The general history of socialism and social struggles [2]

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THE GENERAL HISTORY OF SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL STRUGGLES

THE GENERAL HISTORY OF SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL STRUGGLES BY

M'BEER 33 5 03 "5 y V- 0-v

MEW YORK

RUSSELL & RUSSELL ■ INC

VOLUME TWO *—__ --

SOCIAL STRUGGLES AND SOCIALIST FORERUNNERS SOCIAL STRUGGLES AND MODERN SOCIALISM

83-A-Rja *957

COPYRIGHT,

195 7,

BY RUSSELL ir RUSSELL INC L. C. CATALOG CARD NUMBER 57-11983 SEPTEMBER 1957

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

SOCIAL STRUGGLES AND SOCIALIST FORERUNNERS

CONTENTS I. The Close of the Middle Ages . 1. Dissolution

of

Papal

Power

and

.

9

Imperial

....

9

2. Social Antagonisms

.

.

-13

II. The Peasant Revolts

.

.

.19

.

.

.19

2. France: The Jacquerie.

.

.

1. Flanders .

.

III. National and Heretical Social Struggles

25

32

1. Introductory Remarks concerning the Chief Tendencies and the Leading Personalities 2. England :

dition

.

.

*32

Economic and Social Con¬ .

.

3. Revolutionary Agitation

.

*34

37

CONTENTS 4. John Wycliffe

.

.

.

*39

5. John Ball

.

.

.

.44

6. The English Peasants’ Revolt .

.

47

7. William Shakespeare and Communism

54

8. Bohemia : Political and Social Develop¬ ment .

.

.

.

9. John Huss and his Precursors . 10. The Hussite Wars

.

.

11. Tabor’s Communism and End

.60 .

65

.70 .

76

IV. Germany’s Social Upheaval, 1516-1535.

82

1. The First German Revolution .

.

82

2. Economics and Politics .

.

*85

3. Social Consequences

.

.89

.

4. Precursors of the Peasants’ War 5. Communistic

and

.

96

Social-Reformist

Tendencies in Humanism, expiring Scholasticism, and the Anabaptist Movement

.

.

.

.100

6. Sebastian Franck and Thomas Miinzer

107

7. The Peasants’ War and the Twelve Articles

.

.

.

.

115

8. Suppression of the Anabaptists : Final Episode of the Revolution . 9. Epilogue .

.124 133

CONTENTS V. The Age of Utopias

•

•

•

135

i. Nominalism, Renaissance, and Humanism • • •

135

2. Moral Philosophy,

Materialism, and

Natural Law.

•

•

•

142

•

•

•

147

i. Sir Thomas More

•

•

•

147

2. Utopia

•

•

•

150

3- Social Criticism .

•

•

152

4- Reform or Revolution

.

•

155

and Institutions of ....

158

VI. English Utopians

5- The

Structure Utopia

6. Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis .

•

167

7- Winstanley’s Laws of Freedom

•

170

8. Chamberlen and Reformers

Bellers •

as

Social •

•

173

9- Middle-Class Social Theories : Social Contract. Hobbes, Locke, Smith, and Paley

VII.

•

175

.

181

1. Thomas Campanella

.

181

2. The Sun State

.

183

3. Objections against Communism

.

190

The Italian Utopia .

CONTENTS VIII. French Utopias and Social Criticism 1. Economics and Politics

.

.

193

.193

2. Social Critics : Messier, Morelly, Mably

198

3. Middle-Class Critics : Rousseau, Linguet, Necker, Brissot . .

209

4. Utopian Description by Vairasse d’Allais . . . .213 5. Imitations of the Great Utopians . 216 Appendix

.

.

.

.

.

.218

American Religious-Communist Settle¬ ments. . . . .218 Index

.

.

223

SOCIAL STRUGGLES AND SOCIALIST FORERUNNERS I CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES i. Dissolution of Papal and Imperial Power

HE decay of the Roman Empire was Jl the consequence of economic weak¬ ness, while the dissolution of the Middle Ages was the consequence of the rise of the new economy and was consummated amid violent internal struggles. Traces of the process of decomposition distinctly reveal themselves in the fourteenth century. The two universal powers, the Papacy and the Empire, whose adventures and antagonisms filled the stage of the Middle Ages, were shaken to their foundations by the new insurgent force: the national State. Within both central bodies nuclei were forming

9

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

which became the centres of elements related to them, and formed smaller but firmer economic, cultural, and popular bodies, which began to revolve upon their own axes. They made increasingly stronger efforts to free themselves from the central bodies. The new kernels were the towns, the seats of the new economy, the centres of their own interests ; at first they allied themselves with the territorial princes and kings in order to offer united resistance to the pretensions of the world powers. In contrast to Italy, where the towns fre¬ quently engaged in conflict both with Papacy and Empire, France, England, and Germany saw in the Papacy their most dangerous adversary. In the course of these endeavours the literature of the individual States escaped from the tutelage of the universal language of Latin, and the poets and writers created a national lan¬ guage : the great pioneers of national lan¬ guages in Western and Central Europe were anti-papal. The statesmen created a national policy. National ecclesiastical politicians and theologians laid the founda¬ tions of the Reformation, as in England, Bohemia, and Germany: an analogous

CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

movement was Calvinism in France, whose monarchy moreover made the Pope prisoner and subjected the clergy to the State laws. From the fourteenth century until well into modern times Rome—the Rome of Gregory and Innocent—was obliged to fight for its bare existence, not only against the national states, but against its own ecclesiastical councils, which asserted the right of control over the Pope. Matters went even worse with the German Empire : it died of imperialistic inflation, that is, it held nominal sway over numerous countries, but its title was devoid of all political value ; precious German blood was sacrificed to this inflation, while proper German interests were neglected. The Empire, caught in its dream of world dominion, was oblivious of the new German economy, the Hansa League, the flourishing towns, the early capitalism of south Ger¬ many, except when it was convenient to extract loans in order to finance its foreign adventures. The most vigorous elements of the nation, the new captains of urban economy, aimed at world trade and expressed their civic feelings only in municipal affairs. From ii

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

time to time their political consciousness asserted itself; they established leagues of cities, and supported the Emperor in his struggle with the Papacy, but the ambitious national policy of the Empire dissipated the foreign energy and prevented any political concentration. After the death of Louis of Bavaria (1347) the Empire dwindled to a shadow; it disappeared from the German horizon, and removed its capital to the extreme east of the Empire : to Austria, to Vienna, and Prague. It became eccentric. The individual territorial princes then had the long-awaited opportunity of fur¬ thering their aspirations to independent domination and sealing the dismemberment of Germany for centuries, and this at a time when in the west of the Empire the French national power was becoming in¬ creasingly centralized, laying the founda¬ tions of a standing army, and making the maintenance of the dismemberment of Germany the guiding principle of its diplo¬ macy. And in the midst of these national political changes internal conflicts and class struggles broke out, which were inevitable in the dissolution of an old social system and the emergence of a new one. 12

CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

2. Social Antagonisms The multiplication of towns, the increase of their population, the extension of com¬ mercial and industrial activity involved the bourgeoisie in an antagonism of interests with the landlords. The nascent economy, the work of the merchant guilds and of the guilds of handicraftsmen which arose out of them, soon felt feudalism to be a fetter. The new economy required the mass of the population to have freedom of move¬ ment ; freedom to buy and to sell, freedom to turn to any kind of trade, or to hire themselves to any kind of employer; feudalism was based on attachment, on temporary exchange of land or military protection for services ; it tied the great mass of the population—the peasantry— to the soil, deprived it of freedom of move¬ ment, imposed on it onerous services which hardly allowed it to buy and consume the commodities produced in the towns. The feudal system thus prevented the flow of workers to the towns, and further it con¬ siderably restricted the demand for urban commodities. Those who were concerned with the interests of the urban labour and

13

SOCIAL STRUGGLES commodity markets were, under these cir¬ cumstances, obliged to fight feudalism. It was not only labour and consumption which suffered. Production, too, was ad¬ versely affected, for the landlords, both temporal and spiritual, controlled the raw materials which the urban industries needed to work up into finished articles. The landlords and the abbots owned the forests, and thus wood and fur; they possessed herds of cattle, thus hides and wool; hemp and flax grew in their fields, metals lay in their soil, and consequently all the raw materials without which the urban industries could not function. The same lords, both temporal and spiritual, levied tolls on roads and bridges, and could disturb and paralyse communications. It was the landowners’ control of labour, raw materials, and communications which created the antagonism between the town and the feudal system. Of necessity the town was obliged to champion freedom, to strive for the abolition of the feudal system, which was based on the attachment of the peas¬ antry. Consequently the town wished to abolish servitude ; it offered free asylum to the peasant: a market for the products

14

CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

of agriculture, which provided the peasants with the pecuniary means of commuting their servitude whenever a noble needed money. The noble’s appetite for money had considerably increased since the cru¬ sades had made him familiar with the world and its delights. Better times seemed to be dawning for the peasantry. But the same circumstances caused the deterioration of the material and legal position of the peasant. Urged by his need of money, the noble proceeded to exercise a tighter control over his sources of income, and therefore to press with increasing severity upon the serfs, aug¬ menting their burdens, seizing their com¬ mons, and usurping the ownership of forests, rivers, hunting-grounds, meadows, and fields, which had been common since the primitive Teutonic period. Thus the growing peasant population was deprived of elbow-room for extending its communes. The hides were systematically cut up, the communes were diminished. Yet there remained more peasants than could find accommodation in the hides or on the commons. They sank to the level of proletarians. 15

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

The consequence of the development was a country-wide agitation which had assailed Western and Central Europe since the fourteenth century, assuming a revolu¬ tionary character, and aiming at the res¬ toration of the village community and democracy. This agitation was accentuated by the conflicts of the various sections within the towns. Agriculture created the village, whilst the town was the result of trading and industrial activity. Rural settlements which had become the centres of adminis¬ trative or ecclesiastical activity or junctions of communications evolved into settlements of men who carried on trade and industry, or into towns. As the soil belonged to a noble, a bishop, or an abbot, the towns were obliged first of all to buy their liberties and their right to self-government from the landlords. This process too was not effected without friction between the town and the feudal system. Those who carried on trade and industry organized first in merchant guilds. Then the separate industries and trades broke away from the original guild, and formed guilds or corporations or associations for themselves. The corpora16

CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

tions worked both for their own account and for customers. The relation among the members of the corporation was that of a buying association having the object of providing equal opportunities, restricting competition, and stabilizing prices and wages. Good relations existed among the masters and journeymen and apprentices from the beginning of guild organization until about the middle of the fourteenth century. From this time onwards we oftenread of conflicts between masters and journeymen, of wage disputes, and even of strikes by particular associations of journeymen. However, these antagonisms did not assume the character of a general labour movement. Of a more serious nature were the antagon¬ isms between the guild members who had become wealthy and those less fortunate. The old families monopolized all municipal rights. They formed the Patriciate. From their ranks the Council was recruited, and to them fell all the honours, while the less favoured guildsmen did not possess the franchise. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there were violent franchise struggles which B

17

SOCIAL STRUGGLES frequently ended with the victory of the democratic sections. In these political conflicts social issues gradually became involved, as the widening class cleavage, which accompanied the growth of private economy, divided the mediaeval urban population into possessing and propertyless classes. All the regulations of the guilds were powerless to prevent the emergence of sharp social antagonisms. From the beginning of the peasant wars in the four¬ teenth century the poorer sections of the urban population are everywhere found to be the allies of the militant peasants. Truly it may be said that the peasant wars are only the generic name for the revolts of the labouring masses of that time. They were called peasant wars because the rural population furnished the chief contingent to the insurrections. As we shall see later on, demands of a social reform and com¬ munist character played a considerable part in these insurrections, and these de¬ mands assumed a theological nature, partly because those who formulated them were theologians, partly because, in common with the Reformation movement, they were directed against the Church.

18

II THE PEASANT REVOLTS

S

i. Flanders

CARCELY any nation in Europe was more warlike and more jealous of its liberties than the mass of the population of Flanders, the greater part of which was of Teutonic (Frisian) origin. By virtue of the treaties of Verdun (843) and of Mersen (870), which portioned the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne, Flanders fell to Charles the Bold, whose heritage formed the nucleus of France. Like the other feudatories of the French Crown, the counts of the Flanders marches took advantage of the weakness of the Carolingians and acted independ¬ ently. The Capets, the successors of the Carolingians, who gradually inaugurated a national policy of centralization, were the first to make vigorous efforts to attach Flanders more firmly to France. The results of these efforts were wars between 19

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

the kings of France and the counts of Flanders. This political antagonism was complicated by the class cleavage of the Flemish popula¬ tion. The rise of the Flemish wool weaving, and of the cloth trade, the prosperous growth of such towns as Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Cassel, Furnes, etc., sundered the urban population into antagonistic classes : into patricians and less favoured guild members and proletarians ; in the country the peasants got rid of their statute obliga¬ tions, and became hereditary tenants. In north-western Flanders, where feudalism had never gained a foothold, the number of free peasants increased. The prosperity of the towns exercised a favourable influence on the peasants, the purveyors of foodstuffs and raw materials, and they resisted the pretensions and privileges of the noble, whose aim it was, by using his social and political influence, to extort from the peasants the old economic tributes and services which were slipping away from him with the dissolution of the feudal system. The patricians and the nobles, who were in a small minority compared with the persons engaged in 20

THE PEASANT REVOLTS

industry and the peasants, sought the protection of the French Crown, and were generally biased towards the French, while the peasants and the mass of the guild members, constituting the working class, championed the independence of their country and supported the Count of Flanders in his struggle against France. Some historians have perceived in these conflicts a struggle between the Teutonic and the Latin races ; it is however clear that what confronts us here is a class struggle which dynastic ambitions invested with a national political character. At the end of the thirteenth century Franco-Flemish relations were severely strained, and soon war broke out. The centralizing King of France, Philip the Fair, whom we have already encountered 1 in a struggle against the Papacy, overran Flanders with war. The nobles and the patricians greeted enthusiastically and everywhere favoured the French troops who occupied the country, but the Flemish handicraftsmen were able to defend them¬ selves, and totally defeated the French chivalry at Courtrai (1302). The war 1

