Social-Chauvinism

[Flying Purple People Eater]

What is it?

After fishing around in Fundamental Theses of the Party for a quote I'd seen before, I'd noticed that Mr. Amadeo used it multiple times for a description of figures like Trotsky, etc.

Is this something relating to the national question, or was it talking about something else?

[l'Enfermé]

Did he? I just checked it out(Fundamental Theses of the Party) and he doesn't use it to describe Trotsky at all.

Chauvinism is fanatical patriotism, an Anglo-Saxon equivalent would be Jingoism. Social-chauvinism is chauvinism expressed by so-called socialists. All the "social-"s stand for socialist, i.e social-imperialism is socialist imperialism and so on.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I've only heard it applied to racist socialists in the 2nd International - like people in the US Socialist Party who supported restrictions on Chineese immigration and supported/apologized for white supremacist ideas.

[l'Enfermé]

^Lenin described the entire "we must support the defense of the FATHERLAND!" bloc, i.e most of the Mensheviks, the Plekhanovites, the Narodniks, etc., in Russia as social-chauvinists. And all the pro-war socialists in Europe were described as social-chauvinists also.

[Red Enemy]

Kautsky and the SPD, for example, would be social chauvinist for supporting their country in WWI, as opposed to holding an internationalist anti-war stance.

[l'Enfermé]

^Not Kautsky, after his initial confusion at the outbreak of the war, he adopted a more or less opportunistic and cowardly "pacifist" stance.

[el_chavista]

I think it's a fundamental concept as it seems to be the opposite to proletarian internationalism. It even may explain facts like the sino-soviet split in the 1960s.

[Red Enemy]

^Not Kautsky, after his initial confusion at the outbreak of the war, he adopted a more or less opportunistic and cowardly "pacifist" stance.
Apologizing for Kautsky's "initial confusion", which there was none, is fairly absurd. His change in attitude was opportunist, as has Kautsky always been.

[l'Enfermé]

^The real absurdity lies in insinuating that I'm apologizing for Kautsky, no?

[l'Enfermé]

As for there being no "initial confusion", in August 1914 Kautsky was asking the Kaiser's government to give guarantees that it will sue for a peace that doesn't include annexations or reparations as a prerequisite for the SPD voting for war credits(not ironically, he actually thought the government might accept this), and stated that the character of the war couldn't yet be determined.

That wasn't opportunism, it was the idiocy of a confused 60-year old that borders on senility.

[Aurora]

The social-chauvinists were the social-democrats who reneged on their marxism and supported their own countries in the first world war.

Trotsky wasn't a social-chauvinist, in fact if you want to learn more about the betrayal of the social-democrats i'd recommend Trotsky's War and the International together with the Zimmerwald manifesto, Zimmerwald being the conference of the internationalist social-democrats.

[l'Enfermé]

^Not all socialists in Europe made any claims to being Marxists. Non-Marxist "socialists" that took a patriotic position were "social-chauvinists" also.