Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
NO COMPROMISE WHATEVER?
We have seen, in the quotation from the Frankfurt pamphlet with what determination the "Left" put forward this slogan. It is sad to see how men who doubtless consider themselves Marxists, and who desire to be Marxists, have forgotten the fundamental truths of Marxism. This is what was written in 1874 against the Manifesto of thirty-three Communard Blanquists[1] by Engels, who, like Marx was one of those rarest of authors who in every sentence of every great work show a wonderful profundity of content.
"The German Communists are Communists because, through all intermediary stages and compromises, created not by them, but by the course of historical development, they clearly see and perpetually follow the one final end, the abolition of classes and the creation of a social system in which there will no longer be any place for private property in land or in the means of production. The thirty-three Blanquists are Communists because they imagine that, since they want to leap over intermediary stations and compromises, the cause is as good as won, and if (and of this they are firmly convinced) things "begin moving" one of these days, the power will get into their hands, "then Communism will be introduced" the day after tomorrow. Consequently, if this cannot be done immediately, they are not Communists. What a childish naivete—to put forward one's own impatience as a theoretical argument!"[2]
In the same article Engels expresses his profound esteem for Vaillant, and speaks of the "undeniable merit" of the latter (who, like Guesde, was one of the most prominent leaders of international Socialism prior to August, 1914, when both turned traitor to the cause of Socialism). But Engels does not leave an apparent mistake without a detailed analysis. Of course, to very young and inexperienced revolutionists, as well as to petit-bourgeois revolutionists (even though very experienced and of a very respectable age), it seems most dangerous, incomprehensible and incorrect to allow compromises. And many sophists, by virtue of their being super- or over-"experienced" politicians, reason the same way as the English leaders of Opportunism, mentioned by Comrade Lansbury:—"If the Bolsheviks permit themselves compromises, why should not we be allowed them?" But proletarians, schooled in manifold strikes (to take only this manifestation of the class war), usually comprehend perfectly this most profound (philosophical, historical, political and psychological) truth, as expounded by Engels. Every proletarian who has gone through strikes has experienced compromises with the hated oppressors and exploiters, when the workers had to get back to work, sometimes without obtaining their demands, sometimes consenting to a partial compliance only. Every proletarian, because of that state of the class struggle and intensification of class antagonisms in which he lives, distinguishes between a compromise extorted from him by objective conditions (such as lack of funds in the treasury, no support from without, starvation, and the last stage of exhaustion)—a compromise which in no way lessens the revolutionary devotion and readiness of the worker to continue the struggle—and, on the other hand, the compromise of traitors, who ascribe to objective reasons their own selfishness (strike breakers also effect a "compromise"), to their cowardice, to their desire to fawn upon capitalists, and to their readiness to yield sometimes to threats, sometimes to persuasion, sometimes to sops and flattery on the part of capitalists. Such treacherous compromises are especially plentiful in the history of the English labor movement, made by leaders of the English trade unions; but in one form or another nearly all workers in every country have witnessed similar instances.
