DE LEON'S STRUGGLE AGAINST KAUTSKYISM
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DECEMBER 2000
VOL. 110 NO. 9
DE LEON'S STRUGGLE AGAINST KAUTSKYISM
Looking backward, the Socialist Labor Party may feel a
justifiable pride in its conduct as an affiliate of the Second
International. The most searching examination of the record
fails to reveal a single instance in which it retreated from the
line of the class struggle, or when it lowered its colors or
compromised with the philistine elements within the
International.
Nor were SLP delegations at the International Congresses
mugwumps who, for reasons of policy or indecision, refrained
from taking definite positions on fundamental issues. There was
an aggressive assurance about their conduct, which more than
once brought credit to the party, and recognition from
uncompromising European Marxists who fought opportunism in their
parties. And never was this demonstrated more dramatically than
at the Paris and Amsterdam Congresses in 1900 and 1904, where
the infamous Kautsky Resolution, presupposing "the possibility
of impartiality on the part of ruling-class governments in the
conflicts between the working class and the capitalist class,"
was adopted and, in effect, rescinded.
THE BATTLE AGAINST MILLERANDISM
The Kautsky Resolution was the climax of a CAUSE CELEBRE that
had wracked and split the French socialist movement, the
acceptance by the "socialist" Millerand of a portfolio in the
Waldeck-Rousseau ministry where he sat cheek by jowl with
Galliffet, the butcher of the Paris Commune.1 Not only had
Millerand violated the fundamental principle without which
socialism becomes a cruel hoax on the workers, to wit, the
principle that the "working class must achieve emancipation
through its own classconscious efforts," but he had, by
remaining in the Cabinet, accepted responsibility for the cold-
blooded slaughter of striking workers at Martinique and Chalon.
These murderous attacks by French troops had been either
authorized or ordered by the Cabinet, and, although Millerand
may not have directly participated, his culpability was beyond
question. As Daniel De Leon pointed out in a DAILY PEOPLE
editorial on Millerandism (Oct. 22, 1900): "The theory of
'Cabinet government' is that the collective act of the Cabinet
is the individual act of all its members, and that the
individual act of any one member is the act of all. The Cabinet
minister who refuses to shoulder responsibility for any act of
his colleagues resigns; if he does not resign, he approves."
Millerand did not resign. Instead, he went around the country
denouncing the class struggle as inhuman and falsely imputing to
it the fatuous doctrine of "class hatred." "Love, not hatred,"
he said, "will emancipate the working class." Naturally, the
capitalists were delighted with this breaking off of the point
of the class struggle and thought they had at last discovered an
effective strategy to defeat socialism. Marcel Mielvague,
described as a "cool-headed bourgeois," put it in these words:
"A Socialist who consents to administer the fortunes of a
bourgeois state is no longer a danger to such a state. He may
force it to consent to some reforms, the most indispensable and
pressing. He thereby pacifies the opinion that elected him;
weakens the anger and force of the demands of the masses.
Accordingly, it is profitable to confiscate for the benefit of
[bourgeois] society the most intelligent and ardent leaders of
the opposition. To call them to power is a sort of honorable way
of placating them."
The Millerand affair raised the question of socialist
participation in bourgeois governments before the Paris Congress
of the International. Two resolutions were introduced, one by
Guesde of the Parti Ouvrier Socialiste (Socialist Labor Party),
and one by Karl Kautsky of the German Social Democratic Party.
The Guesde resolution demanded that, "Under a capitalist
regime....Socialists should occupy those positions only which
are elective, that is, those positions only which their party
can conquer with its own forces by the action of the workers
organized into a class party; and this necessarily forbids all
socialist participation in capitalist government against which
Socialists must preserve an attitude of uncompromising
opposition."
The Kautsky Resolution, which later was referred to wittily as
the "Kaoutchouc [India rubber] resolution," because of the
conflicting constructions put upon it, was artfully evasive, but
implicitly presupposed impartiality on the part of capitalist
governments "in the struggle between capital and labor."
