Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
"LEFT" COMMUNISM IN GERMANY: LEADERS-PARTY-CLASSES THE MASSES.
The German Communists, of whom we shall now speak, call themselves not "left," but, if I am not mistaken, the "opposition on principle" That they fully come under the symptoms of the "infantile disorder of leftness" will be seen from what follows.
A small pamphlet headed, "The Split in the Communist Party of Germany" (the Spartacist Union) issued by "the local groups in Frankfurt-am-Main," sets forth pointedly, concisely, clearly and briefly the substance of the views of the opposition. A few quotations will suffice to acquaint the reader with the essential points: "The Communist Party is a party of the most decisive class struggle. . . ."
"Politically, this transition period (between capitalism and Socialism) is the period of the proletariat dictatorship. . . ."
"The question arises: Who should be the wielder of this dictatorship; the Communist Party or the proletarian class. . . .?"
"On principle, should we strive towards the dictatorship of the Communist Party or the dictatorship of the proletariat?!!" (Italics in the original).
Further, the E. C. of the Communist Party of Germany is accused by the author of the pamphlet of seeking a way to a coalition with the Independent Socialist Party of Germany; that "the question of accepting, as a matter of principle all political means of struggle" including parliamentarism, has been put to the forefront by E. C. only for the purpose of concealing its main and real intention, coalition with the Independents. And the pamphlet goes on:
"The Opposition has selected a different road. It is of the opinion that the question of the supremacy of the Communist Party and of its dictatorship is only a question of tactics. At any rate, the supremacy of the Cummunist Party is the last form of any party supremacy. On principle, we must strive towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, and all the party measures, its organization, methods of struggle, its strategy and tactics must be planned to fit accordingly. Therefore, every compromise with other parties must be rejected. There must be no turning back to the already outworn historical and political forms of the parliamentary struggle, no policy of manoeuvering and temporizing." "The specifically proletarian methods of the revolutionary struggle must be strongly emphasized. In order to embrace the greatest mass of the proletariat which is to carry on the revolutionary fight under the leadership of the Communist Party, there must be created new forms of organization upon the broadest foundations and within the widest limits. The gathering place for all revolutionary elements is the Workers' Union, formed on the basis of the shop committee. Here all the workers who followed the slogan of "Leave the trade unions" must gather and unite; here the militant proletariat draws itself up in the thickest ranks. The acceptance of the class struggle, the Soviet system and the dictatorship, is sufficient for admittance. All further political training of the struggling masses, and the political orientation of the struggle, is the task of the Communist Party, standing outside the Workers' Union. . . ."
"Two Communist Parties are consequently arrayed, one against the other. One party of the leaders, a party which strives to organize the revolutionary struggle and direct it from above, resorting to compromises and parliamentarism in order to create a situation which would enable it to enter a coalition government, in whose hands should rest the dictatorship. The other, a mass party which relies upon the impetus of the revolutionary struggle from below, conscious of and applying but one method in the fight, that method leading clearly to the goal; rejecting all parliamentary and opportunist procedure. Unconditional overthrow of the bourgeoisie, in order to establish the proletarian class dictatorship for the realization of Socialism, that is the only possible method. . . ."
"There the dictatorship of the leaders, here the dictatorship of the mass—such is our slogan."
These are the essential points characterizing the views of the Opposition in the German Communist Party.
Any Bolshevik who has consciously participated in, or watched closely, the developments of his party since 1903 will at once say, after reading these arguments, "What old and well-known rubbish! What 'left' childishness!"
But let us look at these arguments a little more closely. The very question, "Dictatorship of the party or dictatorship of the class, dictatorship of the leaders or dictatorship of the masses" bears witness to an amazing and hopeless confusion of mind. People bend every effort to elaborate something extraordinary, and in their zeal to be intellectual they become ridiculous. It is common knowledge that the masses are divided into classes; that to contrast masses with classes is possible only when we contrast the largest general majority, undivided in respect of its position in the social scale with categories occupying a definite position in the social scale; that the classes are usually and in most cases led by political parties, at least in modern civilized countries; that political parties, as a general rule, are led by more or less stable groups of the more influential, authoritative, experienced members, elected to the most responsible positions, and called leaders. All this is elementary. It is simple and plain. Why then all this rigmarole, this new Volapuk?
