Marx and Engels on Revolution in America/Chapter 4
IV.
The Formation of an Independent Working Class Party.
AS early as July 25, 1877, Marx wrote to Engels;
"What do you think of the workers of the United States? This first explosion against the associated oligarchy of capital, which has arisen since the Civil War, will naturally again be suppressed, but can very well form THE POINT OF ORIGIN FOR THE CONSTITUTION OF AN EARNEST WORKERS' PARTY. The policy of the new president will make the NEGROES, and the great expropriations of land (exactly the fertile land) in favor of railways, mining, etc., companies will make THE PEASANTS OF THE WEST, who are already very dissatisfied, ALLIES OF THE WORKERS. So that a nice sauce is being stirred over there, and the transference of the center of the International to the United States may obtain a very remarkable post festum opportuneness."
A decade later Engels touches upon the same problem in his letter to Sorge dated November 29, 1886. He clearly and unmistakably demands that the American socialists work within the Knights of Labor to arouse the masses. Despite his designating this order as one of "confused principles and a ridiculous organization," he demands that the American Marxists "build up within this still wholly plastic mass a nucleus of persons," who will have to take over after the inevitable split of this "Third Party" the leadership of the latter's proletarian elements:
"To tell the truth, the Germans have not been able to use their theory as a lever to set the American masses in motion. To a great extent they do not understand the theory themselves and treat it in a doctrinaire and dogmatic fashion as if it were something which must be committed to memory, but which then suffices for all purposes without further ado. FOR THEM IT IS A CREDO, NOT A GUIDE FOR ACTION … hence the American masses must seek their own road and APPEAR for the moment to have found it in the K. of L. whose confused principles and ridiculous organization APPEAR to conform to their own confusion. However, according to what I hear, the K. of L. are A REAL POWER in New England and in the West, and are becoming more so day by day as a result of the brutal opposition of the capitalists. I believe that it is necessary to work within it, TO BUILD UP WITHIN THIS STILL WHOLLY PLASTIC MASS A NUCLEUS OF PERSONS, UNDERSTANDING THE MOVEMENT AND ITS GOALS, AND THUS OF THEMSELVES TAKE OVER THE GUIDANCE OF AT LEAST A SECTION IN THE COMING UNAVOIDABLE SPLIT OF THE PRESENT 'ORDER.' … The first great step, which is of primary importance in every country first entering the movement, is always THE CONSTITUTION OF THE WORKERS AS AN INDEPENDENT POLITICAL PARTY NO MATTER OF WHAT KIND, SO LONG AS IT IS ONLY A DISTINCT WORKERS' PARTY … That the first program of this Party is still confused and extremely deficient, that it sets up H. George as its leader, are unavoidable evils, which, however, are only temporary. The masses must have the opportunity and the time to develop themselves; and they only have this opportunity as soon as they have their own movement—no matter in what form, if only it be their own movement—in which they will be driven forward by their own mistakes and will grow wise through Injury to themselves."
