the combined delegates, if they choose from their midst a central executive committee of management, do not separate it from them- selves or make it their commander who can carry on a conflict with them.
"There is no middle course; the commune must be sovereign or only a branch [of the state] — everything or nothing. Give it, how- ever pleasant a part to play, from the moment when it does not create its rights out of itself, when it must recognise a higher law, when the great group to which it belongs is declared to be superior to it and is not the expression of its federated relations, they will unavoidably find themselves one day in opposition to each other and war will break out. " But then logic and power will be on the side of the central authority. "The idea of a limitation of the power of the state by means of groups, when the principle of subordination and centralisation rules in regard to these groups themselves, is inconsistent, not to say contradictory. " It is the municipal principle of bourgeois liberalism. A " federated France " on the other hand, " a regime which represents the ideal of independ- ence and whose first act would consist in restoring to the municipalities their full inde- pendence and to the Provinces their self- government " — that is the municipal freedom which the working class must write on its flag.* And if in the Civil War we find that 11 the political sovereignty of the producers * Capacity Politique des Classes Ouvrieres, pp. 224, cannot exist with the perpetuation of their social slavery,' ' we read in the Capacity Politique: " When political equality is once given by means of universal suffrage, the tendency of the nation will be towards economic equality. That is just how the workmen's candidates understood the thing. But this is what their bourgeois rivals did not want.* In short, with all the other differences between Marx and the " petit bourgeois/ ' Proudhon, on this point, their way of thinking is as nearly as possible the same.
/There is not the least doubt (and it has since then been proved many times practically) that the general development of modern society is along the line of a constant increase of the duties of municipalities and the extension of municipal freedom, that the municipality will be an ever more important lever of social emancipation?] It appears to me doubtful if it was necessary for the first work of democracy to be such a dissolution of the modern state system and complete transformation of its organisation as Marx and Proudhon pictured (the formation of the national assembly out of delegates from provincial or district assemblies, which in their turn were composed of delegates from municipalities) so that the form the national assemblies had hitherto taken had to be abolished. Evolution has given life to too many institutions and bodies corporate, whose sphere has outgrown the control of municipali- ties and even of provinces and districts for it i6o i6o to be able to do without the control of the central governments unless or before their organisation is transformed. The absolute sovereignty of the municipality, etc., is besides no ideal for me. The parish or commune is a component part of the nation, and hence has duties towards it and rights in it. We can as little grant the district, for example, an uncon- ditional and exclusive right to the soil as we can to the individual. Valuable royalties, rights of forest and river, etc., belong, in the last instance, not to the parishes or the districts, which indeed only are their usufructuaries, but to the nation. Hence an assembly in which the national, and not the provincial or local, interest stands in the forefront or is the first duty of the representatives, appears to be indispensable, especially in an epoch of transi- tion. But beside it, those other assemblies and representative bodies will attain an ever greater importance, so that Revolution or not, the functions of the central assemblies become constantly narrowed, and therewith the danger of these assemblies or authorities to the demo- cracy is also narrowed. It is already very little in advanced countries to-day.
But we are less concerned here with a criticism of separate items in the quoted pro- gramme than with bringing into prominence the energy with which it emphasises autonomy as the preliminary condition of social emanci- pation, and with showing how the democratic organisation from the bottom upwards is depicted as the way to the realisation of i6i socialism, and how the antagonists Proudhon and Marx meet again in — liberalism.
The future itself will reveal how far the municipalities and other self-governing bodies will discharge their duties under a complete democracy, and how far they will make use of these duties. But so much is clear: the more suddenly they come in possession of their freedom, the more experiments they will make in number and in violence and therefore be liable to greater mistakes, and the more experience the working class democracy has had in the school of self-government, the more cautiously and practically will it proceed.
Simple as democracy appears to be at the first glance, its problems in such a complicated society as ours are in no way easy to solve. Read only in the volumes of Industrial Democracy by Mr. and Mrs. Webb how many experiments the English trade unions had to make and are still making in order to find out the most serviceable forms of government and adminis- tration, and of what importance this question of constitution is to trade unions. The English trade unions have been able to develop in this respect for over seventy years in perfect free- dom. They began with the most elementary form of self-government and have been forced to convince themselves that this form is only suited to the most elementary organisms, for quite small, local unions. As they grew they gradually learned to renounce as injurious to their successful development certain cherished ideas of doctrinaire democracy (the imperative mandate, the unpaid official, the powerless central representation), and to form instead of it a democracy capable of governing with repre- sentative assemblies, paid officials, and central government with full powers. This section of the history of the development of "trade union democracy' ' is extremely instructive. If all that concerns trade unions does not quite fit the units of national administration, yet much of it does. The chapter referred to in Industrial Democracy belongs to the theory of democratic govern- ment. In the history of the development of trade unions is shown how the executive central management — their state government — can arise simply from division of labour which becomes necessary through the extension in area of the society and through the number of its members. It is possible that with the socialist development of society this centralisa- tion may also later on become superfluous. But for the present it cannot be dispensed with in democracy. As was demonstrated at the end of the first division of this chapter it is an impossibility for the municipalities of great towns or industrial centres to take over under their own management all local productive and commercial undertakings. It is also, on practical grounds, improbable — not to mention grounds of equity which are against it — that they should " expropriate " those undertakings each and all offhand in a revolutionary up- heaval. But even if they did (whereby in the majority of cases would only empty husks come into their hands) they would be obliged to lease the mass of the businesses to associations, whether individual or trade union, for associated management.* In every one of these cases, as also in the municipal and national undertakings, certain interests of the different trades would have to be protected, and so there would always remain a need for active supervision on the part of trade unions. In the transition period particu- larly, the multiplicity of organs will be of great value.