To be sure individual cases of exceptional difficulty and intricacy do occur, when it is possible to determine the real character of such a compromise only with the greatest effort; just as there are cases of murder in which it is anything but easy to decide whether the murder was full justifiable, and, in fact, necessary (as, for example, legitimate self-defense), or an unpardonable piece of negligence, or, again, a skilfully premeditated treacherous plan. Of course, in politics, involving sometimes very intricate national or international relationships between classes and parties, many cases will arise much more difficult than the question of a lawful compromise during a strike, or the treasonable compromise of a strike-breaker, a traitorous leader, etc. To invent such a formula or general rule as "No Compromises," which would serve in all cases, is an absurdity. One must keep one's head in order not to lose oneself in each separate case. Therein, by the way, lies the importance of a party organization and of party leaders worthy of the name, that, in long, stubborn, varied, and variform struggle, all thinking representatives of a given class may work out the necessary knowledge, the necessary experience, and, apart from all knowledge and experience, the necessary political instincts for the quick and correct solution of intricate political problems.[3]
Naive and quite inexperienced persons imagine that it is sufficient to recognize the permissibility of compromise in general, and all differences between opportunism on the one hand (with which we do and must wage uncompromising war) and revolutionary Marxism or Communism on the other will be obliterated. But for those people who do not yet know that all distinctions in nature and in society are unstable (and, to a certain extent, arbitrary), nothing will do but a long process of training, education, enlightenment, political and everyday experience. In practical questions of the policy appropriate to each separate or specific historic movement it is important to be able to distinguish those in which are manifested the main species of inadmissible treacherous compromises, which embody opportunism detrimental to the revolutionary class, and to direct all possible efforts towards elucidating and fighting them. During the imperialist war of 1914–1918, between two groups of equally ruffianly and rapacious countries, such a main fundamental species of opportunism was social-chauvinism, that is, upholding "defense of the Fatherland," which, in such a war, was really equivalent to a defense of the plundering interests of one's own bourgeoisie. Since the war, the defense of the robber "League of Nations"; the defense of direct or indirect alliance with the bourgeoisie of one's country against the revolutionary proletariat and the "Soviet" movement; the defense of bourgeois democracy and bourgeois parliamentarism against "Soviet power;" such are the chief manifestations of those inadmissible and treacherous compromises which, taken all in all, have given rise to an opportunism fatal to the revolutionary proletariat and its cause. "With all determination to reject all compromise with other parties . . . all policy of temporizing and manœuvring" write the German "Left" in the Frankfurt pamphlet.
It is to be wondered at that, holding such views, the Left do not decisively condemn Bolshevism! Surely it is not possible that the German Left were unaware that the whole history of Bolshevism, both before and after the October Revolution, is full of instances of manœuvring, temporizing and compromising with others, the bourgeois parties included!
To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war a hundred times more difficult, prolonged and complicated than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between countries, and to refuse beforehand to manœuvre, to utilize the conflict (even though temporary) of interests between one's enemies; to refuse co-operation and compromise with possible (even though transient, unstable, vacillating, and conditional) allies—is not this an infinitely laughable thing? Is it not as though, in the difficult ascent of an unexplored and heretofore inaccessible mountain, we were to renounce beforehand the idea that we might have to go sometimes in zig-zags, sometimes retracing our steps, sometimes giving up the course once selected and trying various others? And people who are so ignorant and inexperienced (it is all right if this is due to their youth—the Lord Himself has ordained that during a certain time the young should talk such nonsense) are supported in this uncompromising attitude—directly or indirectly, openly or covertly, wholly or partially—by certain Dutch Communists!
After the first Socialist revolution of the proletariat, upon the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in a country, the proletariat remains for a time weaker than the bourgeoisie, simply by virtue of the latter's far-reaching international connections, and also on account of the ceaseless and spontaneous re-birth of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, through the small producers of commodities in the country which has overthrown them. To overcome so potent an enemy is possible only through the greatest effort and by dint of the obligatory, thorough, careful, attentive and skilfull utilization of every breach, however small, between the enemies; of every clash of interests between the bourgeoisie of all countries, between various groups and species of bourgeoisie within individual countries; of every possibility, however small, of gaining an ally, even though he be temporary, shaky, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Who has not grasped this has failed to grasp one iota of Marxism and of scientific modern Socialism in general. Whoever has failed to prove in practice, during a considerable period of time and insufficiently varied political situations, his ability to apply this truth, has not yet learned to aid the revolutionary class in its struggle for the liberation of all toiling humanity from its exploiters. All this applies equally to the period before and after the conquest of political power by the proletariat.
