike. The most hopeful expectations ruled, and the Socialists, always the foremost and most active, began to attain to the leadership of the movement.
Then at one of the numerous clashes between the laborers and the police came the well known Chicago bomb affair of May 4. No one knows, even today, who was the real author of this affair. The anarchists who were hung upon the 11th of November and their associates, who were condemned to long terns of imprisonment, were the sacrifices of a judicial murder. But the deed had corresponded to the tactics so long preached by the anarchists. It released the rage of the entire bourgeoisie of America, confused the laborers and discredited the Socialists, whom the people did not know how to distinguish from the anarchists, and whom they often did not wish to distinguish.
The struggle for the eight hour day ended with the defeat of the workers. The labor movement collapsed and the Socialist movement sank into insignificance. Not until within recent years has it once more slowly arisen in the United States.
The only great injuries suffered by the labor movement during the last twenty years have come as a result of acts for which the anarchists were directly responsible, or else which were in accord with the tactics they preach. The anti-Socialist laws of Germany, the exceptional conditions in Austria, the judicial murder in Chicago, with its results, all were thereby made possible.
The possibility that anarchy will again gain a hold upon the masses, is today much less than ever before.
The two great causes which made the. people receptive to anarchy were lack of insight and hopelessness, and especially the apparent impossibility of securing the slightest improvement by means of political action.
During the first half of the ‘80s, during the time when the laborers of Austria and the United States were captured by anarchistic phrases, both countries showed a most remarkable growth in the labor movement – but which was also almost entirely without leaders. The battalions of labor were formed almost entirely from undrilled recruits, without knowledge, without experience and without officers. And out of this condition arose the apparent impossibility of overthrowing the political domination of capital by political methods. The laborers of Austria did not possess the suffrage and had little hopes of obtaining it through legal methods in any conceivable time. In America the laborers were disheartened by the political corruption.
Even in other countries beside these two there was a pessimistic wave during the ’80s. Since then things have changed everywhere for the better. In Austria there was still another condition favoring the rise of anarchy – faith in the Socialists had been almost destroyed among the masses. When the political and economic weapons – the organization and the press – of the German proletariat were destroyed by the anti-Socialist laws, the just arising anarchists in Austria took advantage of this situation to accuse the party which had thus been rendered momentarily dumb, of having thrown away its weapons and renounced its revolutionary principles. The Austrian Socialists who defended their German comrades not only failed to rehabilitate the latter in the eyes of the majority of the Austrian laborers, but only succeeded in discrediting themselves. A government official, Count Lamezan, gave his assistance to the anarchists, who were naturally very much beloved by him, and sneeringly declared that the Socialists were only “revolutionists in dressing gowns”.
Even today the anarchists devote most of their activities to showing that the Socialists are only “revolutionists in dressing gowns”.
Up to the present time they have had little success. But if it should ever be possible for an anarchist movement to gain a foothold in Germany, it would not be because of the agitation of the “independents,” but either through such action of the ruling class as would destroy all hope among the laborers and inspire them with an attitude of extreme prejudice, or else through events among ourselves which would arouse the idea that we had relinquished our revolutionary attitude. The more “moderate” we become, therefore, the more water we supply to the mills of the anarchists, and thus give aid to just the movement that would substitute the most brutal forms of battle for the civilized forms of struggle. We may say that there is today one force that would cause the workers to turn of their own accord from the “peaceable” methods of struggles that we have just been considering – the loss of faith in the revolutionary character of our party. We can endanger the course of peaceful evolution only by too great peacefulness.
We do not need to state here what misfortunes will follow any wavering in our policy.
The opposition of the possessing classes will not thereby be diminished, and no trustworthy friends will be won thereby. It would, however, introduce confusion into our own ranks, render the indifferent more indifferent still and drive away the energetic.
The greatest force making for our success is the revolutionary enthusiasm. We will need this more in the future than ever before, for the greatest difficulties are before, not behind us. So much the worse for all these things that tend to weaken this power.
The present situation brings the danger that we will appear more “moderate” than we really are. The stronger we become the more practical tasks are forced into the foreground, the more we must extend our agitation beyond the circle of the industrial wage worker, and just so much the more we are compelled to guard against any useless provocation or any absolutely empty threats. It is very difficult to maintain the proper balance, to give the present its full due without losing sight of the future, to enter into the mental attitude of the farmers and the small capitalists without giving up the proletarian standpoint, to avoid all possible provocation and yet always maintain the consciousness that we are a fighting party, conducting an irreconcilable war upon all existing social institutions.
The above paragraphs were written in 1893. They also contain a prophecy that has since been fulfilled. What I feared in 1893 appeared a few years later. In France a portion of our party membership became temporarily a government party. The masses received the impression that the Socialists had renounced their revolutionary principles. They lost faith in the party. Not a small section of them fell under the influence of the latest variety of anarchism – syndicalism – which, like the old anarchism, follows the propaganda of the deed not so much to strengthen the proletariat as unnecessarily to frighten the bourgeoisie, to arouse its rage and provoke immature, inopportune tests of strength, to which the proletariat is not adequate in the existing conditions.
It is just the revolutionary Marxists among French Socialists who have presented the most determined opposition to this tendency. They fight syndicalism as energetically as ministerialism, and consider one just as injurious as the other.
The revolutionary Marxists are still standing today upon the standpoint developed by Engels and myself in the articles just quoted, written in 1892-1895.
We are neither men of legality at any price, nor are we revolutionists at any price. We know that we cannot create historical situations to suit our desires, and that our tactics must correspond to such situations.
At the beginning of the ’90s I had recognized that further peaceful development of the proletarian organizations and the proletarian class struggle, upon the then existing governmental foundations, would best advance the proletariat in the situation existing at that time. Neither can I be accused of being drunk with r-r-revolution and r-r-radicalism when my observation of the present situation leads me to the conclusion that the situation which existed at the beginning of the ’90s has fundamentally changed, and that today we have every reason to believe that we are entering upon a period of fighting for governmental institutions and governmental power; that these battles under manifold conditions and changes of fortune may continue for a decade, and that the form and duration of these battles cannot now be foretold, but which it is highly probable will within a comparatively short time bring about important changes in relative power in favor of the proletariat, if they do not bring its complete domination in Western Europe. The reasons for these views will be indicated in the following chapters.
Well, maybe a bit more than just a few paragraphs...
It's pretty interesting for me because I've never realized that Kautsky, and if Kautsky did so, many other Marxists must have followed in his step, placed so much blame for the various defeats of working class after 1870-1871 on Anarchists.
Do any anarchists want to counter what Kautsky wrote?
Also, Kautsky made references to:
The 1873 Summer revolt in Spain, on which Engels has written (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1873/bakunin/index.htm).
Karl Nobiling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Nobiling) and Max Hodel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_H%C3%B6del), anarchist would-be propogandists of the deed who tried to assassinate the German Emperor.
Hermann Stellmacher and Anton Kammerer (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammerer_et_Stellmacher), Austrian anarchist murderers and bombers
And the Haymarket Affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair), which he calls the Chicago bomb affair of May 4(1886).