Meantime we are not yet so far on, and it is not my intention to unfold pictures of the future. I am not concerned with what will happen in the more distant future, but with what can and ought to happen in the present, for the present and the nearest future. And so the conclusion of this exposition is the very banal statement that the conquest of the democracy, the formation of political and social organs of the democracy, is the indispensable preliminary condition to the realisation of socialism.
Feudalism, with its unbending organisations and corporations, had to be destroyed nearly everywhere by violence. /The liberal organisa- tions of modern society are distinguished from those exactly because they are flexible, and capable of change and development. They do not need to be destroyed, but only to be further developedT\ For that we need organisation and * This would certainly bring about complicated problems. Think of the many joint undertakings of modern times which employ members of all possible trades.
energetic action, but not necessarily a revolu- tionary dictatorship. " As the object of the class war is especially to destroy distinctions of class/ ' wrote some time since (October, 1897) a social democratic Swiss organ, the Vorwärts of Basle, " a period must logically be agreed upon in which the realisation of this object, of this ideal, must be begun. This beginning, these periods following on one another, are already founded in our democratic development; they come to our help, to serve gradually as a substitute for the class war, to absorb it into themselves by the building up of the social democracy. M " The bourgeoisie, of whatever shade of opinion it may be,M declared lately the Spanish socialist, Pablo Iglesias, "must be convinced of this, that we do not wish to take possession of the Government by the same means that were once employed, by violence and bloodshed, but by lawful means which are suited to civilisation " (Vorwärts, October 16th, 1898). From a similar point of view the Labour Leader, the leading organ of the English Independent Labour Party, agreed unreservedly with the remarks of Vollmar on the Paris Commune. But no one will accuse this paper of timidity in fighting capitalism and the capitalist parties. And another organ of the English socialist working class democracy the Clarion, accompanied an extract from my article on the theory of catastrophic evolution with the following commentary: 1 ' The formation of a true democracy — I am quite convinced that that is the most pressing and most important duty which lies before us. This is the lesson which the socialist campaign of the last ten years has taught us. That is the doctrine which emerges out of all my know- ledge and experiences of politics. We must build up a nation of democrats before socialism is possible. " (d) The most pressing Problems of Social Democracy.
1 ' And what she is, that dares she to appear. " — Schiller, Maria Stuart.
The tasks of a party are determined by a multiplicity of factors: by the position of the general, economic, political, intellectual and moral development in the sphere of its activity, by the nature of the parties that are working beside it or against it, by the character of the means standing at its command, and by a series of subjective, ideologic factors, at the head of them, the principal aim of the party and its conception of the best way to attain that aim. It is well known what great differences exist in the first respect in different lands. Even in countries of an approximately equal standard of industrial development, we find very important political differences and great differences in the conceptions and aspirations of the mass of the people. Peculiarities of geographical situation, rooted customs of national life, inherited institutions, and tradi- tions of all kinds create a difference of mind which only slowly submits to the influence of that development. [Even where socialist parties have originally taken the same hypo- theses for the starting point of their work, they have found themselves obliged in the course of time to adapt their activity to the special conditions of their country. At a given moment, therefore, one can probably set up general political principles of social democracy with a claim that they apply to all countries, but no programmgof action applicable for all countries is possiblej As shown above, democracy is a condition of socialism to a much greater degree than is usually assumed, i.e., it isuiot only the means but also the substance. [Without a certain amount of democratic institutions or traditions, the socialist doctrine of the present time would not indeed be possible. There would, indeed, be a workers' movement, but no social demo- cracy?] The modern socialist movement — and also its theoretic explanation — is actually the product of the influence of the great French Revolution and of the conceptions of right which through it gained general acceptance in the wages and labour movement. The move- ment itself would exist without them as, with- out and before them, a communism of the people was linked to primitive Christianity.* * It has repeatedly happened to me (and certainly also to others) in former years that at the conclusion of a propagandist meeting labourers and workmen who had heard a socialist speech for the first time would come to me and declare that what I had said was already to be found in the Bible; they could show me the passages, sentence for sentence.