See Social Struggles in the Middle Ages. 21

SOCIAL STRUGGLES finally ended with the treacherous peace treaty of Athis (1304), which imposed heavy war indemnities upon the population. The noble and patrician friends of France formed the " Reparation Commissions/' and were favoured by the French governor, Jacques de Chatillon. The labouring population groaned under the burdens, and relieved themselves from time to time by sporadic insurrections. Meanwhile Bruges was organizing a general rebellion of the masses of the people, which broke out in 1323 and, with fluctuating success, lasted until 1328. The free peasants of western Flanders and the hereditary peasant tenants of eastern Flanders fur¬ nished the largest number of victims in this first war of the working people of Europe. Of the towns, Bruges, Cassel, and Ypres took the part of the peasants, but Ghent sided with the nobles and patricians. The Papacy and the French monarchy fought against the people : the Church by means of the great ban (interdict) which it laid upon the rebellious district, the monarchy by the military aid which it rendered to the patricians and nobles, and also by the pro¬ hibition of trading relations with Flanders. 22

THE PEASANT REVOLTS

Contemporary chronicles do not divulge whether the revolt was inspired by social¬ istic or heretical-communistic motives. The grievances of the rebels imply no more than that they were revolting against the exploitation and oppression of the upper classes, and that they condemned every income which was not derived from the labour of a man’s own hands. The most prominent among the leaders of the insur¬ rection were the peasant, Nikolaus Zannekin, and the Bruges handicraftsman, Jakob Peyt. Zannekin accused the upper classes of despising the old customs and usages of the Flemish people, while Jakob Peyt had a decidedly heretical-social cast of mind. He assailed the wealthy and the Church, and conducted the campaign with terrific energy. Those who did not openly and honestly espouse the cause of the people were treated as enemies. He apostrophised the ruling classes: “You are far more concerned about the favour of princes than the welfare of the community from which you derive your means of support.” Peyt taught the people to despise the great ban of the Pope, to withhold recognition from the priesthood, and only to pray in spirit to 23

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

Jesus, the persecuted and crucified, and follow His teachings. Soon afterwards Peyt was treacherously murdered at Furnes; but the people revered him as a saint, particularly after the clergy had decided to treat the murdered man as a heretic, and to consign his corpse to the flames. During the first years of the peasant war the insurgents were able to register con¬ siderable successes. The fugitive nobles and patricians meanwhile schemed in Paris to induce the kings of France, Charles IV (1321-1328) and Philip of Valois (13281350), to undertake a campaign against the insurgents " who threatened the entire social order ” (turbato ordine regiminis universi). In the first year of his reign Philip of Valois equipped a considerable armament, and in June 1328 marched through Arras into Flanders. With the aid of the City of Ghent he defeated the insurgents at Cassel on the 23rd August 1328. Nine thousand peasants and handicraftsmen fell on the battlefield. The engagement was decisive. The insurgent cities surrendered uncondi¬ tionally. The French and Flemish nobles wreaked a terrible vengeance on the sur¬ vivors, women and children not being 24

THE PEASANT REVOLTS

spared. Confiscation of the property of the defeated insurgents, execution of the ringleaders, and heavy war indemnities imposed on the cities, broke the spirit of the Flemish population for some time. In October 1328 order was restored, and the Pope gave, albeit reluctantly, his assent to the removal of the great ban.1

2. France : The Jacquerie The victory of Philip of Valois over Flanders brought to a head the economic causes of the Anglo-French War of Suc¬ cession, which began in 1339 and lasted intermittently for a hundred years. Eng¬ land, the chief purveyor of wool to Flanders, and one of the chief interested parties in the Flemish cloth trade and in Flemish business prosperity, watched the French policy to¬ wards Flanders with strong suspicion. And when after the battle of Cassel (1328) the King of France became the master of Flanders, English distrust crys¬ tallized into a definite policy: the King 1H. Pirenne, Souldvemeni de la Flandre Maritime, Brussels, 1900; M. Kowalewsky, Oekonomische Entwicklung Europas, Berlin, 1909; Warnkonig, Flandrische Staats-und Richtsgeschichte, Tubingen, 1835. 25

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

of England, Edward III (1327-1377), the founder of English maritime and economic policy, raised a claim upon the French Crown. In the year 1328 the last Capet, Charles IV, had died. He was succeeded by Philip of Valois, who belonged to a collateral branch of the Capets, while Edward III, grandson of Philip the Fair, was likewise a member of the Royal House of the Capets. In this way the so-called Hundred Years War of Succession origin¬ ated, in the course of which England laid the foundations of her maritime and economic power, and France, after several defeats, remodelled her army and estab¬ lished the foundations of French military power. This long war of succession was ushered in by great alliances and diplomatic arrangements. Edward III, the brotherin-law of the Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria, sought an alliance with Germany, and actually concluded an alliance with the Flemish towns, which was highly useful from the military and economic point of view, and he assumed the title of King of France.1 1 From that date the kings of England also designated themselves kings of France. It was not until the year 1820 that the English throne renounced this title.

26

THE PEASANT REVOLTS

Otherwise the war effected no changes in the property relations of the participating countries. Victories and defeats cancelled each other ; but everywhere the labouring population suffered, rebelled, and bled under the burdens and exactions of the war policy. And, at the end of the frightful bloodletting, the French people were so superstitious as to ascribe the deliverance of their country from the English yoke to the Maid of Orleans. After a decade filled with preparations and intrigues, the English King Edward III declared war on the French in the year 1339. In 1340 a great sea battle was fought at Sluys (Port of Bruges). For an entire day victory was in the balance, when the intervention of the Flemish fleet decided the battle in England's favour. The great French fleet with 20,000 sailors went to the bottom. Thus Flanders was avenged on Philip of Valois. In 1346 the English archers destroyed a great portion of the French chivalry at the battle of Crecy ; in 1347 the English took Calais,1 which remained in their possession 1 The

English then called Dover and Calais the two eyes of England. 27

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

for upwards of two hundred years; in 1356 an English army triumphed at Poitiers over a French army five times stronger ; the French king, John the Good, was taken prisoner and brought to England. The result of this war, with its armaments, threats, defeats, and forays, was the de¬ moralization of the nobles and the im¬ poverishment of the labouring population of northern France. The repute of the Crown sank; the towns, hitherto the firmest supports of the monarchy, now sought to make themselves independent. Bands of robbers, well organized and often led by bankrupt nobles, roamed and plun¬ dered the country; robbery became a profitable vocation; the feudal lords squeezed out of the peasants, whom they derided as Jacques Bonhommes, the last remnants of the produce of their labour. A spirit of revolt gripped town and country, a revolt against king and noble. The first sign appeared in Paris. In 1357 the mer¬ chants and guilds, at whose head was the high-minded Etienne Marcel, extorted from the heir-apparent a decree which trans¬ ferred the governmental power from the Crown to the nation. As, however, the 28