Our theory is not a dogma but a manual of action, said Marx and Engels; and the greatest mistake, the greatest crime of "patented" Marxists like Karl Kautsky, Otto Bauer, etc., is that they have not understood this, that they were unable to apply it in the most important moments of the proletarian revolution. "Political activity is not the pavement of the Nevsky Prospect," (the clean, broad, level pavement of the perfectly straight main street in Petrograd) N. G. Chernishevsky, the great Russian Socialist in the pre-Marxian period, used to say. The Russian revolutionaries, from the time of Chernishevsky, have paid with innumerable victims for ignoring or forgetting this truth. It is necessary by every means to prevent Left Communists and West European and American revolutionaries who are devoted to the working class from paying as dearly for the assimilation of this truth as did the backward Russians.
Before the downfall of Czarism, the Russian revolutionary Social Democrats made use repeatedly of the service of the bourgeois Liberals—i. e., concluded numerous practical compromises with them. In 1901–2, before the rise of Bolshevism, the old editorial staff of Iskra (comprising Plekhanoff, Axelrod, Zasulitch, Martoff, Potressoff, and myself) concluded a formal, although short-lived, political alliance with Struve, the political leader of bourgeois Liberalism, and succeeded at the same time in waging a most merciless ideological and political war against bourgeois Liberalism and against the slightest manifestation of its influence within the working class movement. The Bolsheviks always continued the same policy. From 1905 they systematically advocated a union of the working class and peasantry against the Liberal bourgeoisie and Czarism. At the same time they never refused to support the bourgeoisie against Czarism (for instance, during the second stage of the election, or in recounts), and never ceased the most irreconcilable ideological and political fight against the bourgeois revolutionary peasant party, the "Socialist Revolutionaries," exposing them as petit bourgeois democrats, falsely masquerading as Socialists.
In 1907 the Bolsheviks, for a short time, formed a formal political bloc in the Duma elections with the "Socialist Revolutionaries." Between 1903 and 1912 we were for several years formally united with the Mensheviks in one Social-Democratic party, never ceasing our ideological and political fight with them, as opportunists and transmitters of bourgeois influence to the proletariat. During the war we accepted some compromise with the "Kautskians," who were partly Left Mensheviks (Martoff) and partly "Socialist Revolutionaries" (Tchernoff and Natanson), sitting together with them in Zimmerwald and Kienthal, and issuing manifestoes in common; but we never ceased and never slackened our ideologico-political fight with the "Kautskians," Martoff and Tchernoff (Natanson died in 1919, quite near to us, being a "Revolutionary Communist"—Narodnik—and almost agreeing with us.) At the very moment of the October Revolution we effected an informal (a very important and highly successful) political bloc with the petit bourgeois peasantry, having accepted fully, without a single change, the "Socialist Revolutionary" agrarian program—that is, we effected an undeniable compromise, in order to prove to the peasants that we do not want to dominate them, but to come to an understanding with them. At the same time we proposed, and soon realized, a formal political bloc with the "Left Socialist Revolutionaries," involving working together in the same Government. They broke up this bloc after the conclusion of the Brest Peace, and then went as far as an armed insurrection against us in July, 1918. Subsequently they began an armed struggle against us.
It is therefore comprehensible why all the attacks made by the German "Left" upon the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany (because the latter entertained the idea of a bloc with the "Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany," the Kautskians) seem to us not at all serious, and prove to us the palpable error of the "Left." We in Russia also had Right Mensheviks (who participated in the Kerensky Government and who correspond to the German Scheidemanns) and Left Mensheviks (Martoff) who were in opposition to the Right Wing, and who correspond to the German Kautskians. We clearly observed, in 1917, how the working masses were gradually abandoning the Mensheviks to come over to the Bolsheviks. At the first All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in June, 1917, we had only 13%; the majority of votes were for the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. At the Second Congress of Soviets (October 25, 1917—old style) we had 51%. Why, in Germany, did a wholly similar movement of the workers from Right to Left first strengthen, not the Communists, but the intermediate party of the "Independents"?—although this party never had any independent political idea of its own, no independent policy of its own, but only wavered between the Scheidemanns and the Communists.
Obviously, one of the causes was the erroneous tactics of the German Communists, who must fearlessly and honestly admit this mistake and learn to correct it. The mistake consisted in rejecting participation in the reactionary bourgeois parliament and in the reactionary Trade Unions; it consisted in the numerous manifestations of that "Left" infantile disorder which has now appeared on the surface. And the quicker it does so, the better; the more beneficial to the organism will be the cure.