On the one hand, men who were confronted with great difficulties, when the rapid alternation between legal to illegal existence interrupted the usual normal, simple relations between leaders, parties and classes, apparently lost their head. In Germany, as in other European countries, people had become much used to over legality, to the free and normal election of their "leaders" at the regular party conventions, to convenient methods of testing the class composition of the party through parliamentary elections, meetings, the Press and the temper of the members of the trade and other unions, etc. When, in face of the stormy advance of the revolution and the spread of civil war, it became necessary to shift quickly from legal to illegal positions, to co-ordinate them, to resort to "inconvenient" and "undemocratic" methods of picking out or constituting or preserving "groups of leaders," people lost their heads and began inventing all sorts of supernatural nonsense. Probably some members of the Dutch Communist into traditions and conditions of particularly privileged and Party who had the misfortune to be born in a small country, stable legality, who have not known at all what it means to shift from a legal to an illegal position, got themselves entangled and contributed to this muddle.
On the other hand, one notices the superficial and incoherent use of the now "fashionable" terms "masses" and "leaders." People have heard much and have conned by rote all the frivolous attacks on "leaders"—contrasting them with the "masses"—but failed to grasp the application and the inner meaning of these words.
The parting of the ways of "leaders" and "masses" showed itself with peculiar clarity and sharpness in all countries at the end of and after the imperialist war. The principal cause of this phenomenon was many times explained by Marx and Engels in 1852–92 by the example of England. The dominant position of England created in the "masses" a labor aristocracy, petit bourgeois and opportunist. The leaders of this labor aristocracy constantly deserted to the bourgeoisie, and were directly or indirectly in its pay. Marx, to his honor, roused the hatred of these wretches by openly branding them as traitors. The newest (20th century) imperialism has created a monopolist, privileged position for a few advanced countries, and this brought to the surface everywhere in the Second International a certain type of leader-traitors, opportunists, social-chauvinists, who look after the interests of their particular group in the labor aristocracy. This caused the opportunist parties to break away from the "masses," that is, from the greatest mass of the toilers, from the majority of the working-class, from the lowest paid workers. The victory of the working-class is impossible unless this evil is fought, unless the opportunist, social-traitor leaders are exposed, disgraced and expelled. The Third International pursues this policy.
To twist the subject so as to draw comparisons between dictatorship of the mass generally and dictatorship of the leaders is a laughable absurdity and piece of foolishness. It is especially comical that, instead of old leaders who have a commonsense viewpoint on ordinary matters, new leaders are put forth (concealed under the slogan of "down with leaders") who prattle supernatural nonsense and spread confusion. Such are Laufenberg, Wolfheim, Horner, Karl Schroeder, Friedrich Wendell, and Karl Erler in Germany.[1]
The attempt by the latter to make the question "more profound," and to proclaim that political parties altogether are unnecessary and "bourgeois," reaches such a Herculean pitch of absurdity that one is perplexed how to describe it in speech. Verily it may be said, that a small mistake persisted in, learnedly demonstrated, and "carried to its logical conclusion," will grow into a monstrosity.
The negation of party and party discipline—that is the result of the arguments of the Opposition. And this is equivalent to disarming the proletariat in favor of the bourgeoisie. It is akin to that petit-bourgeois looseness, instability, incapacity for steady, unified, and harmonious action, which, if given encouragement, must bring to nought every proletarian revolutionary movement. To reject party, from the view-point of Communism, means to leap from the eve of the capitalist overthrow (in Germany), not to the initial or middle stages of Communism, but to its highest phase. We in Russia, in the third year after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, are going through the first steps in the transition from capitalism to Socialism, that is to say, the lowest stage of Communism. Classes remain, and will remain for years, everywhere after the proletarian conquest of power. Perhaps in England, where there is no peasantry, the period will be shorter, but even there small owners, holders of property exist. To abolish classes means not only to get rid of landlords and capitalists—that we have accomplished with comparative ease—it means also to get rid of the small commodity producers, and they cannot be eliminated or suppressed. There must be an understanding with them, they can and should be regenerated, re-trained; but this requires a long, gradual, careful organization. They surround the proletariat on every side with a petit-bourgeois atmosphere, impregnating the proletariat with it, corrupting and demoralizing the proletariat, causing it to relapse into petit-bourgeois lack of character, disintegration, individualism, and alternation between moods of exaltation and dejection. To oppose this, it is necessary to have the strictest centralization and discipline within the political party of the proletariat. It is necessary, in order to carry on the organizing activities of the proletariat (and this is its principal role) correctly, successfully, victoriously. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a resolute persistent struggle, sanguinary and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative, against the forces and traditions of the old society. The force of habit of the millions and tens of millions is a formidable force. Without an iron party hardened in fight, without a party possessing the confidence of all that is honest in the given class, without a party capable of observing the disposition of the masses and of influencing it successfully to conduct such a struggle is impossible. To defeat the great, centralized bourgeoisie is a thousand times easier than to "defeat" millions and millions of small owners who in their daily, imperceptible, inconspicuous but demoralizing activities achieve the very results desired by the bourgeoisie, and restore the bourgeoisie. Whoever in the least weakens the iron discipline of the party of the proletariat (especially during its dictatorship), aids in reality the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.
