As The 100th
Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars)
Approaches ... Some Remembrances
- Rosa Luxemburg, The Rose Of The Revolution -The Political Mass Strike-(1913)
If we consider the present discussion, we see on the one hand ardent advocates of the mass strike who are in favour of the party conference, in consultation with the General Commission of the trade unions, empowering the Party Executive to prepare the way for the mass strike. Indeed, they also demand that we should begin to educate the workers for the mass strike. They further advise the preparation of the mass strike according to the Belgian model. These are the demands made by one group. Another group immediately expressed the strongest reservations against any ‘flirting with the idea of the mass strike’. They said that this is extremely dangerous to our party life, for we in Germany are far from ready to participate in a mass strike. The party would suffer a defeat, their argument continued, from which it would not recover for decades.
The advocates of an application of the mass strike as soon as possible belong to various political currents. Comrade Frank, who has come out for the mass strike, represents the school of political opportunism. In Baden, he advocates the formation of a grand coalition with the National Liberals. His policy is very simple. One pursues grandiose politics in parliament with all the methods of statesmanlike tactics, one comes to terms with the bourgeois parties, one fashions a great block of the entire Left. However, when this policy fails, as it is bound to do, to advance the cause of the proletariat one step further, ah! then workers come into the streets and start a mass strike. Frank’s proclamation is a perfect example of how not to arrange a mass strike.
The mass strike is not something that one can make whenever the parliamentary tricksters’ policy breaks down. A mass strike brought about under such circumstances is a lost cause from the outset. The political tricksters who believe that they can conjure up a mass strike and then terminate it with a wave of the hand are in error. This cannot be done. Mass strikes can only take place when the historical preconditions for them are at hand. They cannot be made on command. Mass strikes are not an artificial method that can be applied whenever the party has bungled its politics, in order to extricate us overnight from the morass. When the class conflicts have become so pronounced and the political situation so tense that parliamentary means are no longer sufficient to advance the cause of the proletariat, then the mass strike is urgently necessary, and then, although it may not bring unconditional victory, it is immensely useful to the cause of the proletariat. Only when the situation has become so extreme that there is no more hope for co-operation with the bourgeois parties, especially with the liberals, does the proletariat obtain the impetus necessary for the success of the mass strike. Accordingly, the mass strike is not reconcilable with a policy centred around parliamentarism.
The Belgian movement is a storehouse of information on the problem of the mass strike. After they had abolished the plural vote by means of the mass strike, our Belgian comrades centred their efforts on parliament. This meant that the mass strike was put on ice. All proletarian actions were suspended as part of an overall plan to combine with the bourgeois Left in order to achieve universal suffrage. But the election of 1912 brought about the complete collapse of liberalism, and what remained of it went over to the camp of reaction. Then a storm of indignation broke out. Immediately following the elections the question of the mass strike reappeared. But the leaders of Belgian Social Democracy, who had based their policy on co-operation with the liberals, endeavoured to placate the masses by promising to arrange for the mass strike later. Then began the systematic postponement of the mass strike. Instead of an elemental eruption, a new tactic was begun; preparations were made for a new mass strike to be held in one month. After preparations lasting nine months, the masses could no longer be restrained. The strike finally broke out and for ten days was carried on with admirable discipline. The result was this: the strike was discontinued upon the first illusory concession made, a concession which represented a gain of virtually nothing. The Belgian comrades did not feel that they had achieved a victory. We see then, that the mass strike, employed in conjunction with the policy of a grand coalition resulted in nothing but set-backs. In view of this, we will reject any possible recommendation that we form a grand coalition in the south while at the same time starting a mass strike in Prussia.
On the other hand, it is said that we would be acting prematurely were we to propagate the mass strike in Germany, for we are less ripe for it than the proletariat of other countries. We in Germany have the strongest organizations, the fullest coffers, the largest parliamentary party, and yet we, alone among the whole international proletariat, are not supposed to be ripe? It is said that, despite its strength, our organization is only a minority of the proletariat. According to this notion, we would be ripe only when the last man and the last woman had paid their dues to their constituency associations. This is one wondrous moment for which we need not wait. Whenever we instigate an important action, not only do we count upon those who are organized, but we also assume that they will sweep the unorganized masses along with them. What would be the state of the proletarian straggle if we counted only on the organized!