The German "Independent Social-Democratic Party" is obviously not homogeneous. The old opportunist leaders (Kautsky, Hilferding, and, to a considerable extent it seems, Crispien, Ledebour and others), have proven their inability to understand Soviet power and dictatorship of the proletariat, their inability to lead the latter in its revolutionary struggle. Side by side with them, there has arisen in this party a Left proletarian wing which is growing with admirable rapidity. Hundreds of thousands of members of this party (and it has, it seems, up to three-quarters of a million members) are proletarians who have left Scheidemann and are marching rapidly towards Communism. This proletarian wing has already proposed (at the Liepzig, 1919, Conference of the Independents) an immediate and unconditonal affiliation with the Third International. To fear a "compromise" with this wing of the party is really laughable. On the contrary it is incumbent upon Communists to seek and to find an appropriate form of compromise with them; such a compromise, as, on the one hand, would facilitate and accelerate the necessary complete fusion with this wing and, on the other, would in no way tie the hands of the Communists in their ideo-political struggle against the opportunist Right wing of the Independents. Probably it will not be easy to work out the appropriate form of compromise, but only a charlatan could promise to the German workmen and Communists an easy way to victory.
Capitalism would not be capitalism if the proletariat "pure and simple" were not surrounded by a great many exceedingly variegated and transitory types between the proletarian to the semi-proletarian (who earns a livelihood halfway by selling his labor-power); from the semi-proletarian to the small peasant (and small craftsman, handicraft worker, and small master in general); from the small to the middle peasant and so on; and if, within the proletariat itself, there were no divisions into more and less advanced sections—friendly, professional and sometimes religious societies, etc. And this gives rise to the absolute, imperative necessity for the conscious part of the proletarian vanguard, the Communist Party, to resort to manœuvres, temporizings, and compromises with the various groups of proletarians, with the various parties, with the workmen and petit masters.
The whole point lies in being able to apply these tactics to raise and not to lower the general level of proletarian class-consciousness and revolutionary ability to fight and conquer. It is noteworthy, by the way, that the victory of the Bolsheviks over the Mensheviks demanded, not only before the October revolution of 1917, but also after it, the application of such tactics, of manœuvring, temporizing and compromise—such, of course, as would facilitate, accelerate, consolidate the Bolsheviks at the expense of the Mensheviks. The petit bourgeois democrats (including the Mensheviks) invariably vacillate between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between bourgeois democracy and the Soviet system, between reformism and revolution, between love for the workers and fear of the proletarian dictatorship, etc. The correct tactics of the Communists should consist in utilizing these vacillations, and by no means to ignore them. Utilization demands concessions to the element that turns towards the proletariat. The time, the direction and the extent of these concessions must be determined by circumstances; the questions to be considered being simply when and how far those elements turn towards the proletariat. At the same time a fight must be waged against the elements which turn towards the bourgeoisie. As a result of the application of correct tactics, Menshevism, disintegrated more and more, is now falling to pieces; the obstinately opportunist leaders are being deserted, and the best workers, the best elements from the petit bourgeois democracy, are being brought into our camp. This is a long process, and the hasty decision: "No compromise, no manœuvring" can only prevent the strengthening of the influence of the revolutionary proletariat, and the increasing of its force.
