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At the same time Socialist investigators appear, who not only show the reasonableness and justice of Socialism, but exhibit the proof that the new economic order of Socialism is being prepared in the womb of Capitalism, and that therefore the aspirations of the worker are in harmony with the course of social development.
In this wise, a science and an aspiring Socialist movement founded upon reality develops from Utopian Socialism, and, conscious of class, of power, and of aim, enters upon the decisive struggle with [83]the capitalist economic order. The class struggle acts as a lever of social revolution.
The original antagonism of the worker and capitalist over wages and hours of labour becomes am impassionate struggle of two classes over the question of the maintenance or transformation of the social and economic system—one of which classes fights for the existing order of private property and the other for the coming Socialistic system. Great social class struggles inevitably become political struggles. The immediate object of the struggle is the possession of the power of the State, with the aid of which the capitalist class endeavours to maintain its position, whilst the working class aims at the conquest of the power of the State in order to accomplish its larger objects.
The following chapter will show the direction taken by the Labour movement. Here we will but briefly refer to the profound influence of Marx's doctrine of the class struggle as exercised in political thought. Prior to Marx, political thought and the struggles of political parties seemed to revolve around ideas and great personalities. Idealogy and hero-worship were prevalent. Now, political thought, consciously or unconsciously, proceeds along class and economic lines. This is equally true of historical investigations. These new political and historical orientations are largely the result of Marx's life-work.
Rigidly conceived and applied, the Marxian doctrine of the class-struggle may lead to ultra-revolutionary tactics of the Socialist and Labour movement, to the system of Workers' Councils, and Proletarian Dictatorship. If the emerging class and its struggle constitutes the lever of social revolution and the [84]impulse of the dialectical social process, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is justified, and in any case, democracy, which includes both the capitalist and working class, cannot be the State form during the transition period from private property to Socialism. Considered from the economic standpoint, political democracy is generally impossible, or only sham democracy so long as economic inequality exists. The Communist Manifesto does not contain a single political democratic reform. The conclusion can be drawn from Marx's idea, as a whole, that in his estimation, the class stood higher than so-called democracy. This is one of the sources of Bolshevism.
The Labour Party is the political expression of the whole Trade Union movement so far as the latter formulates national demands, directed towards the State and society generally. The Labour Party will function the more effectively, and be able to accomplish its allotted task, as its foundation—the Trade Union movement—becomes established and strengthened, and the more comprehensive will be its effects. The Trade Unions are not merely to be satisfied with the work of the present, but are to become the focus and centre of gravity of the proletarian aspirations which arise out of the social transformation process, and are to work for the abolition of Capitalism. The most effective lever for [85]the achievement of this object is the conquest of political power. With its aid the proletariat can consciously carry out the transformation of a Capitalist into a Communist society. To this transformation, there also corresponds a political transition period, the state of which can be nothing else than a revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat.—(Marx, Letter to the German Social Democracy, 1875, on their Gotha Programme.)
Marx considered himself to be the real author of the idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In a letter written by him, in 1852, to his American friend, Weydemeyer, he declares:
"As far as I am concerned, I can't claim to have discovered the existence of classes in modern society or their strife against one another. Middle-class historians long ago described the evolution of the class struggles, and political economists showed the economic physiology of the classes. I have added as a new contribution the following propositions: (1) that the existence of classes is bound up with certain phases of material production; (2) that the class struggle leads necessarily to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship is but the transition to the abolition of all classes and to the creation of a society of free and equal."—("Neue Zeit," Vol. XXV., second part, p. 164.)
With the exception of the year 1870, Marx remained true to his doctrine of Proletarian Dictatorship: he thought in 1875 as he did in 1847, when he sketched the groundwork of the Proletarian Dictatorship in the Communist Manifesto:
"The first step in the revolution by the working class is to[86] raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production."
But suppose that it is not the revolutionary working class which first attains to power in the revolution, but the democracy of the lower middle class and the social reformists. In this case, Marx gives the following advice: "Separate from it, and fight it." In the address to the League of Communists in 1850 he said:
"It may be taken for granted that in the bloody conflicts that are coming, as in the case of previous ones, the courage, resolution, and sacrifice of the workers will be the chief factor in the attainment of victory. As hitherto, so in this struggle, the mass of the lower middle class will maintain an attitude of delay, irresolution, and inactivity as long as possible, in order that, as soon as victory is assured, to arrogate it to themselves and call on the workers to remain [87]quiet, return to work, avoid so-called excesses, and to exclude the proletariat from the fruits of victory. It is not in the power of the workers to hinder the lower middle classes from doing this, but it is within their power to render their success over the armed proletariat very difficult, to dictate to them such conditions that from the beginning the rule of the middle-class democrats is doomed to failure, and its later substitution by the rule of the proletariat is considerably facilitated.