During the ten-day general strike in Belgium, at least two-thirds of the strikers were not organized. Of course one must not conclude from this that the organization was of no significance. The organization’s power lies in its understanding of how to draw the unorganized into the action at the right time. The exploitation of such situations is a method of bringing about a huge growth in the organizations of the party and trade unions. Recruitment to the strong organizations must be based on a large-scale and forward-looking policy; otherwise the organizations will quietly decay. The history of the party and the trade unions demonstrates that our organizations thrive only on the attack. For then the unorganized flock to our banner. The type of organization that calculates in advance and to the nearest penny the costs necessary for action is worthless; it cannot weather the storm. All this must be made clear, and the dividing line must not be drawn so nicely between the organized and the unorganized.
If it is demanded that the party executive, in conjunction with the General Commission, should prepare for the mass strike, then it must be said that mass strikes cannot be made. But it is necessary to recognize that in Germany we are approaching a situation in which mass strikes are inevitable. We have just witnessed another victory of imperialism in the passing of the enormous military bill. After many in our ranks had so hoped to co-operate with the liberals, we see that these same liberals are hand-maidens of imperialism. If regrettably our parliamentary party supported property taxes in the fiscal covering bill, then this was nothing more than an intent to combine with the progressives and National Liberals to eliminate the Blue-Black Block. But the liberals, in league with the Blue-Black Block, eliminated us and, behind the backs of the Social Democrats, bungled miserably the property tax. Our parliamentary party’s final covering bill evoked powerful reactions in the Social-Democratic press abroad and in our own meetings. We shall have lively debates on this subject at the party congress.
The triumph of imperialism in the military bill brought home once more the painful lesson that we can no longer rely on the liberals. For this reason it is necessary to open the masses’ eyes. It is a fact that our parliamentarians lived in the illusion that they could form a coalition with the liberals against the Blue-Black Block, and that this illusion resulted in a miserable fiasco. This victory for imperialism was a new step towards the heightening of the class conflicts. We live at a time in which no more advantages can be gained in parliament for the proletariat. This is why the masses themselves must enter the theatre of action. Developments have taken such a turn that the mass strike will not disappear from the agenda in Germany. It is not a matter of preparing the mass strike; instead, we must ensure that our policy expresses the utmost strength necessary in the present situation.
The latest phase of our party’s policy dates from our electoral victory of 1912. We had set our greatest hopes upon it. An article by Kautsky, printed in Vorwärts, mentioned that a new liberalism was emerging. That was a disastrous illusion, but explicable on the basis of the slogan of moderation issued for the run-off ballots.
Moderation is an unacceptable policy. As a result of moderation we had vague hopes of a new liberalism and then the exuberant anticipation attached to the possibility of a Social Democrat being chosen President of the Reichstag. All these hopes have been dashed, and they show that our policy and tactics are outmoded. We have now witnessed the tumult of the Jubilee celebrations and the visit of the Bloody Tsar to the Berlin Court. This opportunity should have been used to instigate some kind of republican action. Do we have four million Social Democrats only so that we can crawl into a mousehole when the Bloody Tsar comes for a visit? How many supporters we could have won if we had organized a demonstration!
If we want to prove ourselves worthy of the great coming events then we must not begin at the wrong end by attempting to make technical preparations for the mass strike. When the situation is ripe, the tactic of the mass strike will present itself. Let us not rack our brains about supporting it at the right time. What is necessary is that you watch the party press to ensure that it is your instrument and expresses your opinion and your mood. You must also see to it that our parliamentarians feel a mass pressing them from behind, so that they do not chart such a disastrous course as in the case of the military bill. Shape the organization so that you need not wait until the command is given from above, but so that you have the reins of command in your own hands. You must not lose yourselves in technical details such as the reorganization of the dues-paying social evenings and of the delegate system. This is all very important, but your attention must be directed above all to the general guiding principles of our policy in parliament and throughout the country. Policy must not be formulated in such a way that the masses are always confronted with faits accomplis. Above all you must see to it that the press is a sharply honed weapon that cuts away the darkness from the people’s minds. The masses must make themselves heard in order to propel the party ship forward. Then we will be able to face the future confidently. History will do its work. See that you too do your work.