THE PEASANT REVOLTS

nobility and the clergy withheld their support from the middle class the decree remained a dead letter. Simultaneously with the agitation in Paris the countryside became restless, and in May 1358 the peasant war broke out in Compiegne. It quickly spread through the northern dis¬ trict from Paris to Amiens, and gained the sympathy of the working population of the towns ; in addition, Etienne Marcel allied himself with the peasants' leaders, so that together they might put an end to the mis¬ management of the demoralized, incom¬ petent, and predatory nobles. The French peasant war—called the Jacquerie—was an unorganized and ele¬ mental rising of the exploited and illtreated Jacques (countryfolk) against their oppressors. It was devoid of any ideas whatsoever of freedom and equality, or traces of heretical-social tendencies. The Inquisition of the first half of the fourteenth century did its work thoroughly in France. There were many social injustices, much poverty, but no more revolutionaries, no more heretics, no more social reformers among the peasants and the labouring population of the towns. Only among the 29

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

middle class were there isolated men who demanded civic freedom, but they could find no support. On the other hand, the nobles, although unable to cope with the enemy at the gates, were strong enough and cohesive enough the moment it became necessary to repress an enemy at home. Demoralized ruling classes, especially when allied or even identical with the military power, always possess sufficient strength and resolution to check and quell unorgan¬ ized, popular revolts, all the more so as elemental mass insurrections, after their initial successes, seldom manage to secure efficient leaders or to organize the class war upon uniform lines. In their indignation the Jacques did not deal tenderly with the noble folk ; they avenged themselves on their oppressors, but the latter soon regained the upper hand. The peasant movement was con¬ fined to the district between Amiens and Paris. In the third week of June the nobles, with the aid of the governmental power, were in a position to take the offensive. At Meaux and Clermont-enBeauvais, they encountered the rebels in two battles, in which the badly armed 30

THE PEASANT REVOLTS

peasants perished by the thousand. The entire Jacquerie lasted from the 21st May to the 24th June 1358. The suppression of the insurrection proceeded with ruthless cruelty. “ Even the English, the worst enemies of the Kingdom/' observed a con¬ temporary chronicle, “ could not have be¬ haved with such tyranny as the nobility exhibited towards the peasants." The peasant leader, Guillaume Calle, was— under the pretext of concluding an armis¬ tice—enticed by the Dauphin Charles to Paris, where he was slain, after fearful torture : he was “ crowned ” peasant king with a glowing tripod, and then his head was cut off. All peasant settlements between the Oise, the Seine, and the Marne were destroyed by fire and sword. Women and children were massacred, and the Jacquerie was drowned in streams of blood.1 1 Luce, Histoire de la Jacquerie, 2nd ed. p. 94.

31

Paris.

Ill NATIONAL AND HERETICAL SOCIAL STRUGGLES i. Introductory the

Chief

Remarks

concerning

Tendencies

and

the

Leading Personalities

HE liquidation of the Middle Ages in X England, Bohemia, and Germany was accomplished amid protracted and violent struggles for religious, social, and national political objects. The outcome of the religious struggles was the Reformation; the social struggles took the form of the peasant wars; the national struggles aimed at breaking away from the universal Church, or were characterized by foreign wars— England versus France; Bohemia versus Germany. The spiritual leaders of these movements and struggles were : John Wycliffe (Wiclif, Wiclef) in England; John Huss in Bohemia; Martin Luther in Germany. The only real 32

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

scholar among them was Wycliffe, who was distinguished for his erudition, having mastered both its method of inquiry and its subject-matter, scholasticism and theology; he was also the only communist among them. Huss occupies a very high place as a resolute and tenacious character, but intellectually he was completely under Wycliffe's influence; he does not appear to have been greatly interested in communism, but, on the other hand, he was eminent as a political and Church reformer from the standpoint of Czech nationalism. As an example of elemental Teutonic force, as a blunt national fighter and a character of fine integrity, Luther is sufficiently remarkable. He is indeed typical of German nationalism: a compound of formidable moral earnestness and unbridled sensuality; of stormy and impetuous energy checked by the brake of conservatism; prone to profound heart searchings, yet bounded by narrow horizons; liable to attacks of spiritual dejection, when he feverishly clutches at any kind of authority; his personality discloses no trace whatever of the social thought of the Middle Ages. All three men were involuntarily drawn

c

33

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

into the peasants’ and social struggles of their time: in Wycliffe’s case the English Peasants’ War (1381) and its extreme communistic leader, John Ball; in the case of Huss, the Hussite Wars (14191436) and their extreme leader, the Taborite Andreas Prokop; in Luther’s case the German Peasant War (1524-1525) and its communistic leader, Thomas Miinzer. The similarity of these movements and the simultaneous appearance of religious, national, and social struggles and champions in the three countries point doubtless to a causal sequence in the march of events. This movement first arose in England: Wycliffe is the pioneer of modern times in the religious and national spheres. Bohemia and Germany, however, surpassed England in the violence of the struggles and their communistic implications.

2. England :

Economic and Social Condition

The new social and economic factors began to be perceptible in England about the middle of the thirteenth century. Dozens of urban settlements were soon

34

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

known for their industrial and commercial activity, and for their guilds and courts of justice. The towns afforded markets for foodstuffs, Flanders with her linen industry maintained a large demand for English wool, and likewise English merchants grew into the habit of establishing weaving factories in Flanders. The structure of society did not remain uninfluenced by these causes : in the degree that agricultural products increased in value, the feudal lords and abbots took steps to restrict the peasants' common lands, enclosing large slices of them, i.e. made them their private property. The village communes gradually lost their traditional status, and peasants liable to render service were degraded to the position of serfs. This depredation of peasant rights took place at a time when the economic position of the peasants was on the upgrade, for, as a partner in the village commune, the peasants could ex¬ change the superfluous corn and vegetables with the townspeople for money or for industrial products, and as workers on the land they could also obtain higher money wages. This antagonism became all the more acute when the Black peath^pr, fhe oc

1145 Poll

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

Plague, which broke out in 1349, carried off a great part of the labouring population, thus causing an increase in the demand for labour power. To make it impossible for the workers to take economic advantage of this situation, the government, that is, the parliament dominated by nobles, passed, in 1350, a law directed against the working class (The Statute of Labourers), which depressed wages to the level of 1348. The attacks upon the village communes and the workers' wages gradually created great discontent among the labouring popu¬ lation, setting up an agitation which soon assumed a revolutionary character, as the peasants' cause was championed by members of the Franciscan Left, who had emigrated to England from Flanders, partly as weavers, partly as persecuted heretics; by the spokesmen of the Lollards ; by the poor priests and the heretical preachers, who spread among the peasants the primi¬ tive Christian and Patristic doctrines of natural law.