Finally, one of the obvious mistakes of the "Left" in Germany is their unequivocal refusal to recognize the Versailles Treaty. The more "solidly" and "importantly," the more "determinedly" and dogmatically this viewpoint is maintained (by K. Horner, for instance), the less sensible it appears. It is not sufficient, in the present conditions of the international proletarian revolution, to renounce the crying absurdities of "National Bolshevism" (Lauffenberg and others), which has talked itself into a bloc with the German bourgeoisie for war against the Entente. One must understand those tactics to be fundamentally wrong which do not admit that it is necessary for a Soviet Germany (if a German Soviet Republic were shortly to be established) to recognize the Versailles Peace, and to submit to it for a certain time. From this it does not follow that the German "Independents" were right when they demanded the signing of the Versailles Treaty. At that time Scheidemann was in the government; the Soviet Government of Hungary had not yet been overthrown, and there was yet a possibility of a Soviet revolution in Vienna in support of Soviet Hungary. Then the Independents temporized and manœuvred very clumsily, for they more or less took upon themselves the responsibility for the Scheidemann traitors, slipped away, more or less, from the viewpoint of a merciless (and calmly deliberate) class war with the Sheidemanns, and adopted a non-class, or "super-class," viewpoint.
But at present the position is obviously such that the German Communists should not bind themselves hand and foot and take upon themselves the irrevocable obligation of repudiating the Versailles Treaty in the case of the victory of Communism. That would be foolish. One must admit that the Scheidemanns and Kautskians have perpetuated a great many treacheries, obstructing, and in part ruining, the work of union with Soviet Russia and with Soviet Hungary. We Communists will use all means to facilitate and prepare such a union; at the same time, we are not at all bound to repudiate the Versailles Treaty—or, what is more, to repudiate it immediately. The possibility of successfully repudiating the Treaty depends, not only upon the German, but also upon the international success of the Soviet movement. This movement was hampered by the Scheidemanns and Kautskians; we shall help it. Therein lies the main point; that is where the fundamental difference lies. And if our class enemies the exploiters, their lackeys the Scheidemanns and Kautskians, have missed a great many opportunities for strengthening both the German and the international Soviet revolution, the blame falls upon them. The Soviet revolution in Germany will strengthen the international Soviet movement. This is the strongest bulwark—and the only reliable, unconquerable, omnipotent bulwark—against the Versailles Peace, against international imperialism in general. To put the overthrow of the Versailles Peace absolutely and irrevocably in the first place, before the question of the liberation of other countries from the yoke of imperialism, is a species of petit-bourgeois nationalism (worthy of Kautsky, Hilferding, Otto Bauer and Co.) and is not revolutionary internationalism. The overthrow of the bourgeoisie in any of the large European countries, including Germany, is such an accession to the international revolution that for its sake one can, and must if necessary, suffer a longer duration of the Versailles Peace. If Russia by herself, with benefit to the revolution, could endure the Brest Peace for several months, it is not impossible for Soviet Germany, in alliance with Soviet Russia, to suffer, with benefit to the revolution, a still longer duration of the Versailles Treaty.
The imperialists of France, England, etc., are provoking the German Communists, and laying a trap for them. "Say that you will not sign the Peace of Versailles," they say. And the Left Communists, like children, fall into the trap laid for them, instead of manœuvring skilfully against the treacherous and, for the moment, stronger enemy; instead of telling him "Today we shall adhere to the Versailles Treaty." To bind one's hands beforehand, openly to tell the enemy, who is now better armed than we are, whether or not we shall fight him, is stupidity and not revolutionism. To accept battle when this is obviously profitable to the enemy, and not to oneself, is a crime; and those politicians of the revolutionary class who are unable to "manœuvre, temporize, compromise," in order to evade an obviously unprofitable battle, are good for nothing.
- ↑ "We are Communists," wrote the Communard Blanquists in their manifesto, "because we wish to attain our aim directly, without stopping at intermediary stations, without any compromise, which only postpone the day of victory and prolong the period of slavery."
- ↑ Fr. Engels' Program of the Communard Blanquists, from the German S.D. paper Volkstaat, 1874, No. 73, in the collection of Articles of the Years 1871-1875. (Russian translation, Petrograd, 1919 pp. 52 and 53.)
- ↑ So long as classes exist, so long as non-class society has not fully entrenched and consolidated itself, has not developed itself on its own foundation, there inevitably will be in every class, and even in the most enlightened countries, class representatives who neither think nor are capable of thinking. Capitalism would not be the oppressor of the masses that it is, were this not so.