The events leading up to World War I from the massive
military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in
Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of
the world’s resources to the supposedly eternal pledges by the Social-Democrats
and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the
international working-class to stop those parties in their tracks at the
approach of war were decisive for 20th century history. The ability
to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first
portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial
might tipped the scales their way almost could not be avoided in the early 20th
century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow
exponentially with each new turn in the war machine.
The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon
fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for
the increased cannon-power and rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried
out by the norms of the last war. However the race for naval supremacy, or the
race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany
tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried
to gain a big hold in the Asia seas. The deeply disturbing submarine warfare
wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other
such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred
years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers
and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched
fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or
nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt
before they began among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss
in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything
concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included
the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was
committed to stopping the madness. A few voices were raised and one hundred
years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.
Over the next period as we lead up to the 100th
anniversary of the start of World War I and beyond I will under this headline
post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in
order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle
against its outbreak before, the forlorn struggle during and the massive
struggles in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the
battlefields.
********
Teddy Martin had come from a long line of workers, some of
his forbears had been among the first domestic weavers in Spitalfield, had been
the first machine-tenders in Manchester and had been workers like him and his
father in the London shipbuilding trade. He knew deep in his blood there was an
“us” and “them” in the world without his party, the Labor Party, having to tell
him word one on the subject. He had even read Karl Marx in his early teens when
he was trying to figure out why his family was stuck in the faraway outer
tenements with their squalor and their human closeness (he never could get over
being in close quarters ever since then). So yes he was ready to listen to what
some left members of the party had to say if the war clouds on the horizon
turned any darker. But, and hear him true, his was like his forbears and his
father before him as loyal a man as to be found in the country. Loyal to his
king (queen too if it came to that) and his country. So he would have to think,
think carefully, about what to do if those nasty Huns and their craven allies
making loud noises of late threatened his way of life. Most of his mates to the
extent that they had any opinion were beginning to be swept up in the idea that
a little war might not be such a bad thing to settle some long smoldering
disputes. Still he, Teddy Martin, was not a man to be rushed and so he would
think, think hard, about what to do if there was a mass mobilization.
No question, thought Teddy Martin, his majesty’s government
had gotten itself into a hard situation ever since that mangy Archduke somebody
had got himself shot by a guy, a damn anarchist working with who knows who,
maybe freemasons, over in Sarajevo, over in someplace he was not quite sure he
knew where it was if somebody had asked him to point it out in a map. That
seemingly silly little act (except of course to the Archduke and his wife also
killed) apparently has exposed Britain, damn the whole British Empire that they
claim the sun never sets on, to some pretty serious entanglements because if
France were to go to war with Austria or someplace like that then the king is
duty bound to come to France’s rescue. And Teddy Martin as thinking man, as a
working man, as a member in good standing of the Labor Party ever since its
inception was still not sure what he would do. Not sure that he would follow
the war cries being shouted out by the likes of Arthur Henderson from his own
party. All he knew was that the usual talk of football or the prizefights that
filled the air at his pub, The Cock and Bull, was being supplanted by war talk,
by talk of taking a nip out of the Germans and those who spoke in that way were
gaining a hearing. All Teddy knew was that it was getting harder and harder for
him to openly express thoughts that he needed to think about the issues more.
That was not a good sign, not a good omen.
********
The German Social-Democratic Party had given Fritz Klein
everything. Had taken him from a small furniture-making factory(less than one
hundred employees constituting in those days small) where he led the fight for
unionization (against all odds for that woefully unorganized industry and
against the then still standing laws against unionization pressed by the state
as well as well as the outlaw status of the S-D Party in those pre-legal days)
and brought him along into the burgeoning party bureaucracy (boasting of this
number of party publications, that number of members, and the pinnacle the
votes attained for the growing number of party parliamentarians in the
Reichstag). Made him a local then regional shop steward agent. Later found him
a spot in the party publications department and from there to alternate member
of the party’s national committee. As he grew older, got married, had two
lovely children the party had severely sapped the youthful idealism out of him.