36

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL 3. Revolutionary Agitation

In the fourteenth century the peasants and labouring population generally of Eng¬ land were not without teachers, spokesmen, and agitators. It was the time of the first translations of the Bible into English : writers ceased to employ Norman-French or Latin, and composed books in the popular language, as obviously a demand for books written in English had made itself felt. Two of the most eminent writers of that time were the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (b. 1328, d. 1400) and William Langland, who composed Piers Plowman in the last quarter of the fourteenth century. The former was chiefly a poet of the upper classes, the latter of the independent peasants. Both were anti-communist. Yet they wrote in the popular language. Of the speeches and writings of the heretical-social agitators—with the exception of the Latin writings of Wycliffe referred to later—only a few fragments have been preserved, which we will reproduce in another place. The centre of this agitation was the seat of learning of Oxford, whence poor priests

37

SOCIAL STRUGGLES and heretical theologians propagated their doctrines to the “ open fields/' 1 There is no doubt that the underlying ideas of the agitators’ speeches were taken from the social ethics of primitive Christian¬ ity and of the Church Fathers. For Langland complained : “ They preach of Plato and prove it by Seneca that all things under heaven ought to be in common ” (Langland, Piers Plowman, Bk. XX. pp. 273-76). Langland asks if, according to the Holy Scriptures, everything should be in common, how could God have forbidden stealing in His ten commandments. Stealing pre¬ supposes private property. Therefore pri¬ vate property is a divine institution. This argument shows how vigorously the com¬ munistic agitation was carried on at this time. However, it was the writings of John Wycliffe which gained the greatest reputation and exercised the widest influ¬ ence, an influence which extended far beyond the borders of England. 1 The peasant communes were called “ open fields ” ; “ enclosed lands ” were the private property of the land¬ lords. The enclosure of land with a fence signified so much common property transformed into private property. G. A. Little, Gray Friars of Oxford, pp. 63-64; Thomas Wright, Political Poems and Songs, Part I. Intro, p. lx.

38

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL 4. John Wycliffe

Among the men who prepared people's minds for the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times, John Wycliffe (b. 1320, d. 1384) occupies an eminent place. From the standpoint of religious history he was the pioneer of the Reformation and of the rebellion of national kingship against the Catholic universal domination which was closely associated with it. In economics Wycliffe was still living in the Middle Ages, and he defended communal economy against ! the private property which was gaining the ascendency. He studied theology at Ox¬ ford, absorbing the whole scholastic learn¬ ing of his time, and being strongly influenced by the writings of Ockham. What Ockham1 accomplished on the I European stage, Wycliffe in the years 1360-1380 endeavoured to perform for i England : to liberate England from the Papal overlordship, to justify the English monarchy, and protect communal economy. His problem was twofold : first, a national problem, that is, the liberation of the. English State_from jthe Papal domination, 1 See Social Struggles in the Middle Ages.

39

SOCIAL STRUGGLES and the making of the centralized national power (monarchy and parliament) sove¬ reign^ a communistic system, that is the village commune, against the rapacity of the nobles and the Church. His championship of evangelical poverty (of a propertyless condition of the Church) would have signified in practice the con¬ fiscation of Church property by the secular power (king, nobles, towns), and would have earned for Wycliffe the lasting friend¬ ship of these powers, had he not at the same time defended the rights of the peasant and advocated the theory of com¬ munism. The demand that the Church ... should be propertykss was actually under¬ stood by the secular power only in the sense that the Church ought to renounce her material possessions in favour of the Crown and the landlords. Consequently the Reformers who supported this demand, but were indifferent to communism and the peasants' programme (like John Huss), or definitely opposed them (like Luther), were the darlings of the nobility. It was otherwise with Wycliffe. At first he was in favour among the higher nobles, but as soon as the latter perceived whither 40

|

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

his doctrines led, they fell away from him. The mission of Wycliffe relating to ecclesi¬ astical reform and economic reform brought him into antagonism with the Church. Wycliffe became a heretic ; he impugned important basic dogmas of the Church, such as aural confession, absolution, adora¬ tion of the saints. Several of his doctrinal tenets were then condemned by Pope Gregory XI (1377), anc^ likewise the Synod of London (1382) declared them to be heretical. His defence of communism at length proved to be a purely theoretical matter, and in the last resort the communal rights of the peasant population were identified with a social, kingship. After the Peasant War of the year 1381, Wycliffe became very cautious about his communism. His disciples, the Wycliffites, then refrained from attacking the private property of the laity, but demanded instead that the Pope and the Church should renounce all earthly possessions, and that the priests and monks should provide for their means of support through communal economy. Wycliffe encountered great difficulties in the theoretical solution of his problems. Mediaeval theology was permeated by the

41

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

traditions of natural law and of Gregory VII, according to whom the monarchy originated in sin. The Church teachers of the later Middle Ages exerted themselves to remove this blot from Church and State. We have already seen this in the case of Thomas Aquinas,1 as also in the case of Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham. The declaration of Aquinas is conservative in character ; the declarations of Marsilius and William of Oakham are democratic. According to Aquinas, the State is adapted to the sinful condition of man and to the general state of things. According to Marsilius and Ockham, monarchy is only legitimate when it arises with the consent of the people. Wycliffe was unable to embrace either of these theories. For him monarchy always reeked of sin, and it can only be purified from this stain if it embarks upon reforms of a communal character and protects the peasant com¬ munes against attack. Only in connection with communism can monarchy become legitimate in the eyes of natural law. Wycliffe regarded communism as the best and most salutary foundation of national 1 Social Struggles in the Middle Ages.

42

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL power, and he defended Plato's commun¬ istic ideas against the attacks of Aristotle. “ Communism," said he, " is not opposed to Christianity. The apostles held all in common. Communism is as superior to individualistic economy as universal truths are superior to particular truths. It is, of course, true that Aristotle objected to Plato's doctrines concerning a community of goods, but his objections are only valid so far as they apply to the community of women. Communism does not weaken the State, but strengthens it, for the more the are interested in^ropertvT^hg greater is their interest in the public welfare. Common interests promote unity, and unity is strength" (De Civili Dominio, vol. i. chap. xiv. pp. ioo-ioi). Moreover, Wycliffe was of opinion that communism was not to be attained by means of insurrection or force, but solely through the moral elevation of the people. Where private property existed, it could only be justified through virtue, through the state of grace. Those who are in a state of mortal sin have no right to property. This doctrine, which moreover coincides with that of Augustine, is much more

43

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

revolutionary than one might think. Peas¬ ant leaders with the gift of agitation could easily conclude from this that the unjust and sinful landlords and abbots had no right to their possessions, and that con¬ sequently their forcible expropriation would be a virtuous action. Of this opinion was John Ball, the preacher of the English peasant revolt. 5. John Ball A rather shadowy tradition tells us that John Ball was a disciple of Wycliffe. Contemporaries only confirm that Ball was a famous preacher, who, however, mixed 44 much chaff with his wheat.” The themes of his discourses were freedom and equality, democracy and communism. Glancing back on the primeval social state, he asked : “When Adam ploughed and Eve span Who was then the gentleman ? ”

He preached upon the state of nature in accordance with the theological doctrines of natural law. In the beginning men were born equal; the relations of master and servant came about through efforts