SLP TAKES ITS STAND ON THE CLASS STRUGGLE
The Socialist Labor Party delegation of six, which was headed by
Lucien Sanial, included E. Arnaelsteen. Arnaelsteen it was who
first opposed the Kautsky Resolution and spoke for the Guesde
resolution in "concise and unmistakable language." It was before
the Ninth Commission, the committee to which both resolutions
were referred. On the commission sat most of the celebrated
figures of the international socialist movement. P. Kretlow, an
SLP delegate who substituted for Sanial on the Ninth Commission
while Sanial was occupied on the commission of trusts, reported
in detail on the reception accorded Arnaelsteen's reasoned
address. "...Those 'great, wise men' of the international
movement did not think it worth their while to listen to our
comrade who was not yet a leading light, and Jaures, Auer and
Adler began to entertain each other so audibly that Arnaelsteen
stopped speaking, saying to the chairman that he would wait till
these gentlemen got through. Jaures tried to excuse himself by
saying he was translating Arnaelsteen's speech to Auer, which
was false." The rebuke had its effect and Arnaelsteen thereupon
concluded his remarks.
At this moment, Kretlow reports, Sanial arrived and registered
to speak. Discussing the incident in an address delivered in
Arlington Hall, New York, shortly after returning from Paris,
Sanial said:
"In the Ninth Commission, when this resolution [the Kautsky
Resolution] was read, I looked as if I wondered whether I stood
on my head and saw all things inverted. The silence was deep
while I said: 'Comrades, I never expected such a production from
one supposed to be a veteran exponent of scientific socialism.
It was with profound sorrow that we in America heard of the
acceptance of a portfolio by Millerand, but it would have been
with a sorrow far deeper still that we would have heard of his
acceptance with the sanction of the Socialist Party of France.
If this resolution is adopted, a cry of indignation will rise
from the Atlantic to the Pacific among our militants, and a
corresponding cry of derision will rise from our capitalist
parties. If it is permissible for a prominent member of a
socialist party to accept a high position in a capitalist
government, why should it not be permissible for the humbler
ones to accept lower offices under the same circumstances? You
open the door to bribery and corruption from top to bottom. You
establish in the party the very condition of affairs which we
denounce so bitterly in the American labor movement. This
resolution repudiates the past, and is a stain on the historic
records of socialism.'"
While Sanial thus "expressed his astonishment at the attitude of
the revolutionary Kautsky," Kretlow wrote, "Adler....called
mockingly across the table to Kautsky: 'Karl, Du bist ein
schlechtes Luder!' (You are a bad egg!)" "Then," Kretlow
continued, "I asked these two wise men, Auer and Adler, being
quite close to me, and who were now discussing the
'impartiality,' whether they could name me ONE ministry that was
impartial, but unfortunately I am no leading light either, and
only Adler condescended to reply with a shrugging of the
shoulders."
When the vote was taken in the Ninth Commission on the Guesde
and Kautsky Resolutions, it stood 4 to 24. Let it be said to the
undying credit of the SLP that in the face of opposition little
short of hostility, its vote was cast with the minority for the
Guesde resolution. The other three votes were cast by Guesde,
Enrico Ferri (who declared that he did so in duty to his
conscience, but wasn't sure he represented majority Italian
sentiment), and the delegate from Bulgaria.
The matter then went before the Congress where, after a lively
debate in which Sanial did not take part (debate was suddenly
shut off at the very moment when his turn to speak came!), the
Kautsky Resolution carried 29 to 9. Each nationality cast two
votes. Of the American votes the SLP delegation controlled but
one. The other was cast by the delegates of the Debs-Kangaroo
Social Democracy (Socialist Party) for the Kautsky Resolution.*
And no doubt, with it went the prayer that they, too, might one
day have a Millerand!
In his Arlington Hall address Sanial said of the Congress:
"It was evident all through the Congress that bourgeois thought
dominated its action. German small traders, Belgian cooperative
society clerks, who through their stores form an immense
bureaucracy. Ambitious men who desire portfolios, the Cabinet
Socialists, and the English muddleheads were all in control.
Against this mass of reaction the American delegation [SLP], the
Parti Ouvrier [Socialiste], Ferri of Italy with the Bulgarian
and Irish delegations stood like a stone wall."
