Source: International Socialist Review, December 1903 issue, Vol. IV, No. 6.
Transcription and Markup: Bill Wright for marxists.org, April, 2023.
The stately stream of the revolutionary socialist movement of the world is accompanied by little side currents and backflows, like all great streams. One of the most notable of the counter-currents in the socialist movement is the tendency toward so-called revisionism or opportunism. The historian who attempts to classify the tendencies expressed by these two terms will find it difficult to group them all together under one head. But broadly speaking, one might call revisionists those who frame the theory of this side current of socialist thought, and opportunists those who seek to apply the new theory in practical party work and in parliament. The principal characteristic of this tendency is not that it revises the Marxian doctrine, for no one is more diligently engaged in applying the keen blade of critique to this doctrine than the revolutionary Marxians themselves. Its principal mark of distinction is that it revises the Marxian doctrine in a direction which brings it into conflict with the revolutionary element. It finds fault with the course of the great revolutionary main current and seeks to divert it into side channels. In order to clearly understand in what respect this new philosophy differs from the original Marxian philosophy, it will be necessary to state the fundamental theses of the two.
The Marxian philosophy declares that the economic foundation of society determines the form of human activity and thought; that the history of all human societies since the introduction of the principle of private property has been a history of class struggles, waged for economic and political supremacy; that in present capitalist society, there are three distinct economic classes: the capitalist class who are in control of the essential means of production, the working class who are proletarian in character, being in possession of no other means of existence but their labor power, which can only be applied by its sale to the capitalist class, and the middle class who are partly capitalist, partly proletarian in character; that the majority of the middle class are being reduced, by the process of capitalist production, to the ranks of the economically lowest class, the working class; that the capitalist minority of the middle class and the capitalists are becoming less and less essential in production compared to the working class; that the ever more intensified economic antagonism between the capitalist class and the working class, and the laws of capitalist production itself, make the downfall of the capitalist system economically inevitable and produce a corresponding intensification of the political class struggle between the two contending forces; that this class struggle will end in the victory of the working class; and that this class will inaugurate a system of collective production based on economic and political equalities which exclude the existence of all classes but one, the working class.
The fundamental theses of revisionism are not formulated so concisely, but they may be stated in substance as follows, taking as their basis Eduard Bernstein’s work, “Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus:” That the Marxian conception of historical materialism is formulated too dogmatically; that the Marxian conception of the class struggle still contains some of the “dangerous elements of Blanquism” and is too catastrophic; that the economic inevitability of the collapse of capitalism cannot be fully demonstrated; that the middle class does not disappear from society, but simply changes its character; that the class antagonisms do not become more intense, but milder. The final aim of the historical mission of the working class is not denied by revisionist philosophy, but recedes almost out of sight before the present day activity of the socialist movement, as they would have it.
The purpose of this article does not require a further analysis of these fundamental theses as to their soundness. I am simply stating the conditions, not analyzing their theoretical origin. I am comparing what others have formulated, not seeking to justify the scientific claims of one side or the other. I can therefore proceed to state that the Marxian philosophy has given rise to tactics which follow the so-called revolutionary method, tactics which aim to keep step in the uncompromising political evolution of the working class with the economic evolution of the capitalist system and to accompany the intensification of the economic class struggle by an intensification of the political class struggle. It does not pretend to cure the evils of capitalist society by the old method of symptomatic treatment, but by the abolition of the causes of the evil. The revisionist theory, on the other hand, has created a tactic which is so free from the “dangerous elements of Blanquism” that it has a decided affinity for the utopian attempts of Proudhon to emancipate the working class by the help of the capitalist class, or for the abandoned Lassallean standpoint of securing the aid of the capitalist state for the amelioration of the condition of the working class. The revolutionary method keeps the class lines constantly and clearly in view; the revisionist method blurs or even obliterates them.
The salient points of the Marxian and of the revisionist tactics are supposed to be summarized in the following resolution, which was adopted by a vote of 288 against 11 at the Dresden convention of the German Social Democracy, September, 1903:
“The convention repudiates emphatically the revisionist attempts to change our present tried and victorious tactics in such a way that the conquest of the political power by a defeat of the capitalists would be replaced by a policy of conciliation with the present order of things. The consequence of such a policy would be that our party, instead of being a movement aiming to revolutionize the present capitalist society, would be transformed into a movement which would be content to reform the present society. The convention furthermore condemns the attempt of glossing over, in the interest of a gradual approach to the capitalist parties, the ever increasing class antagonisms. The convention instructs its representatives in the Reichstag to use the greater power acquired by an increase in the number of mandates and of the mass of socialist voters in the interest of the proletariat as provided by our platform, to work energetically for the extension and security of the political liberties and equal rights of all, and to carry on a still more aggressive campaign against militarism, against an increase of the navy, against colonial expansion, against imperial world politics, and against wrong, oppression, and exploitation of every kind.”