44

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

of unworthy men to repress their fellows, against the will of God. The time had now come to break the yoke of slavery ; if the masses of the people were really in earnest, they could now free themselves. The state of society was like a cultivated field; the wise husbandmen pulled up the weeds, freed the ground and the good seed from all harmful growths ; the land¬ lords, the lawyers, and the judges were the weeds which sucked at the life of society, and must therefore be removed. Only then would the countryfolk be able to enjoy the fruits of their fields and delight in life. In this way all men would become noble. The French chronicler of that time, Froissart, a courtier and enemy to the peasants, who also described and calumni¬ ated the Jacquerie, has transmitted a speech of John Ball's. Froissart also stayed in England a long time and ob¬ served — from his standpoint — English conditions. He makes John Ball preach : “ My Good People,—things

cannot go well in England, nor ever will until all goods are held in common, and until 45

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

there will be neither serfs nor gentlemen, and we shall all be equal. For what reason have they, whom we call lords, got the best of us ? How did they deserve it ? Why do they keep us in bondage ? If we all descended from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve, how can they assert or prove that they are more masters than ourselves ? Except perhaps that they make us work and produce for them to spend ! They are clothed in velvets and in coats garnished with ermine and fur, while we wear coarse linen. They have wine, spices, and good bread, while we get rye-bread, offal, straw, and water. They have residences, handsome manors, and we the trouble and the work, and must brave the rain and the wind in the fields. And it is from us and our labour that they get the means to support their pomp ; yet we are called serfs and are promptly beaten if we fail to do their bidding ” (Froissart, Collection des Chroniques, vol. viii. chap. cvi.). Responding to the national needs of the time, Ball is reputed to have lamented the absence of a strong central power, which 46

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

would have been willing and able to take the part of the peasants. Edward died in 1377 after a fifty years' reign ; his successor was his grandson Richard II. (1377-1399) who ascended the throne when he was only eleven years old. Ball opined : " Woe to the country whose king is a child,” although he ought to have remembered that it was Edward III who had sanctioned the Statute of Labourers. While Wycliffe held aloof from all popular agitation, Ball placed himself in the midst of the people, and as by virtue of his priesthood he was subject to the archiepiscopal jurisdiction, he was con¬ demned to several months' imprisonment for his “ heretical speeches.'' According to Froissart, who considered the Lollards to be the spiritual authors of the peasants' revolt, Ball also was a Lollard.

6.

The English Peasants' Revolt

In June 1381 the first peasant insurrec¬ tion broke out. It must not be supposed that the revolting peasant population was guided by purely communistic ends. All they asked was protection for their village

47

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

communal rights against nobles and abbots, and for the rest, the peasants and landworkers wanted their labour power to be at their own disposal, without being com¬ pelled, either through servitude or royal enactment, to render service to the feudal lords. As in the Flemish and French peasant wars, a large section of the poorer industrial classes of the towns of southern England was in sympathy with the peasants' move¬ ment, while the patricians were on the side of the nobles. In addition to their hatred of the rich, the London workers and the poorer guildsmen loathed the foreign mer¬ chants and money dealers (Lombards) against whom native capital had for long waged a competitive struggle, as well as against the Flemish weavers in London, who excluded English workers from their guilds and work places. On the other hand, we are told by the chronicles of that time that Flemish weavers also took part in the insurrection on the side of the peasants. In the second week of June 1381, the revolt broke out, and soon the whole of south-east England was involved in a class

48

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

war, in which the working class had at first the upper hand. The struggle revealed a certain degree of organization, for the countryfolk from the counties north and south of London gathered almost simul¬ taneously around their leaders, Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, John Ball, John Littlewood, Richard Wallingford, and marched on London. On the way the castles of the nobility and the abbeys were plundered, the archives and legal records were burnt, and the peasant host was supplied with provisions. But the organization was neither unified nor comprehensive ; every district had its particular leader ; a central direction, a supreme command was lacking. The equipment was likewise defective ; perhaps ten out of a hundred were armed with bows and arrows or old swords. Yet from the numerical standpoint the insur¬ rection was imposing. And it was rein¬ forced by the poorer sections of the towns. In London the apprentices cut off their masters' heads, the labouring masses plun¬ dered the houses of the Lombards, and took possession of the City gates, in order to open them to the onmarching peasants. On the nth June the rebels reached Black-

d

49

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

heath, where John Ball preached and prepared the masses for the days to come. At this point a section of the peasants was obliged to break away, owing to the lack of provisions. On the following day the rebels entered the environs of London. The young king, many nobles, and the archbishop took refuge in the Tower, as they were not yet ready to offer military opposition to the peasants. Henceforth the rebels were masters of the town and avenged themselves on their oppressors : the high nobility, the ministers, the lawyers, the officials, and the Lombards. In the Strand they broke into the Savoy Palace of the Duke of Lancaster, and found there a quantity of gold and silver vessels and other valuables. The chronicles of that time all agree that individual acts of robbery were punished with death. Whenever a peasant was caught stealing, he was im¬ mediately thrown to the flames. “ We are the defenders of truth and justice,” declared the rebels, “ and not thieves and robbers.” Thereupon they proceeded to the Temple, which was near at hand, and burned the legal records and documents. Then they paid a visit to the palace of the Lord 50

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

Treasurer in Clerkenwell, and destroyed it. The houses of other dignitaries met with a similar fate, and a number of officials were slain. On the 14th June the peasants proceeded to the Tower, and informed the King that they required a personal inter¬ view with him, and that for this purpose he should meet them at Mile End. The King responded to the appeal. Scarcely had the door of the Tower opened than the peasants swarmed within, cudgelling the royal councillors and slaying Archbishop Sudbury and the Lord Treasurer. In fear and trembling the young King appeared at Mile End. But the whole of the peasant leaders were not present at the interview, owing to the absence of unified direction. The deputation laid the griev¬ ances of the people before the King and demanded freedom and legal equality for the peasant folk, as well as an amnesty for all who had taken part in the insurrection. After consultation with his councillors, the King deemed it best to bow to superior force, and to concede the demands of the deputation, although he stipulated that the greater part of the peasants should leave the city and return to their haymaking and 5i

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

harvesting, only an armed troop remaining behind until the freedom proclamation was put into force. The deputation expressed its satisfaction, and the peasants, mostly from the districts north of London, in their simple trust in the royal promise, turned their backs on the capital and went home “ victorious/' Scarcely had a large section of the peasants withdrawn than the upper classes regained courage and resolved to decide the conflict by force of arms. Even the young King forgot his qualms; his advisers instructed and prepared him for the part which he had to play in the last scene which was enacted on the 17th June 1381 at Smithfield Market. The detachment of peasants was headed by Wat Tyler. The King came with his knights and city patricians. The peasant leader then rode round the King and urged him to carry out his promise. Instead of a proclamation, Wat Tyler received a blow from a knight, which threw him off his saddle. The other cavaliers immediately hastened to the spot and killed Tyler as he lay on the ground. The peasants ran to their leader's assist¬ ance, but their superstitious faith in the 52