Kretlow's irreverence for the supposed puissance of the "great,
wise men" bordered on the puckish. "For myself," he wrote, "I
will say that I have met men here who are considered Socialists
and were delegates that we in the States would take by the slack
of the pants and kick through the door." He valued the
opportunity, however, to "judge the movement according to the
economic development of the country." He was proud of the
Socialist Labor Party delegation of "six of those 'narrow,'
'intolerant,' 'abusive,' etc., members of the, in my mind, most
advanced and best disciplined organization of the world; in the
midst of whom Sanial appeared like a father with his sons."
VINDICATION AT AMSTERDAM
The second and final OFFICIAL chapter was written to the AFFAIRE
MILLERAND and the Kautsky Resolution in 1904 at Amsterdam. As
its delegate to that Congress the party sent its most
distinguished member, the foremost American Marxist, Daniel De
Leon.2 De Leon was a member of the Congress Committee on
International Political Policy, or, as he aptly designated it,
"the committee to rectify the blunder of the last International
Congress." By this time the evils of Millerandism had become so
conspicuous that many of those who supported the Kautsky
Resolution at Paris were compelled, reluctantly, to admit their
error. Whereas only four votes were cast for the Guesde
resolution, or against the Kautsky Resolution, in the committee
at Paris, and 24 for the Kautsky Resolution, fully three-fourths
of the Committee on International Political Policy at Amsterdam
wanted somehow to repeal it. "Of these," wrote De Leon in his
preliminary report, "I held the extreme position--extreme in the
sense that I moved plump and plain its repeal. I did not typify
this element; the bulk of it, either out of consideration for
Kautsky, or out of consideration for the German Social
Democracy, or out of some other reasons, preferred to proceed
with a tender hand and in a roundabout way." Sentiment
frequently played a role in European socialist affairs.
The story of what transpired at Amsterdam is told
comprehensively in the series of reports, essays and thumbnail
sketches De Leon wrote for the DAILY PEOPLE...as "Flashlights of
the Amsterdam Congress." But "Flashlights" is more than a
report. It is a masterful, analytic critique of the European
socialist movement, indispensable not only to an understanding
of the causal factors of the ignominious rout of Social
Democracy, but to an understanding of contemporary European
history as well. The rise of totalitarianism on the Continent
was due, not to the strength of Nazi-fascist hoodlums and their
industrialist sponsors, but to the weakness of the working
class--a weakness whose cause may be traced back to the
infections spread by Social Democracy, back to the compromises
made for the sake of "unity" and "bigness" by the German Social
Democracy at Gotha in 1875. "Flashlights" limns both the past
AND THE FUTURE, foretelling in unequivocal language of logic and
vigor the consequences of compromise with the foe and of what
Marx so aptly designated "parliamentary idiocy." "Flashlights"
also gives the lie to those who attacked De Leon and the SLP as
"doctrinaire," and who pleaded "tolerance" as a shield for their
own treachery. It is a veritable monument to Marxian science,
and affords its greatest American exponent the opportunity to
discuss the movement in other countries in relation to the
material and political conditions prevailing in them. It is as
useful today as when it was first written.
DE LEON NAILS KAUTSKY
In his "preliminary report"...De Leon reproduced the substance
of his address before the committee. Guesde had spoken; Jaures
followed with a rebuttal and Kautsky answered him; De Leon
replied to Kautsky saying:
"Both Kautsky and Jaures have agreed that an International
Congress can do no more than establish cardinal general
principles; and they both agree that concrete measures of policy
must be left to the requirements of individual countries. So do
I hold. Kautsky scored the point against Jaures that the latter
is estopped from objecting to decrees by the congress on
concrete matters of policy, because Jaures voted in Paris for
the Kautsky Resolution. That argument also is correct, and being
correct it scores a point against Kautsky himself at the same
time. His argument is an admission that his resolution goes
beyond the theoretical sphere which, according to himself, it is
the province of an International Congress to legislate upon. It
must be admitted that the countries of the sisterhood of nations
are not all at the same grade of social development. We know
that the bulk of them still are hampered by feudal conditions.