The discussion of the resolution at the Dresden convention reproduced, in a more pronounced form, the phenomena which had appeared in the wake of Bernstein’s above named work. Bernstein strenuously denied that it was his intention, or even a logical conclusion from his standpoint, to abandon the ground of the class struggle. He held that the resolution did not represent his case fairly and therefore voted against it. Most of his followers also claimed that they were not revisionists in the sense defined by the resolution, and that, since it did not fit their case, they could very well vote for it. And so they did. This lack of unity on the part of the revisionists was also shown in their theoretical discussions. In the literary discussions, Bernstein often found himself compelled to deny that the conclusions of so-called Bemsteinians could be derived from his criticism of the Marxian doctrine. And whenever revisionism was pressed for a concise definition of its position, the majority of Bernstein’s followers forsook him. The same lack of unity is also shown by the practical opportunists. While the German opportunists claim to be in full harmony with the Marxian program and method, the Italian and French opportunists have formulated a socialist program of their own, and drawn the very conclusions which Bernstein repudiates. And while the German opportunists, in spite of their lack of harmony in theory and practice, have expressed themselves in favor of the unity of the party, the French and Italian opportunists have established harmony between theory and practice by divorcing themselves from the revolutionary method, forming distinct opportunist parties, and going to the full length of the practical consequences of such a step. The revolutionary Marxians are a unit on the fundamentals enumerated above and on the revolutionary method.
But apart from these differences between revisionists and opportunists, there are other differences between revisionist-opportunists and revolutionary socialists that complicate the situation still more. These differences seem to be mainly traceable to certain misunderstandings, which are expressed in the charge that the revolutionary element rejects all present day work for palliatives and is working intentionally toward a catastrophe, and on the other hand that the revisionists are undermining the independent existence of the party by neglecting the class lines. Neither of these charges can be logically connected with the theoretical and practical position of the two camps. The revolutionaries cannot be blamed for any catastrophes that may follow in the course of social evolution, because there is no fundamental distinction between evolution and revolution, such as some revisionists affect. The Marxian philosophy defines revolution as a certain stage of evolution. Hence catastrophes lie in the very dialectic of capitalist development. We do not seek these conflicts willfully. We are born into the midst of them. Between the choice of meeting a catastrophe by preparing for it or meeting it unprepared, the revolutionary socialists prefer the former alternative. Therefore they endeavor to organize the working class in harmony with this process of evolution and work consciously toward the stage where the economic revolution will be accompanied by the political revolution of the proletariat. Whether this will bring on a catastrophe will depend in the last analysis on the capitalist class, not on the working class.
On the other side, the revisionists seem to have a secret horror of the idea of a final climax between the contending forces in the class struggle. And the revisionist theory of the decrease in the intensity of the class antagonisms furnishes the scientific basis for this view. Nevertheless, this policy cannot evade the final catastrophe any more than the Marxian tactics can. It only leaves the proletariat unprepared for it.
As for the charge that revisionist tactics must necessarily and logically lead to a dissolution of the party or of the party discipline, this is founded on the similar misapprehension of the facts as the charge of catastrophic intentions. The German and Belgian Socialist movement has not suffered in unity and discipline, in spite of its tactical differences, while the Italian and French Socialist movement has. Hence there must be some deeper cause to explain these results; they cannot be traced to the theory of revisionism itself. Kautsky sees a step toward the solution of the problem in the distinction between theoretical revisionists and practical opportunists. Of course, there is such a distinction, and I have made it in the introduction of this article. But the same distinction can also be made between theoretical and practical Marxians. That is a perfectly legitimate and rational distinction, but it explains nothing as to the fundamental differences between Marxians and revisionists. The theory is simply the mental workshop for the socialist politician, be he revolutionary or revisionist. The trouble must be sought deeper.
In my opinion, the cause of the tactical differences between the revolutionary main current and the revisionist counter current is found in the fact that no socialist program has so far made a clear distinction between the class struggle in the electoral battle and the class struggle in parliament. And yet there is a very marked distinction between the two. It is the fundamental difference between the maximum program and the minimum program, between the fundamental socialist platform and the immediate demands. While in our electoral campaigns we are distinguishing ourselves from all other parties by the maximum program, which can only be realized by the revolutionary method and by a majority of the voters of a nation, we are forced, while representing a minority party in parliament, to confine ourselves to the minimum program, which is essentially non-revolutionary and symptomatic in character. This minimum program offers little opportunity for the employment of the revolutionary method, but lends itself much better to the opportunist method. The Dresden resolution has not solved this contradiction. It starts out with a ringing declaration in favor of the revolutionary method, but ends with a weak program which that method shall realize at present. The resolution is, therefore, unable to give either the Marxians or the revisionists their just dues.