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

King was their undoing. Richard told them that he himself would be their leader, and solemnly confirmed the liberties he had granted them. Satisfied with this promise, the peasants abandoned the struggle. Then the lords had a free hand. They abolished the liberties of the peasants and arrested the peasant leaders and con¬ demned them to death. Jack Straw, John Ball, and the other leaders finished their careers either on the gallows or on the executioner's block. Terrible punishment was meted out to all who had taken part in the revolt. The lords were the judges. And the King declared to the peasants : “ Villeins you were and villeins you are. In bondage you shall abide, and that not your old bondage but a worse." The King's threat and the rapacity of the nobles found, however, a limit in the needs of the economic development. The breaking up of the village communes pro¬ ceeded apace, but serfdom was gradually abolished, as, with the growth of the towns and the progress of commerce and industry, the migration of the country population to the towns began. And where the nobles were particularly harsh in the country, or

53

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

where the penal laws against the working classes pressed too severely, revolts broke out, as in Kent in the year 1450, when the peasants marched to London under the leadership of Jack Cade and came to a bloody reckoning with the royal advisers ; then in Cornwall in the year 1500 ; finally over a large area of England in the year 1549, but these risings fell short in extent and vigour of the revolt of 1381.

7. William Shakespeare and Communism

The greatest dramatist of England and of modern times, William Shakespeare (b. 1564, d. 1616), was anti-democratic and anti-communist. His plays are the mirror of the intellectual tendency of the upper classes of society, for whom he wrote. In his drama, Henry VI (2nd Part), he has left on record the opinions of the upper classes about the peasants’ revolts. This drama is important for us, as it represents Jack Cade, the leader of the peasants’ revolt of the year 1450, as a communist and dictator. It is in keeping with Shakespeare’s whole 54

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

character that he satirizes Cade and seeks to make him ridiculous, and imputes ignorance, scientific hostility, and rapacity to the people. From the time of Aristo¬ phanes 1 up to our day the working classes have found few dramatists who have under¬ stood social economy. Hitherto dramatists have written for courtiers, nobles, and the upper middle class. Even a genius like Shakespeare is no exception. As we know, Edward III, the warrior king and founder of maritime and com¬ mercial power, was succeeded by his grand¬ son, Richard II, under whose reign the first peasant revolt broke out; he was followed by Henry IV (1399-1413) of the House of Lancaster, then Henry V (14131422), who successfully carried on the antiFrench, maritime, and trade-promoting policy of Edward III; gaining a great victory over the French at Agincourt (1415) and conquering Normandy, which rekindled the patriotism and nationalism of the English ; finally Henry VI (14221461), who experienced the second peasant war (1450) and lost the French conquests. The end of his reign was the 1

See Social Struggles in Antiquity,

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

beginning of the Wars of the Roses (the Houses of Lancaster and York), which lasted from 1459 to 1485, and ended by de¬ stroying the old, feudal, mediaeval nobility, whose place was taken by a new trade and mercantile nobility. The trilogy, King Henry VI, describes the chief events of this reign ; the second part deals with the second peasants’ revolt and the beginning of the conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster. In Act 11, Scene ii, we hear the complaints of the working classes and their hopes in Jack Cade. The rebels, George Bevis and John Bevis, discuss the revolt that is being prepared, and George says : “ Jack Cade, the clothier, means to dress the common¬ wealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.” In other words, overthrow the old society and set up a new one in its place. To which John answers : “ So he had need, for ’tis threadbare. Well, I say, it was never merry world in England since gentlemen came up.” George : “ O miser¬ able sage! Virtue is not regarded in handy crafts men.” Then various workmen are mentioned as suitable to be magistrates ; the tanner, the butcher, the weaver. Fin56

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

ally Cade himself appears and summarizes his programme : “all the realm shall be common.” Shakespeare then makes merry over the material desires of the rebels : cheap bread, cheap beer, free love, etc., and makes Cade exclaim : “ And you, that love the commons, follow me. Now show yourselves men, it is for liberty. We will not leave one lord, one gentleman. Spare none, but such as go in clouted shoon : for they are thrifty honest men, and such as would (but that they dare not) take our parts.” Upon which one of his comrades named Martin observes : “ They are all in order and march toward us.” Cade : “ But then are we in order, when we are most out of order.” Martin then advises the storming of all prisons and the liberation of the prisoners. Immediately before the fight with the nobles Shakespeare makes the rebel leader dictator. Martin calls upon Cade to be dictator, whereupon the latter says : “ I have thought upon it, it shall be so. Away, bum all the records of the realm ; my mouth shall be the Parliament of England.” The second peasant revolt was crushed and Jack Cade slain in flight. The defeat

57

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

was partly due to the childish faith of the peasants in the King, perhaps also to the sentiment of nationalism—at least Shake¬ speare represents Lord Clifford as speaking to the peasants, and by appealing to their patriotic emotions, causing them to desert Cade. Lord Clifford says : “ Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth, That thus you do exclaim—you’ll go with him ? Will he conduct you through the heart of France, And make the meanest of you earls and dukes ? Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to ! Were’t not a shame, that, whilst you live at jar, The fearful French, whom you late vanquished; Should make a start o’er seas, and vanquish you ? Better, ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry. Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman’s mercy. To France, to France, and get what you have lost.”

Nationalism and martial glory as anti¬ dotes of revolution ! And Cade bitterly complains how " the name of Henry the Fifth hales them to a hundred mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate.” Thus, even at the beginning of the modern era, communism and revolution strove with patriotic sentiment and martial glory. And Shakespeare, the national patriot, attempted even in his last play, the fairy comedy, The Tempest, to poke fun at the 58

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

future State. His satire, however, only consists in confusing communism and sloth. One might be listening to a modern antisocialist. Shakespeare puts the following good-humoured satire into the mouth of the honourable old councillor of the King of Naples, the statesman Gonzalo : I the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things : for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate ; Letters should not be known ; no use of service. Of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, Successions ; bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none, No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil: No occupation ; all men idle, all; And women too : but innocent and pure, All things in common nature should produce, Without sweat or endeavour, treason, felony. Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine Would I not have."

The lords to whom Gonzalo describes his sluggard's paradise season the dis¬ quisition with ribald remarks. But when all is said and done, even The Tempest shows that communism was in the air. Thomas More's Utopia (1516) found English, German, and French trans¬ lators, and was not to be laughed out of Court by any species of mockery. To

59

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

this, however, we return in another chapter. Meanwhile we proceed with our history of social, heretical, and national conflicts.