The concrete tactics, applicable and permissible in them, are
inapplicable and unpermissible in a republic like the United
States, for instance. But the sins of the Kautsky Resolution are
more serious than even that. Kautsky just stated that his
resolution contemplated only an extreme emergency--a war, for
instance, and that he never could or did contemplate the case of
a Socialist sitting in a Cabinet alongside of a Galliffet. He
says so. We must believe him. But while he was contemplating the
distant, the imaginary possibility of a war that was not in
sight, everybody else at the Paris Congress had in mind a thing
that WAS in sight; a thing that was palpitating and throbbing
with a feverish pulse; aye, a spectacle under which the very
opening of the Paris Congress was thrown into convulsions. And
what spectacle was that? Why, it was the very spectacle and fact
of a Socialist sitting in a Cabinet cheek by jowl, not merely
with A, but with THE Galliffet. Whatever Kautsky may have been
thinking of when he presented his resolution and voted for it,
we have his own, officially recorded, words that go to show that
he knew what the minds of all others were filled with at the
time. I have here in my satchel the official report of the
Dresden convention. In his speech, therein recorded, he says
himself that Auer, the spokesman of the German delegation in
favor of the Kautsky Resolution, said when speaking for the
resolution: 'We, in Germany, have not yet a Millerand; we are
not yet so far; but I hope we may soon be so far'--that is what
was in the minds of all--Millerand, the associate of Galliffet.
"It is obvious that a resolution adopted under such conditions--
its own framer keeping his eyes on an emergency that was not
above the horizon, while all others kept their eyes upon the
malodorous enormity that was bumping against their noses and
shocking the socialist conscience of the world--it goes without
saying that such a resolution, adopted under such conditions,
should have thrown the socialist world into the convulsions of
the discussions that we all know of during the last four years;
it goes without saying that such a resolution would be
interpreted in conflicting senses, and that has happened to such
an extent that the Kautsky Resolution has come to be known as
the 'Kaoutchouc resolution.' [Uproarious laughter.]
"In view of this fact the first thing to do is to clear the road
of such an encumbrance. For that reason I move the adoption of
the following resolution:
"'Whereas, The struggle between the working class and the
capitalist class is a continuous and irrepressible conflict, a
conflict that tends every day rather to be intensified than to
be softened;
"'Whereas, The existing governments are committees of the ruling
class, intended to safeguard the yoke of capitalist exploitation
upon the neck of the working class;
"'Whereas, At the last International Congress, held in Paris, in
1900, a resolution generally known as the Kautsky Resolution was
adopted, the closing clauses of which contemplate the emergency
of the working class accepting office at the hand of such
capitalist governments, and also and especially PRESUPPOSE THE
POSSIBILITY OF IMPARTIALITY ON THE PART OF THE RULING-CLASS
GOVERNMENTS IN THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE WORKING CLASS AND THE
CAPITALIST CLASS; and
"'Whereas, The said clauses--applicable, perhaps, in countries
not yet wholly freed from feudal institutions--were adopted
under conditions both in France and in the Paris Congress
itself, that justify erroneous conclusions on the nature of the
class struggle, the character of capitalist governments, and the
tactics that are imperative upon the proletariat in the pursuit
of its campaign to overthrow the capitalist system in countries,
which, like the United States of America, have wholly wiped out
feudal institutions; therefore, be it
"'Resolved, First, That the said Kautsky Resolution be and the
same is hereby repealed as a principle of general socialist
tactics;
"'Second, That, in fully developed capitalist countries, like
America, the working class cannot, without betrayal of the cause
of the proletariat, fill any political office other than they
conquer for and by themselves.
"'Offered by DANIEL DE LEON, Delegate of the Socialist Labor
Party of the United States of America, with credentials from the
Socialist Labor Party of Australia and of Canada.'
"From New York to California the Socialist Labor Party, that I
here represent, felt the shock of that Kautsky Resolution. The
[New York] EVENING POST quoted it as an illustration of the
'sanity' of the European Socialists as against us 'insane'
Socialists of America. From the way you have received my
proposition to repeal the mistake, I judge my proposition will
not be accepted. So much the worse for you. But whether accepted
or not, I shall be able to return to America--as our Socialist
Labor Party delegation did from Paris four years ago--with my
hands and the skirts of the party clear from all blame, the real
victors in the case."