Engels compares—in 1886—the role of the Marxists in the American Labor movement with the role which the "Kommunistenbund" had to play amongst the workers' societies before 1848. At the same time, however, he points out the differences in order to avoid the opportunist interpretation of any schematic comparison of the situation of the American labor movement at that time with "the situation in Europe prior to 1848":
"Only that things will now move forward In America INFINITELY MORE RAPIDLY; that the movement should have obtained such success in the elections after only eight months' existence is entirely unprecedented. And what is still lacking will be supplied by the bourgeois; nowhere in the whole world are they so brazen-faced and tyrannical as over there … Where the battle is fought by the bourgeoisie with such weapons, the decision arrives quickly …"
In his letter to Mrs. Wischnewetsky dated December 28, 1886, Engels again emphasized that the American Marxists should not pooh pooh the proletarian "Third Party" from without, but revolutionize it from within." He again uses unminced words in condemning the German sectarians in America and their dogma of the "role of the party" which in reality, then as now, renders impossible for the party to fulfill its role in the proletarian revolution by separating it from the masses. The remarks made by Engels in this passage on the dialectic-materialist conception of the role of theory are moreover the direct point of departure from which Lenin developed his doctrine of the importance of theory in the proletarian revolution:
"It is far more important that the movement should spread, proceed harmoniously, take root and EMBRACE as much as possible THE WHOLE AMERICAN PROLETARIAT, than that it should start and proceed from the beginning on theoretically perfectly correct lines. There is no better road to theoretical clearness of comprehension than to learn by one's own mistakes, 'durch Schaden klug werden.'[1] And for a whole large class, there is no other road, especially for a nation so eminently practical and so contemptuous of theory as the Americans. THE GREAT THING IS TO GET THE WORKING CLASS TO MOVE AS A CLASS; that once obtained, they will soon find the right direction, and all who resist… will be left in the cold with small sects of their own. Therefore I think also the K. of L. a most important factor in the movement WHICH OUGHT NOT TO BE POOH-POOHED FROM WITHOUT BUT TO BE REVOLUTIONIZED FROM WITHIN, and I consider that many of the Germans then have made a grievous mistake when they tried, in the face of a mighty and glorious movement not of their own creation, to make of their imported and not always understood theory a kind of alleinseligmachendts[2] dogma and to keep aloof from any movement, which did not accept that dogma. Our theory is not a dogma but the exposition of a process of evolution, and that process involves successive phases. To expect that the Americans will start with the full consciousness of the theory worked out in older industrial countries is to expect the impossible. What the Germans ought to do is to act up to their own theory—if they understand it, as we did in 1845 and 1848—to go in for any real general working class movement. ACCEPT ITS FAKTISCHEN[3] STARTING POINT as such and work It gradually up to the theoretical level by pointing out how every mistake made, every reverse suffered, was a necessary consequence of mistaken theoretical orders in the original program: they ought, in the words of the Communist Manifesto: IN DER GEGENWART DER BEWEGUNG DIE ZUKUNFT DER BEWEGUNG REPRESENTIEREN.[4] But above all give the movement time to consolidate, do not make THE INEVITABLE CONFUSION OF THE FIRST START worse confounded by forcing down people's throats things which, at present, they cannot properly understand but which they soon will learn. A MILLION OR TWO WORKINGMEN'S VOTES NEXT NOVEMBER FOR A BONAFIDE WORKINGMEN'S PARTY IS WORTH INFINITELY MORE AT PRESENT THAN A HUNDRED THOUSAND VOTES FOR A DOCTRINALLY PERFECT PLATFORM. The very first attempt—soon to be made if the movement progresses—to consolidate the moving masses on a national basis—will bring them all face to face, Georgites, K. of L., Trade Unionists, and all; … then will be the time for them to criticize the views of the others and thus, by showing up the inconsistencies of the various standpoints, to bring them gradually to understand their own actual position, the postion made for them by the correlation of capital and wage labor. But anything that might delay or prevent that NATIONAL CONSOLIDATION OF THE WORKINGMEN'S PARTY—on no matter what-platform—I should consider a great mistake…"
In another letter to Mrs. Wischnewetsky, Engels speaks of the necessity of first, and most important of all, "gaining the ear of the working class." He then develops this idea as follows:
"I think all our practice has shown that it is possible to work along with the general movement of the working class AT EVERY ONE OF ITS STAGES WITHOUT GIVING UP OR HIDING OUR OWN DISTINCT POSITION AND EVEN ORGANIZATION, and I am afraid that if the German Americans choose a different line they will commit a great mistake." (Letter of January 27, 1887.)
It should be noted that Engels wrote these lines just at the moment of the disgraceful behavior of the K. of L. towards the Chicago prisoners. H. George founded at that time in New York a weekly in which he disavowed the New York Socialists and refused to do anything in favor of the anarchists condemned in Chicago. Without hesitating a moment Engels supported Aveling, the son-in-law of Marx, who even in this situation bitterly fought the sectarian tactics of the National Executive of the Socialist Labor Party.
The viewpoint of Marx and Engels in the question of the American labor party is thus absolutely clear; they demanded of the American Marxists the formation of a national working-class party in America at any price, without regard to its program so long as the latter included the class struggle, but with the complete maintenance of the political independence and the organization of the Marxist nucleus with the great mass party.