Still he was stirred whenever Karl Liebknecht, old Wilhelm’s son, the father whom
he knew from the old days, delivered one of his intellectual and rational
attacks against the war aims of the Kaiser and his cabal. Still too though he
worried, worried to perdition, that the British and, especially the French were
deliberately stepping on German toes. Although tired, endlessly tired, he hoped
that he would be able to stick to the Second International’s pledge made at
Basle in 1912 to do everything to stop war in case it came, as was now likely.
He just didn’t know how he would react, didn’t know at all.
Fritz was furious, furious at two things. First that those
damn whatever they were anarchists, nationalists, or whatever had assassinated
the Archduke Ferdinand. Had threatened the peace of Europe, his peace, with
their screwy theory of picking off various state officials thinking that would,
unlike victory in the mass class struggles, change the world. Christ, they
could have at least read Marx or somebody. Make no mistake Fritz had no truck
with monarchy, certainly not the moribund Austro-Hungarian monarchy, despised
the Kaiser himself right here in the German homeland (although on the quiet
since the Kaiser was not above using his courts for the simple pleasure of
skewering a man for lese majeste and had
done so to political opponents and the idle wild-talkers alike). Still his
blood boiled that some desperados would pick at a fellow Germanic target. Fritz
was not at all sure that maybe the French, or the English, the bloody English
were behind the activities. Hugo Heine thought so, his immediate regional
director, so there could be some truth to the assertion.
Secondly, that same Hugo Heine had begun, at the behest of
the national committee of the party, to clamp down on those who were trying to
make the party live up to its promises and try to make a stand against any
German, any Kaiser moves toward war over the incident at Sarajevo. The way
Heine put it was that if war was to come and he hoped that it would not the
Social-Democracy must not be thrown into the underground again like in the old
days under Bismarck. Hugo had spent two years in the Kaiser’s jail back then
for simply trying to organize his shop and get them to vote for the party then
outlawed. The radical stuffing had come out of Hugo though and all he wanted
was not to go back to jail now for any reason. Fritz cursed those damn
anarchists again, cursed them more bitterly since they were surely going to
disturb his peace.
********
Jacques Rous (and yes he traced his family roots back to the
revolution, back to the “red” priest who he was named after who had led some of
the plebeian struggles back then that were defeated by those damn moderate
cutthroats Robespierre and Saint Just) had long been a leader the anarchist
delegation in his Parisian district, had been in a few fights in his time with
the damn city bourgeoisie, and had a long, very long memory of what the Germans
had, and had not done, in Paris in ’71,in the time of the bloodedly suppressed
Commune. Also Jacques had long memories of his long past forbears who had come
from Alsace-Lorraine now in German hands. And it galled him, galled him that
there were war clouds gathering daily over his head, over his district and over
his beloved Paris.
But that was not what
was troubling Jacques Rous in the spring of 1914. He knew, knew deep in his
bones like a lot of his fellow anarchists, like a lot of the guys in the small
pottery factory he had worked in for the past several years after being laid
off from the big textile factory across the river that if war came they would
know what to do. Quatrain from the CGT (the large trade union organization to
which he and others in the factory belonged to) had clued them in, had told
them enough to know some surprises were headed the government’s way if they
decided to use the youth of the neighborhoods as cannon fodder. What bothered
Jacques was not his conduct but that of his son, Jacques too named in honor of
that same ancient red priest who was the lifeblood of the family. Young Jacques
something of a dandy like many youth in those days, something of a lady’s man
(he had reportedly a married mistress and somebody else on the side), had told
one and all (although not his father directly) who would listen one night that he
planned to enlist in the Grenadiers just as soon as it looked like trouble was
coming. Old Jacques wondered if other fathers were standing in fear of such
rash actions by their sons just then.