But this communism of the people was very indefinite and half mythical, and the workers' movement would lack inner cohesion without the foundation of those organisations and conceptions of law which, at least to a great part, necessarily accompany capitalist evolu- tion. /7t working class politically without rights, grown up in superstition and with deficient education, will certainly revolt some- times and join in small conspiracies, but never develop a socialist movementj fit requires a certain breadth of vision and a fairly well developed consciousness of rights to make a socialist out of a workman who is accidentally a revolter. Political rights and education stand indeed everywhere in a prominentoosi- tion in the socialist programme of actionj So much for a general view. For it does not lie in the plan of this work to undertake an estimation of individual points of the socialist programme of action. As far as concerns the immediate demands of the Erfurt programme of the German social democracy, I do not feel in any way tempted to propose changes with respect to them. Probably, like every social democrat, I do not hold all points equally important or equally expedient. For example, it is my opinion that the ad- ministration of justice and legal assistance free of charge, under present conditions, is only to be recommended to a limited degree, that certainly arrangements should be made to make it possible for those without means to seek to have a chance of getting their rights; but that no pressing need exists to take over the mass of the property law suits to-day and put the lawyers completely under the con- trol of the State. Meanwhile, although legislators of to-day will hear nothing of such a step, as a socialist legislature cannot be achieved without a full reform of the legal system, or only according to such newly created legal institutions, as, for example, exist already in arbitration courts for trade disputes, the said demand may keep its place in the programme as an indication of the development striven after.
I gave a very definite expression to my doubt as to the expediency of the demand in its present form as early as in 189 1, in an essay on the draft scheme of the programme then under discussion, and I declared that the paragraph in question gave " too much and too little. M* The article belongs to a series which Kautsky and I then drew up jointly on the programme question, and of which the first three essays were almost exclusively the mental work of Kautsky, whilst the fourth was composed by me. Let me here quote two sentences from it which indicate the point of view which I upheld at that time with regard to the action of social democracy, and which will show how much or how little my opinions have changed since then: — * * To demand simply the maintenance of all those without employment out of the state money means to commit to the trough of the state not only everyone who cannot find work but everyone that will not find work One need really be no anarchist in order to find the eternal heaping of duties on the state too much of a good thing. We will hold fast to the principle that the modern proletarian is indeed poor but that he is no pauper. In this distinction lies a whole world, the nature of our fight, the hope of our victory. " 11 We propose the formula: * Conversion of the standing armies to citizen armies ' because it maintains the aim and yet leaves the party a free hand to-day (when the disbanding of standing armies is utterly impossible) to de- mand a series of measures which narrow as much as possible the antagonism between army and people as, for example, the aboli- tion of special military courts of justice, lessening of time of service, etc. M* But has social democracy, as the party of the working classes and of peace, an interest in the maintenance of the fighting power? From many points of view it is very tempting to answer the question in the negative, especially if one starts from the sentence in the Communist Manifesto: "The proletarian has no fatherland. M This sentence might, in a degree, perhaps, apply to the worker of the 'forties without political rights, shut out of public life. To-day in spite of the enor- mous increase in the intercourse between nations it has already forfeited a great part of its truth and will always forfeit more, the i7o i7o more the worker, by the influence of socialism, moves from being a proletarian to a citizen. [The workman who has equal rights as a voter for state and local councils, and who thereby is a fellow owner of the common property of the nation, whose children the community educates, whose health it protects, whom it secures against injury, has a fatherland with- out ceasing on that account to be a citizen of the world, just as the nations draw nearer one another, without, therefore, ceasing to lead a life of their ownjf The complete breaking up of nations is no beautiful dream, and in any case is not to be expected in the near future. But just as little as it is to be wished that any other of the great civilised nations should lose its independence, just as little can it be a matter of indifference to German social democracy whether the German nation, which has indeed carried out, and is carrying out, its honour- able share in the civilising work of the world, should be repressed in the council of the nations.
