Have we lost sight of the right? (On popular Marxist historiography)

  1. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    I don't know if this is the right forum, but I'll try to start this discussion here anyway. If all goes well this discussion could be copied to the history forum. But I fear my remarks are far too specific for the general forum.

    I was thinking about the crisis of theory and the following came up:

    Okay, so, everyone "knows" about "the betrayal" of the working class by the German social democracy (SPD) in August 1914. We all have an opinion of "the renegates" who formed the center, notably Karl Kautsky, from 1910/1914 onwards. (Hence "centrism".) And we all talk about "the mistakes" of Rosa Luxemburg prior to the formation of an organised communist left within the German workers' movement in 1918-1919.

    But I must admit that I don't know much about the development of the social democratic right wing. The ascendancy of party officials like Ebert, Scheidemann or Noske, the real influence of Bernstein, the role of trade union leaders such as Karl Legien, etc. It's all foggy. Personally, I think you can't have a clue of what happened to German social democracy, or even how the center developed and why the German left behaved like it behaved... if you don't know anything about developments on the right and how they are related to the ones on the left and the center.

    You could say the same for the Bolsheviks. But here we're used to entering "the Mensheviks" in the equation. So basically we say: the Bolsheviks were Bolsheviks because they were definately not Mensheviks. Lenin was a Bolshevik because he had to fight the Mensheviks. Most of the time all other groupings such a Trotsky's are left out for simplification. Even worse, some concider the others (like Trotsky) Mensheviks as well.

    In the end we don't know anything about the Mensheviks except that they did not have the Bolshevik view of the party, the road to state power and the international character of the Russian revolution. In short: they were not Bolsheviks. Yet so many social democrats were not Bolsheviks. We now know that until 1917/1919 many "Bolsheviks" did not concider themselves Bolsheviks but social democrats.

    We pretend to know how Luxemburg responded to the Russian revolution of 1905, but we know little about the attitude of the German trade unions except from Luxemburgs pamflet. At the Mannheim Congress of 1906, the mutual equality and independence of trade unions and the SPD was formally established. With the Congress of Mannheim, German unions and the SPD agreed on a partnership and "pragmatic division of labor". What this means for the inner party struggle for ("revolutionary vs. reformist") leadership is unknown to me.

    As proof of how this constitutes a problem, maybe, out of a lack of knowledge, maybe I'm already using the wrong lable. Maybe it's wrong to put so many opponents of Luxemburg or the center on "the right". Was there such a thing as the "right wing" (i.e. a faction or a block)? Was someone like Karl Legien right wing?

    I give you the German example, but as I wrote before: the same could be said about the Russians. I think this is a problem we have to tackle.
  2. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    Der politische Massenstreik, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Massenstreikdiskussionen innerhalb der deutschen Sozialdemokratie (1914) by Kautsky: http://archive.org/details/derpolitischemas00kautuoft

    If you use a proxy you can read his polemics against the right during the war: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007392254

    Some scattered recollections by Vandervelde (e.g. on the 1913 mass strike): http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt...ervelde.langEN

    In the G.V.Plekhanov group I created a thread about his writings during 1917-18.
  3. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    This discussion is in the right place, and I hope it does get popularized to History with enough posts.

    But I must admit that I don't know much about the development of the social democratic right wing. The ascendancy of party officials like Ebert, Scheidemann or Noske, the real influence of Bernstein, the role of trade union leaders such as Karl Legien, etc. It's all foggy.
    That's because, other than reform coalitionism or worse, they couldn't really be lumped together. Of that bunch, Bernstein and co. were the most "left," while Ebert and co. were the most "right." Even amongst the "most right," there was the divide between Ebert's Continentalism and what would become British Labourism on the "party based on the trade unions" model. The likes of Jaures in France were in their own "center." The goals of Bernstein and co. were clearly different from the goals of Ebert and co., as demonstrated by the former group's anti-war pacifism.

    Personally, I think you can't have a clue of what happened to German social democracy, or even how the center developed and why the German left behaved like it behaved... if you don't know anything about developments on the right and how they are related to the ones on the left and the center.
    As I implied above, it's not just the German social-democratic right wing that was divided.

    At the Mannheim Congress of 1906, the mutual equality and independence of trade unions and the SPD was formally established. With the Congress of Mannheim, German unions and the SPD agreed on a partnership and "pragmatic division of labor". What this means for the inner party struggle for ("revolutionary vs. reformist") leadership is unknown to me.
    Which is funny because the right wing managed to back off of that, didn't it?

    Honestly, I think it would have been better if this Mannheim Congress resolution never happened. There should have been open recognition of independent trade unions still not having much political potential (Daniel DeLeon's musings aside). "Reform or revolution" as a question cannot be approached until one steps into the political.

    I think this is a problem we have to tackle.
    I'll admit my remarks so far in this thread have been brief, cobbling together various observations by Mike Macnair. Today, any prospect for reform coalitionism is split in two: populist/neo-"Continental" model (Left Front in France), and Labourite "organized labour" model (Workers' Party of Brazil). This is because the interests of the "precariat" cannot be met by the latter.
  4. Geiseric
    Geiseric
    The mensheviks were social chauvanists who sold out the revolution to the provisional government and advocated crushing the Soviets, as soon as they lost control of them due to the reputation of the bolsheviks. Martov wanted the rsdlp to be like the current sp usa, which involves not so socialists in it.
  5. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    That's because, other than reform coalitionism or worse, they couldn't really be lumped together.
    True. But that doesn't mean there were no currents, coalitions or blocks of right wingers that helped to define the struggles in and outside the party.

    Let's compare the political struggle of Rosa Luxemburg against "reformism" to boxing. You can focus on the moves and punches of Luxemburg, her training, who she trained with and who's her coach. We can also focus on the reaction of the crowd to her moves and punches. For many a popular historian or propagandist on the left this suffices to get a real picture of the history of the workers' movement. Yet this means two things are left out: the ring (plus referee) and the opponent. We tend to define the ring, the SPD in this historical example, solely by the way the boxer, Luxemburg, moves. We leave the opponent out of the equation even though the opponent defines the freedom of movement our boxer has. Maybe the opponent even determines the place of battle, just like he determines the tactics and even the training our boxer needs to become victorious.
  6. bad ideas actualised by alcohol
    bad ideas actualised by alcohol
    I know this might derail the thread a bit. But I have a hard time finding any history-books about for example the SPD, Second International, the Mensheviks even. The stuff I have found is usually out of print and hard to find second hand.
    So maybe, again perhaps this is a bit off-topic, could you guys suggest some stuff.
  7. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    Also Kautsky's Taktische Strömungen in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie (1911, 36 p.) has a section on party and union.
  8. Workers-Control-Over-Prod
    Workers-Control-Over-Prod
    I know this might derail the thread a bit. But I have a hard time finding any history-books about for example the SPD, Second International, the Mensheviks even. The stuff I have found is usually out of print and hard to find second hand.
    So maybe, again perhaps this is a bit off-topic, could you guys suggest some stuff.
    I also found it very hard to find anything when i delved into the subject last year. Most books floating around the market that mention the SPD in Germany are small privately owned books printed in East Germany, which have their own bias. It should be added though that the German Bourgeoisie, during its counterrevolution against the "Peasant and Worker's State", ransacked the world's largest Library and buried all of the East Berlin published books.
  9. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    Also the SR party is left out. Victor Chernov's book is available online: The Great Russian Revolution.

    (and a bibliography)
  10. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    Thank you Noa. I'll try to delve into some of these texts to complete my Bebel-paper.