Beside the question of leaders, of party, of class, and of the masses, it is necessary to raise the question of the "reactionary" Trade Unions. But first I shall take the liberty of making a few concluding remarks based upon the experience of our party. There, we always heard attacks upon the "dictatorship of the leaders." I remember having heard such attacks for the first time in 1895 when formally there was as yet no party, but only a central group, which began to form itself in Petersburg, and which was to assume the leadership over the district groups. At the ninth conference of our party (April, 1920), there was a small opposition, which also spoke against the "dictatorship of the leaders," of "oligarchy," etc. There is, therefore, nothing wonderful, nothing new, nothing terrible in the "infantile disorder" of "Left Communism," in Germany. It is an affliction which passes by without injury to the organism, which, in fact, even strengthens it afterwards. On the other hand, the rapid shifting from legal to illegal work which made it especially necessary to "hide" the movements of the general staff, that is to say, the leaders, sometimes gave rise to dangerous situations. The worst case was in 1912, when an agent-provocateur, Malinovsky, got into the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks. He betrayed scores of the best and most devoted comrades, causing their imprisonment and hastening their death. That he did not cause more mischief was due to the efficient co-ordination between the legal and illegal forms of our activities. Malinovsky, as a member of the Central Committee of the Party and a deputy in the Duma, was forced, in order to gain our confidence, to aid us in establishing daily papers, which even under the Czar knew how to carry on the fight openly against the opportunism of the Mensheviks, and to preach the fundamentals of Bolshevism in properly disguised forms. With one hand, Malinovsky sent to jail and to death scores upon scores of the most active Bolsheviks, while with the other he was compelled to aid in the training of scores and scores of thousands of new adherents through the medium of the legal Press. It will not harm those of our German comrades (as well as the English, French, Italian and American), who are confronted with the problem of how to carry on revolutionary work inside the reactionary trade unions, to consider this fact seriously.[2]
In many countries, and particularly in the most advanced, the bourgeoisie is undoubtedly sending, and will continue to send, agents-provocateurs into the Communist Party. One method of struggle against this peril is a skilful co-ordination of legal and illegal work.
- ↑ See the Commun. Arb. Zeitung, Hamburg, January 7, 1920, No. 32: "Auflösung der Partei" (The Dissolution of the Party), by Karl Erler: "The working-class cannot destroy the bourgeois state without destroying the bourgeois democracy, and it cannot destroy bourgeois democracy without the abolition of the party." ("Die Arbeiter Klasse kann den bürgerlichen Staat nicht zertrümmern ohne Vernichtung der bürgerlichen Demokratie, und sie kann die bürgerliche Demokratie nicht vernichten ohne die Zertrümmerung der Parteien.")The more muddle-headed among the syndicalists and anarchists of the Latin countries may enjoy a certain self satisfaction: serious Germans, who evidently consider themselves Marxists (K. Erler and K. Horner in their articles in the above-mentioned papers particularly solidly maintain that they are solid Marxists, all the more ludicrously revealing their ignorance of the A B C of Marxism by talking incredible nonsense) talk themselves into a point of view altogether inappropriate. Acceptance of Marxism does not save one from mistakes and the Russians especially know this well, because, in our country, Marxism was particularly frequently "in fashion."
- ↑ Malinovsky was a prisoner of war in Germany. When he returned to Soviet Russia, he was instantly arrested, tried and shot by our working men. The Mensheviks attacked us acrimoniously for our mistakes in making an agent-provocateur a member of the Central Committee of our party. But when, under Kerensky, we demanded the arrest of Rodzianko, the Speaker of the Duma, in order to try him for his having known, even before the war, that Malinovsky was an agent-provocateur, and for his failure to inform the Labor group in the Duma and the workers of this fact, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who were in Kerensky's cabinet did not support our demand, Rodzianko remained at large, and then went off freely to Denikin.