Old Jacques could see the writing on the wall, remembered
what it was like when the German
threatened to come back in ’70 and then came the last time. Came and left the
Parisian poor to eat rats or worse when they besieged the city, old Thiers fled
to Versailles, and Paris starved half-aided by those Germans and he expected
the same if not worse this time because that country was now unified, was now
filled with strange powerful Krupp cannon and in a mood to use it now that one
of the members of their alliance had had one of its own killed in Sarajevo and
all Europe was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He believed that the
anarchists of Paris to a man would resist the call to arms issued by the
government. Quatrain, the great leader ever since Commune days, almost
guaranteed a general strike if they tried to mobilize the Parisian youth for
the slaughter. Yeah Quatrain would stand tall. Jacques though had personal
worries somebody had seen his son, also Jacques, heading with some of his
“gilded” friends toward the 12th Grenadier recruiting office in the
Hotel de Ville ready to fight for bloody bourgeois France, for the memory of
Napoleon, for the glory of battle. And he old Jacques knowing from some
skimpily- held barricades back in ’71 just how “glorious” war was fretted in
the night against his blood.
*******
George Jenkins dreamed the dream of many young men out in
the heartland, out in the wheat fields of Kansas a dream that America, his
America would keep the hell out of what looked like war clouds coming from
Europe in the spring of 1914 (although dreams and dreamers were located not
just on the farms since George was not a Kansas farm boy but a rising young
clerk in Doc Dell’s Drugstore located in the college town of Lawrence). George
was keenly interested in such matters and would, while on break or when things
were slow, glance through the day later copy of the New York Times or Washington
Post that Doc provided for his more worldly customers via the passing
trains. What really kept George informed though was William White’s home-grown Emporia Gazette which kept a close eye
on the situation in Europe for the folks.
And with all of that information here is what George
Jenkins, American citizen, concluded: America had its own problems best tended
to by keeping out of foreign entanglements except when America’s direct
interests were threatened. So George naturally cast skeptical eyes on
Washington, on President Wilson, despite his protestations that European
affairs were not our business. George had small town ideas about people minding
their own business. See too also George had voted for Eugene V. Debs himself,
the Socialist party candidate for President, and while he was somewhat
skeptical about some of the Socialist Party leaders back East he truly believed
that Brother Debs would help keep us out of war.
Jesus, those damn Europeans have begun to make a mess for
themselves now that some archduke, Jesus, an archduke in this day and age (and
George Jenkins thanked some forgotten forebear for getting his clan out of
Europe whenever he did so and avoided that nonsense about going to the aid of
somebody over a damn archduke). Make no mistake George Jenkins had no sympathy
for anarchists and was half-glad a couple of years ago when the Socialist Party
booted the IWW, the damn Wobbies, out if that is what they did and the beggars
didn’t just walk out. Although he had an admiration for Big Bill Hayward and
his trade union fights that is all it was-admiration and policy could not be
made on that basis. So no he had no truck with anarchists but to go to war over
an archduke-damn. Still George was no Pollyanna and kept abreast of what was
going on and it bothered him more than somewhat that guy slike Senator Lodge
from Massachusetts and others from the Northeast were beating the war drums to
get the United States mired in a damn European war. No way, no way good solid
Midwesterners would fall for that line. And so George watched and waited.
Watched too to see what old Debs had to say about matters. George figured that
if the war drums got loud enough then Brother Debs would organize and speak up
to keep things right. That was his way.
********
Ivan Smirnov was no kid, had been around the block a few
times in this war business. Had been in the Russian fleet that got its ass
kicked by the Japanese in 1904 (he never called them “Nips” like lots of his
crewmates did not after that beating they took that did not have to happen if
the damn Czar’s naval officers had been anything but lackeys and anything but
overconfident that they could beat the Johnny-come-lately Japanese in the naval
war game). More importantly he had been in the Baltic fleet when the revolution
of 1905 came thundering over their heads and each man, each sailor, each
officer had to choice sides. He had gone with rebels and while he did not face
the fate of his comrades on the Potemkin
his naval career was over.
Just as well Ivan had thought many times since he was then able
to come ashore and get work on the docks through some connections, and think.