In the foregoing is shown in principle the point of view from which the social demo- cracy has to take its position under present conditions with regard to questions of foreign politics. If the worker is still no full citizen, he is not without rights in the sense that national interests can be indifferent to him. And if also social democracy is not yet in power, it already takes a position of influence which lays certain obligations upon it. Its i7i words fall with great weight in the scale. With the present composition of the army and the complete uncertainty as to the changes in methods of war, etc., brought about by the use of guns of small bore, the Imperial Government will think ten times before ven- turing on a war which has social democracy as its determined opponent. Even without the celebrated general strike social democracy can speak a very important, if not decisive, word for peace, and will do this according to the device of the International as often and as energetically as it is necessary and possible. It will also, according to its programme, in the cases when conflicts arise with other nations and direct agreement is not possible, stand up for settling the difference by means of arbitration. But it is not called upon to speak in favour of renunciation of the pre- servation of German interests, present or future, if or because English, French, or Russian Chauvinists take umbrage at the measures adopted. Where, on the German side, it is not a question merely of fancies or of the particular interests of separate groups which are indifferent or even detrimental to the welfare of the nation, where really important national interests are at stake, international- ism can be no reason for a weak yielding to the pretensions of foreign interested parties. This is no new idea, but simply the putting together of the lines of thought which lie at the bottom of all the declarations of Marx, Engels, and Lassalle on the questions of foreign politics. It is also no attitude endangering peace which is here recommended. Nations to-day no longer lightly go to war, and a firm stand can under some circumstances be more serviceable to peace than continuous yielding.
The doctrine of the European balance of power seems to many to be out of date to-day, and so it is in its old form. But in a changed form the balance of power still plays a great part in the decision of vexed international questions. It still comes occasionally to the question of how strong a combination of powers supports any given measure in order that it may be carried through or hindered. I consider it a legitimate task of German Imperial politics to secure a right to have a voice in the discussion of such cases, and to oppose, on principle, proper steps to that end, I consider, falls outside the domain of the tasks of social democracy.
To choose a definite example. The leasing of the Kiauchow Bay at the time was criticised very unfavourably by the socialist press of Germany. As far as the criticism referred to the circumstances under which the leasing came about, the social democratic press had a right, nay, even a duty, to make it. Not less right was it to oppose in the most decided way the introduction of or demand for a policy of partition of China because this par- tition did not lie at all in the interest of Germany. But if some papers went still further and declared that the party must under all circumstances and as a matter of principle condemn the acquisition of the Bay, I cannot by any means agree with it.
It is a matter of no interest to the German people that China should be divided up and Germany be granted a piece of the Celestial Empire. But the German people has a great interest in this — that China should not be the prey of other nations; it has a great interest in this — that China's commercial policy should not be subordinated to the interest of a single foreign power or a coalition of foreign powers — in short, that in all questions con- cerning China, Germany should have a word to say. Its commerce with China demands such a right to protest. In so far as the acquisition of the Kiauchow Bay is a means of securing this right to protest, and it will be difficult to gainsay that it does contribute to it, there is no reason in my opinion for the social democracy to cry out against it on principle. Apart from the manner in which it was acquired and the pious words with which it was accompanied, it was not the worst stroke of Germany's foreign policy.
It was a matter of securing free trade with and in China. For there can be no doubt that without that acquisition China would have been drawn to a greater degree into the ring of the capitalist economy, and also that without it Russia would have continued its policy of encircling, and would have occupied the Manchurian harbours. It was thus only a question as to whether Germany should look on quietly whilst, by the accomplishment of one deed after another, China fell ever more and more into dependence on Russia, or whether Germany should secure herself a position on the ground that she also, under normal conditions, can make her influence felt at any time on the situation of things in China, instead of being obliged to content herself with belated protests. So far ran and runs the leasing of the Kiauchow Bay, a pledge for the safeguarding of the future interests of Germany in China, be its official explanation what it may, and thus far could social democracy approve it without in the least giving away its principles.
Meanwhile, owing to the want of responsi- bility in the management of the foreign policy of Germany, there can be no question of positive support from the social democracy, but only of the right foundation of its negative attitude. Without a guarantee that such undertakings should not be turned to account over the heads of the people's representative House for other aims than those announced, say as a means to achieve some temporary success which might surrender the greater interests of the future, without some such pledge social democracy can take upon itself no share in the measures of foreign policy.
As can be seen the rule here unfolded for the position regarding questions of foreign policy turns on the attitude observed hitherto in practice by social democracy. How far it agrees in its fundamental assumptions with the ruling mode of viewing things in the party, does not lie with me to explain. On the whole, tradition plays a greater part in these things than we think. It lies in the nature of all ad- vanced parties to lay only scanty weight on changes already accomplished. The chief object they have in view is always that which does not change — quite a justifiable and useful tendency towards definite aims — the setting of goals. Penetrated by this, such parties fall easily into the habit of maintaining longer than is necessary or useful opinions handed down from the past, in assumptions of which very much has been altered. They overlook or undervalue these changes; they seek for facts which may still make those opinions seem valid, more than they examine the question whether in the face of the totality of the facts appertaining to it, the old opinion has not meanwhile become prejudice.
Such political ä priori reasoning often appears to me to play a part in dealing with the question of colonies.