As De Leon surmised, the SLP proposition was rejected. Instead,
the committee adopted what was known as the Dresden resolution,
which accomplished the amazing feat of strongly condemning the
evils the Kautsky Resolution approved without directly
repudiating the Kautsky Resolution. The Dresden resolution
carried in the committee by a vote of 27 to 3. De Leon cast his
vote in favor. "My own motion having been defeated," he
explained, "...there was nothing for me to do but to vote for
the Dresden resolution as the best thing that could be obtained
under the circumstances. To vote against it would have been to
rank the Socialist Labor Party of America alongside of Jaures;
to abstain from voting would be a roundabout way of doing the
same thing. In voting as I did, I explained my position as
wishing to give the greatest emphasis that the circumstances
allowed me to the condemnation of the Jaures policy, and the
Kautsky Resolution; and I stated that I would explain my
position in the Congress when I would there present my own
resolution again."
Instead, however, it was decided that Vandervelde report for the
committee and include in his report a statement of the SLP
position which De Leon supplied him. The vote on the Dresden
resolution in the Congress stood 25 for, and 5 against. There
were 12 abstentions. Both American votes (SLP and SP) were cast
with the majority, although Morris Hillquit, Socialist Party
delegate, had told the committee that the Kautsky Resolution
"was accurate and suited him. He denied," said De Leon, "that it
had shocked the classconscious workers of America."
Thus the infamous Kautsky Resolution was, in effect, rescinded,
but the evils which it was meant to justify were, alas, far from
being laid by the heels.
1 The portfolio Millerand was given by the cagey French
bourgeois was that of minister of commerce, which had more
patronage to give away than any of the others. The corrupting
influences of such a post are implicit in the fact that the
Ministry of Commerce controlled the post office, for instance,
with its 100,000 places, and the "bureau de Tabac" with its
200,000. When Millerand died in April 1943, he was described by
THE NEW YORK TIMES as "the hope and champion of the
bourgeoisie." In 1910, as minister of public works, posts and
telegraphs in the Briand Ministry, he played a leading part in
putting down the railroad strike by calling the strikers to
service "under the colors."
2 De Leon also had credentials from the Socialist Labor parties
of Canada and Australia. Because of the disorder prevailing in
the Congress' administration, however, these parties are not
recorded as having been officially represented. In the documents
De Leon submitted he attached their names with his signature but
they are not recorded as having voted.
*While substantially correct, this statement might be faulted on
technical grounds.
Eugene V. Debs and Victor L. Berger formed the Social Democratic
Party in 1897. Before 1900, however, the SLP was the only
American party recognized by the International Socialist Bureau.
In 1899, the group known in SLP history as the "kangaroos" split
away from the party and briefly claimed the SLP's name for
itself. The "kangaroos" began calling themselves the "Social
Democratic Party" after dragging the SLP through the capitalist
courts in an unsuccessful effort to steal the party's name and
its newspaper, THE PEOPLE.
The name change was a transparent attempt to flatter the Debs-
Berger group into accepting a merger. The Debs-Berger group, but
particularly its Berger wing, resisted these overtures for
nearly two years. Apparently, however, Berger's resistance did
not prevent this uneasy courtship from sending a joint
delegation to Paris. Hence the reference to "delegates of the
Debs-Kangaroo Social Democracy (Socialist Party)."
Job Harriman, a former SLP member, led the joint SDP-"kangaroo"
delegation at the Paris Congress. The congress seated the
Harriman-led delegation over the strenuous objections of the SLP
and allotted one vote to each. It was the SDP-"kangaroo"
delegation that cast its vote for the Kautsky Resolution.
When the SDP and "kangaroos" finally consummated their merger in
1901, they took the name Socialist Party. When the SLP led the
fight to have the Kautsky Resolution repealed at the Amsterdam
Congress in 1904, as shown later in this article, at least one
SP delegate, Morris Hillquit, said he had no fault to find with
that infamous document.
At Amsterdam, the SP cosponsored another infamous resolution.
That resolution called upon the congress to oppose immigration
by what the SP referred to as "workingmen of backward races
(Chinese, Negroes, etc.)." That resolution, at least, was
defeated. Today's SP-USA claims direct descent from the Debs-
Berger-Harriman-Hillquit SP that supported the Kautsky and
"backward races" resolutions at the Socialist International
Congresses.--Editor.
--
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