And what he was thinking in the spring of 1914 with some ominous war clouds in
the air that that unfinished task from 1905 was going to come to a head. Ivan
knew enough about the state of the navy, and more importantly, the army to know
that without some quick decisive military action the monarchy was finished and
good riddance. The hard part, the extremely hard part, was to get those future
peasant conscripts who would provide cannon fodder for the Czar’s ill-thought
out land adventures to listen up for a minute rather than go unknowingly
head-long into the Czar’s arm (the father’s arms for many of them). So there
was plenty of work to do. Ivan just that moment was glad that he was not a
kid.
As the war clouds thickened after the killing of the
archduke in bloody damn Sarajevo in early summer 1914 Ivan Smirnov knew in his
bones that the peasant soldier cannon fodder as always would come flocking to
the Czar like lemmings to the sea the minute war was declared. Any way the deal
was cut the likely line-up of the Czar with the “democracies” of the West, Britain
and France and less likely the United States would immediately give the Czar cover
against the villainies of the Huns, of the Germans who just the other day were propping
up the Czar’s treasury. It could not end well. All Ivan hoped for was that his party,
the real Social-Democrats, locally known as the Mensheviks from the great split
in 1903 with the Bolsheviks and who had definitely separated from that organization
for good in 1912, would not get war fever just because the damn Czar was lined
up with the very democracies that the party wished to emulate in Russia.
He knew too that the talk among the leadership of the Bolsheviks
(almost all of them in exile and thus far from knowing what was happening down
in the base of society at home) about opposing the Czar to the bitter end, about
fighting in the streets again some said to keep the young workers and the peasants
drifting into the urban areas from the dead-ass farms from becoming cannon-fodder
for a lost cause was crazy, was irresponsible. Fortunately some of the local Bolshevik
committee men in Russia and among their Duma delegation had cooler heads. Yea this
was not time to be a kid, with kid’s tunnel vision, with great events working
in the world.
********Rosa Luxemburg-The Political Mass Strike-(1913)
First Spoken: July 22, 1913 to the Fourth Berlin constituency.
First Published: Vorwärts, July 24, 1913.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker.
Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf.
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions.
Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
First Published: Vorwärts, July 24, 1913.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker.
Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf.
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions.
Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
In Germany, the problem of the political mass strike was earlier discussed under the mighty pressure of the great Russian Revolution of 1905, a revolution in which the application of the mass strike brought both defeat and victory to the Russian proletariat. The resolution of the Jena Party Congress [September 1905] was the outcome of this discussion. This resolution declared the political mass strike to be a weapon of the proletariat also applicable in Germany. There followed a period when debate on this problem subsided. Then in 1910 there was a further spirited discussion of the political mass strike in connection with our action to secure the right to vote in Prussia. The mass actions were deliberately suspended and our attention was directed towards the Reichstag elections of 1912. The mass strike again vanished from discussion. Now we see that the issue is again being discussed in meetings and at regional and district conferences. Even the party congress will not be able to avoid adopting a serious position on the question. When it is seen that the mass strike arouses the active interest of party comrades, no one will be able to assume that the entire discussion has been raised by only a few supporters of the mass strike. It is rooted in the economic situation. Such discussions always originate when the party feels the need to impel the movement to take a significant step forward, and when the party comrades become aware that we cannot make any headway with the critics who would write off the whole discussion as a sham perpetrated by a few cranks.
How and when did this discussion start? In the Wilmersdorf meeting? That is an error, but one which can be forgiven those who read only Vorwärts. For it has admittedly made out that Comrade Frank instigated the discussion on the political mass strike in the Wilmersdorf meeting. Long before the mass strike was discussed in Berlin, party comrades in many other places were concerned with it. If it is certain that the elemental power of the masses has now, for the third time, placed the question of the political mass strike on the agenda, then we must welcome it and see in this a symptom of the fact that we cannot avoid any longer applying this most valuable method to the class struggle. This is why it is necessary to examine the mass-strike issue in all its aspects. The question is far from being settled. It must still be discussed at length so that the masses are familiarized with the way in which this new form of struggle is to be applied.If we consider the present discussion, we see on the one hand ardent advocates of the mass strike who are in favour of the party conference, in consultation with the General Commission of the trade unions, empowering the Party Executive to prepare the way for the mass strike. Indeed, they also demand that we should begin to educate the workers for the mass strike. They further advise the preparation of the mass strike according to the Belgian model. These are the demands made by one group. Another group immediately expressed the strongest reservations against any ‘flirting with the idea of the mass strike’. They said that this is extremely dangerous to our party life, for we in Germany are far from ready to participate in a mass strike. The party would suffer a defeat, their argument continued, from which it would not recover for decades.