"The workers must, during the conflict and immediately afterwards, as much as ever possible, oppose the compromises of the middle class, and compel the democrats to execute their present terrorist threats. They must aim at preventing the subsiding of the revolutionary excitement immediately after the victory. On the contrary, they must endeavour to maintain it as long as possible.
"Far from opposing so-called excesses, and making examples of hated individuals or public buildings to which hateful remembrances are attached, by sacrificing them to the popular rage, such examples must not only be tolerated, but their direction must even be taken in hand. During the struggle and after the struggle, the workers must seize every opportunity to present their own demands side by side with those of the middle-class democrats. The workers must demand guarantees as soon as the middle-class democrats propose to take the government in hand. If necessary, these guarantees must be exacted, and the new rulers must be compelled to make every possible promise and concession, which is the surest way to compromise them. The workers must size up the conditions in a cool and dispassionate fashion, [88]and manifest open distrust of the new Government, in order to quench, as much as possible, the ardour for the new order of things and the elation which follows every successful street fight. Against the new official Government, they must set up a revolutionary workers' government, either in the form of local committees, communal councils, or workers' clubs or workers' committees, so that the democratic middle-class government not only immediately loses its support amongst the working classes, but from the commencement finds itself supervised and threatened by a jurisdiction, behind which stands the entire mass of the working class. In a word: from the first moment of victory the workers must no longer level their distrust against the defeated reactionary party, but direct it against their former allies, who would seek to exploit the common victory for their own ends. The workers must be armed and organised to enable them to threaten energetic opposition to this party, whose treason to the workers will commence in the first hour of victory. The arming of the whole proletariat with rifles and ammunition must be carried out at once, and steps taken to prevent the reviving of the old militia, which would be directed against the workers. But should this not be successful, the workers must endeavour to organise themselves as an independent guard, choosing their own chief and general staff, with orders to support not the State power, but the councils formed by the workers. Where workers are employed in State service, they must arm and organise in a special corps, with a chief chosen by themselves, or form a part of the Proletarian Guard. Under no pretext must they give up their arms and equipment, and any attempt at [89]disarmament must be forcibly resisted. Destruction of the influence of the middle-class democrats over the workers, immediate independent and armed organisation of the workers, and the imposition of the most irksome and compromising conditions possible upon the rule of the bourgeois democracy, which is for the time unavoidable.... We have noted that the Democrats come to power in the next phase of the movement, and how they will be obliged to impose measures of a more or less Socialistic nature. It will be asked what contrary measures should be proposed by the workers. Naturally, in the beginning of the movement the workers cannot propose actual Communist measures, but they can (1) compel the Democrats to attack the old social order from as many sides as possible, disturb its regular course, and compromise themselves, and concentrate in the hands of the State as much as possible of the productive forces, means of transport, factories, railways, etc. (2) When the Democrats propose measures which are not revolutionary, but merely reformist, the workers must press them to the point of turning such measures into direct attacks on private property; thus, for example, if the small middle class propose to purchase the railways and factories the workers must demand that such railways and factories, being the property of the reactionaries, shall be simply confiscated by the State, without compensation. If the Democrats propose a proportional tax, the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the Democrats themselves declare for a moderate progressive tax, the workers must insist on a tax so steeply graduated as to cause the collapse of large fortunes; if the Democrats demand the regulation of the State debt, the workers [90]must demand State bankruptcy. Thus the demands of the workers must everywhere be directed against the concessions and measures of the Democrats.... Further, the Democrats will either work directly for a Federal Republic, or, at least, if they cannot avoid the Republic one and indivisible, will seek to paralyse it by granting the greatest possible independence to the municipalities and provinces. The workers must set themselves against this plan, not only to secure the one and indivisible German Republic, but to concentrate as much power as possible in the hands of the State. They need not be misled by democratic platitudes about the freedom of the Communes, self-determination, etc. Their battle-cry must be 'the revolution in permanence.'"