The distinction between the maximum program and the minimum program is plainly that the first is our real platform, while the minimum program is nothing but a set of instructions given to our representatives in parliament for their guidance in parliamentarian action. To the fact that the Communist Manifesto, in 1848, has not made this distinction, and that the first German Socialist platform did not correct this mistake, is due, in my opinion, to the whole trouble which the revisionist ideas have caused. From this contradiction between the revolutionary method and the opportunist immediate demands spring all the difficulties between Marxians and Bernsteinians in Germany, Guesdists and Jauresists in France, Ferrians and Turatians in Italy. The authors of the Communist Manifesto had at least a good reason for attaching an opportunist program to their revolutionary manifesto; and the same reason, that of compromising with heterogeneous elements, was still active in the formulation of the Gotha program of the German Socialist Party in 1875. But the Erfurt program of that party, in 1891, was no longer subject to such considerations of expediency. On the contrary, every consideration of that period was in favor of separating the campaign platform from the working program of the elected representatives.
There is a very logical reason for this differentiation of our campaign platform from the parliamentarian program. The campaign platform is the basis on which the whole body of socialist voters is moving in elections as distinguished from all other voters. But the program for parliamentarian action outlined by the immediate demands is only the basis for the movement of our representatives. These representatives get into office only because the whole body of Socialist voters is moving on a platform which draws a sharp class line between socialist and capitalist voters. But after they have been elected, it devolves upon them to carry out the instructions embodied for their guidance in the immediate demands. The whole body of socialist voters cannot take any direct part in the realization of the immediate demands. They must be realized by the representatives alone. On the other hand, the demands outlined in our straight socialist platform cannot be realized while we are a minority party. They require not only the action of our representatives, but the active participation of the majority of the nation. In this they differ from the immediate demands, which may be enacted into laws without the active participation of the voters. But when we become a majority party, parliament as an independent law making body ceases to exist, and the power of legislation passes into the hands of the rank and file of the socialist majority, who set about inaugurating the co-operative commonwealth.
It is clear that this fundamental difference between the minimum and the maximum program, between the action of the representatives of the party and of the whole party, should be plainly expressed by a separation of the one from the other. Nothing should go into our campaign platforms but the typical socialist demands. And the immediate demands should be published in the form of a handbook for our representatives, to be used by them in their parliamentarian work, and by our agitators for propaganda purposes. Such a separation in no way interferes with the present day activity of our representatives, but rather paves the way for a more elaborate immediate program. And at the same time such a separation of the fundamental platform from the opportunist program removes all possibility for any election compromises that might endanger our separate existence as a party. It leaves no room for any opportunism in election campaigns, and that is the only dangerous opportunism. Opportunism in parliament is powerless to hurt the stability of the movement, because the party membership, and in a wider sense the mass of the socialist voters, have it in their hands to elect candidates that will not compromise, even in parliament. And since we have put the principles of direct legislation in practice in our party affairs the rank and file of the socialist movement is alone to blame if it places opportunists into responsible positions.
The further consequences of the separation of our principles from present day opportunism are still more significant. This step will make that possible which the Communist Manifesto was unable to accomplish: It will make the adoption of a uniform international socialist program a possibility.
We are fond of boasting of our international character. We proudly point to the fact that the class-conscious working men of the world have already solved for themselves what all the sentimental capitalist philosophers were unable to accomplish— the question of international peace. But as yet we have not manifested our international solidarity by anything but international congresses and an international socialist bureau. We have neglected to do that by which all parties document their solidarity. We have not demonstrated to the working classes and to the capitalist classes of the world that we are international because we are all standing on a uniform international program. But if we can meet at the same international congress and elect delegates to the same international bureau, why not have first of all an international program?
The only thing that has prevented the adoption of such a program is precisely the immediate demand tail, which had to be adapted to local conditions. With the separation of the minimum program from the maximum program there is no longer any reason why we should not adopt the same program in all countries of the globe.
I will not urge the adoption of such a program for any opportunist reasons. I will not point to the fact that the existence of a multitude of socialist programs has not only made it possible for the capitalists of one nation to claim that the socialists of another nation were not socialists at all, but also enabled the capitalists of certain nations to play one socialist party against the other socialist party of the same country. I will not mention the fact that a uniform program would force the Jauresists in France, the Independent Labor Party in England, the Socialist Labor Party in the United States, to show their true colors and to either unite with those who are willing to adopt this uniform program or to stay outside and confess that they are either anarchists or reformers. I will not base my appeal for a uniform international program on such and similar reasons. I am content to claim that a uniform program for all socialist parties of the world is a logical and matter-of-course demand.
I shall not presume to formulate such a program. There is not the slightest doubt that our various delegates at the next international convention in Amsterdam will easily give us a program that will be acceptable to every sincere and class-conscious socialist. And I am satisfied to leave it to the rank and file of all socialist parties whether their delegates shall be instructed to work for the adoption of such a program or not. A united action of all revolutionary socialists in the world is sooner or later indispensable. Let us furnish to the world the unmistakable proof that we are one and the same International Socialist Party.
Ernest Untermann.
Last updated on 8 April 2023