The advocates of an application of the mass strike as soon as possible belong to various political currents. Comrade Frank, who has come out for the mass strike, represents the school of political opportunism. In Baden, he advocates the formation of a grand coalition with the National Liberals. His policy is very simple. One pursues grandiose politics in parliament with all the methods of statesmanlike tactics, one comes to terms with the bourgeois parties, one fashions a great block of the entire Left. However, when this policy fails, as it is bound to do, to advance the cause of the proletariat one step further, ah! then workers come into the streets and start a mass strike. Frank’s proclamation is a perfect example of how not to arrange a mass strike.
The mass strike is not something that one can make whenever the parliamentary tricksters’ policy breaks down. A mass strike brought about under such circumstances is a lost cause from the outset. The political tricksters who believe that they can conjure up a mass strike and then terminate it with a wave of the hand are in error. This cannot be done. Mass strikes can only take place when the historical preconditions for them are at hand. They cannot be made on command. Mass strikes are not an artificial method that can be applied whenever the party has bungled its politics, in order to extricate us overnight from the morass. When the class conflicts have become so pronounced and the political situation so tense that parliamentary means are no longer sufficient to advance the cause of the proletariat, then the mass strike is urgently necessary, and then, although it may not bring unconditional victory, it is immensely useful to the cause of the proletariat. Only when the situation has become so extreme that there is no more hope for co-operation with the bourgeois parties, especially with the liberals, does the proletariat obtain the impetus necessary for the success of the mass strike. Accordingly, the mass strike is not reconcilable with a policy centred around parliamentarism.
The Belgian movement is a storehouse of information on the problem of the mass strike. After they had abolished the plural vote by means of the mass strike, our Belgian comrades centred their efforts on parliament. This meant that the mass strike was put on ice. All proletarian actions were suspended as part of an overall plan to combine with the bourgeois Left in order to achieve universal suffrage. But the election of 1912 brought about the complete collapse of liberalism, and what remained of it went over to the camp of reaction. Then a storm of indignation broke out. Immediately following the elections the question of the mass strike reappeared. But the leaders of Belgian Social Democracy, who had based their policy on co-operation with the liberals, endeavoured to placate the masses by promising to arrange for the mass strike later. Then began the systematic postponement of the mass strike. Instead of an elemental eruption, a new tactic was begun; preparations were made for a new mass strike to be held in one month. After preparations lasting nine months, the masses could no longer be restrained. The strike finally broke out and for ten days was carried on with admirable discipline. The result was this: the strike was discontinued upon the first illusory concession made, a concession which represented a gain of virtually nothing. The Belgian comrades did not feel that they had achieved a victory. We see then, that the mass strike, employed in conjunction with the policy of a grand coalition resulted in nothing but set-backs. In view of this, we will reject any possible recommendation that we form a grand coalition in the south while at the same time starting a mass strike in Prussia.
On the other hand, it is said that we would be acting prematurely were we to propagate the mass strike in Germany, for we are less ripe for it than the proletariat of other countries. We in Germany have the strongest organizations, the fullest coffers, the largest parliamentary party, and yet we, alone among the whole international proletariat, are not supposed to be ripe? It is said that, despite its strength, our organization is only a minority of the proletariat. According to this notion, we would be ripe only when the last man and the last woman had paid their dues to their constituency associations. This is one wondrous moment for which we need not wait. Whenever we instigate an important action, not only do we count upon those who are organized, but we also assume that they will sweep the unorganized masses along with them. What would be the state of the proletarian straggle if we counted only on the organized!
During the ten-day general strike in Belgium, at least two-thirds of the strikers were not organized. Of course one must not conclude from this that the organization was of no significance. The organization’s power lies in its understanding of how to draw the unorganized into the action at the right time. The exploitation of such situations is a method of bringing about a huge growth in the organizations of the party and trade unions. Recruitment to the strong organizations must be based on a large-scale and forward-looking policy; otherwise the organizations will quietly decay. The history of the party and the trade unions demonstrates that our organizations thrive only on the attack. For then the unorganized flock to our banner. The type of organization that calculates in advance and to the nearest penny the costs necessary for action is worthless; it cannot weather the storm. All this must be made clear, and the dividing line must not be drawn so nicely between the organized and the unorganized.
If it is demanded that the party executive, in conjunction with the General Commission, should prepare for the mass strike, then it must be said that mass strikes cannot be made. But it is necessary to recognize that in Germany we are approaching a situation in which mass strikes are inevitable. We have just witnessed another victory of imperialism in the passing of the enormous military bill. After many in our ranks had so hoped to co-operate with the liberals, we see that these same liberals are hand-maidens of imperialism. If regrettably our parliamentary party supported property taxes in the fiscal covering bill, then this was nothing more than an intent to combine with the progressives and National Liberals to eliminate the Blue-Black Block. But the liberals, in league with the Blue-Black Block, eliminated us and, behind the backs of the Social Democrats, bungled miserably the property tax. Our parliamentary party’s final covering bill evoked powerful reactions in the Social-Democratic press abroad and in our own meetings. We shall have lively debates on this subject at the party congress.
The triumph of imperialism in the military bill brought home once more the painful lesson that we can no longer rely on the liberals. For this reason it is necessary to open the masses’ eyes. It is a fact that our parliamentarians lived in the illusion that they could form a coalition with the liberals against the Blue-Black Block, and that this illusion resulted in a miserable fiasco. This victory for imperialism was a new step towards the heightening of the class conflicts. We live at a time in which no more advantages can be gained in parliament for the proletariat. This is why the masses themselves must enter the theatre of action. Developments have taken such a turn that the mass strike will not disappear from the agenda in Germany. It is not a matter of preparing the mass strike; instead, we must ensure that our policy expresses the utmost strength necessary in the present situation.
The latest phase of our party’s policy dates from our electoral victory of 1912. We had set our greatest hopes upon it. An article by Kautsky, printed in Vorwärts, mentioned that a new liberalism was emerging. That was a disastrous illusion, but explicable on the basis of the slogan of moderation issued for the run-off ballots.
Moderation is an unacceptable policy. As a result of moderation we had vague hopes of a new liberalism and then the exuberant anticipation attached to the possibility of a Social Democrat being chosen President of the Reichstag. All these hopes have been dashed, and they show that our policy and tactics are outmoded. We have now witnessed the tumult of the Jubilee celebrations and the visit of the Bloody Tsar to the Berlin Court. This opportunity should have been used to instigate some kind of republican action. Do we have four million Social Democrats only so that we can crawl into a mousehole when the Bloody Tsar comes for a visit? How many supporters we could have won if we had organized a demonstration!
If we want to prove ourselves worthy of the great coming events then we must not begin at the wrong end by attempting to make technical preparations for the mass strike. When the situation is ripe, the tactic of the mass strike will present itself. Let us not rack our brains about supporting it at the right time. What is necessary is that you watch the party press to ensure that it is your instrument and expresses your opinion and your mood. You must also see to it that our parliamentarians feel a mass pressing them from behind, so that they do not chart such a disastrous course as in the case of the military bill. Shape the organization so that you need not wait until the command is given from above, but so that you have the reins of command in your own hands. You must not lose yourselves in technical details such as the reorganization of the dues-paying social evenings and of the delegate system. This is all very important, but your attention must be directed above all to the general guiding principles of our policy in parliament and throughout the country. Policy must not be formulated in such a way that the masses are always confronted with faits accomplis. Above all you must see to it that the press is a sharply honed weapon that cuts away the darkness from the people’s minds. The masses must make themselves heard in order to propel the party ship forward. Then we will be able to face the future confidently. History will do its work. See that you too do your work.
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