8. Bohemia : Political and Social Development

Bohemia, which geographically presses against the ribs of the body of the German Empire like a Slavic fist, was bound from early times to attract the attention of the Germanic races and their princes. Like¬ wise, the Bohemian princes, once their country was aroused from its original economic passivity, were obliged to enter into relations with the culturally superior Germans. Owing to the precarious con¬ ditions that had prevailed in Central and Eastern Europe during the centuries follow¬ ing the migration of peoples, as also to the attempts of the Franks, the Carlovingians, and the Saxons to secure their eastern frontiers, bloody collisions occurred be¬ tween the Bohemian princes and the Ger¬ man emperors, which left behind in Bohemia great distrust of the Germans. But the economic and social conditions proved to be stronger than the mistrust. In the 60

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

year 895 Bohemian princes joined the German confederation, and gradually in¬ vited German handicraftsmen, artisans, and merchants into the country, in order to raise urban civilization to a higher plane. Bohemia entered upon a period of economic prosperity with the opening up of the rich silver mines of Kuttenberg in the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Through German mining enter¬ prise the Bohemian king, Ottokar II, of the House of Premsyl, was furnished with the means to found a great Bohemian Empire, which, in addition to Bohemia and Moravia, comprised Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Krain. He came into con¬ flict with the Emperor Rudolf of Hapsburg, and the conflict was decided against Bohemia in the battle of Marchfelde (near Vienna) in the year 1276. Ottokar II was slain in battle. A compromise was then effected, whereby King Wenceslaus (Ottokar’s son and successor) retained Bohemia and Moravia, while Rudolf’s sons received Austria, Styria, and Krain in fief, and founded the power of the House of Haps¬ burg. After the extinction of the Premsyl dynasty, Bohemia was ruled from the year 61

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

1310 to 1437 by counts of the House of Luxemburg. Among them King Karl I (1346-1378) was the most notable. He was also elected German Emperor against Ludwig of Bavaria, and as such assumed the name of Charles IV. He was one of the most cultured of princes ; he studied at the universities of Paris and Bologna, spoke and wrote Czech, German, Latin, French, arid Italian. In 1348 he founded the Prague University—the first in Ger¬ many. Great scholars became its pro¬ fessors, and students from all countries flocked to it, soon numbering thousands. It was as famous as the universities of Oxford, Paris, and Bologna. Good govern¬ ment, wealth, education, diligent industry, and trade made Bohemia in the second half of the fourteenth century one of the most flourishing kingdoms of Europe. The re¬ action upon the social structure, the position and the modes of thought of the various classes could not be long deferred. The prosperity of the towns and the multitude of merchants, tradesmen, ofAcials, builders, clothmakers, etc., in their midst caused the value of agricultural produce to rise. | Peasants having a large acreage became 63

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

prosperous and bought their freedom; many labourers migrated to the towns; the bonds of serfdom relaxed, which only injured the small nobles who were hence¬ forth obliged either to exploit the r peasants more intensely or to pay higher wages, and neither of these alternatives was easy, while outlays of every kind in¬ creased. Help could only come to the small nobleman through the acquisition of more land. Consequently, he became land hungry and a Church reformer. Wherever the attempt was made to hold the peasant in strict bondage and to exploit the landworker more intensely, discontent and unrest showed themselves. The cause of heresy was promoted both by the plight of the small nobles and by the pressure upon the downtrodden poorer countryfolk. Since the thirteenth century heresy— chiefly Waldensianism—had been diffused in Bohemia and Silesia, and it directed its shafts against mismanagement in the monasteries and churches. The demand that the followers of Christ should live in evangelical poverty, in other words, that the property of the monasteries and the Church should be confiscated for the

63

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

benefit of the nobles, could no longer be silenced. As in all countries during modern times, the rise of middle-class economy in Bohemia was accompanied by the growth of national spirit. And where an antagonism to a foreign people or country existed at the same time, national sentiment thrived on this antagonism. It grew rapidly in Bohemia, as an economic conflict was added to national antagonism. The German element predominated in the silver mines and in the towns, becoming wealthy and respectable; this element was also the support of the Roman Catholic Church against heresy ; in the Prague University the German professors and students were in the majority, and they voted against all heretical views ; Prague had a wealthy German patriciate. The Czech national sentiment was also fostered and proceeded to range itself against the German. It became the guiding tendency of Czech history. Thus in the fourteenth century a national, social, and religious agitation arose in Bohemia, which sooner or later was bound to cause a fearful explosion, unless in the

64

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

meantime it was handled with statesman¬ like wisdom and offered concessions and compromises. At that time it was extremely improbable that such concessions would be forthcoming either from the Germans or from the Church or from the nobles.

9. John Huss and his Precursors

The signs of the explosion that was pre¬ paring were distinctly visible during the reign of Charles IV. Sincere priests like Conrad of Waldhausen (d. 1369), Militsch of Kremsier, and Matthias of Janow attacked the clergy and the mendicant orders. And since 1380 Bohemian theologians had dared to discuss such ticklish questions as worship of saints, the value of relics, and images of Jesus. The most noteworthy of these men was Militsch of Kremsier, private secretary to Karl IV, archdeacon, and the holder of several rich benefices. In 1362 he voluntarily resigned his positions, in order to go forth as a popular preacher. He condemned trade, capital, and ecclesi¬ astical property. Priests ought to live in apostolic poverty, or possess only so much common property as to enable them to e 65

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

live from the fruits of their common labours. It is probable that he was acquainted with the writings of Joachim of Floris, and was influenced by them. Not less courageous, if not so political, was Matthias of Janow, confessor to Charles IV, who accused the Papacy of treason to its sacred office, if it did not carry out Church reforms. All these men gave utterance to the sentiments of their time, and were the precursors and intellectual pioneers of John Huss, who was the most vigorous representative of all the religious reformist and national aspira¬ tions of the Czechs, and with the aid of the writings of Wycliffe wielded the cudgels for them. Intellectual intercourse between Bohemia and England was quite animated in the last quarter of the fourteenth century. King Richard II, the grandson of Edward III, married a daughter of Charles IV, whose eldest son Wenceslaus (1378-1419) followed him on the Bohemian throne (Wenceslaus also became German Em¬ peror, from which position he was deposed in 1400). Richard II, in whose reign Wycliffe flourished, and the first peasant revolt broke out, was therefore a brother-

66

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL in-law of Wenceslaus. Jerome of Prague, who travelled extensively and studied everywhere, visited Oxford and brought the Wycliffian writings home with him, where they formed the theoretical basis for the religious reformist and national aspirations, and were much read and dis¬ cussed at the Prague University. The career of Huss commenced in the first years when the Wycliffian doctrines became known in Prague. Huss was born about the year 1369 of poor parents at Husinez ; he managed, however, to obtain a learned education, to visit the Prague University, and during the years 1390 to 1396 to pass through the university course to the position of Master of Arts (magister). Two years later he read theo¬ logy there, in 1400 he was ordained priest, in 1401 he was deacon of the philosophical faculty, and in 1402 rector. In the same year he was appointed preacher of the Bethlehem chapel, where he distinguished himself by his passionate eloquence. A year later he began his career as agitator for Church reform ; at a meeting of priests he impugned their worldliness and scan¬ dalous mode of life. Influenced by the 67

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

Wycliffian doctrines, he advocated the evangelical poverty of the Church and general equality in religious matters, as well as the removal of the division between the laity and the priesthood, contending that Christians should be esteemed only for their moral qualities. He was also opposed to indulgences and the worship of saints. In 1407 his evangelical enthusiasm aroused the enmity of many priests, who accused him before the archbishop of having propagated heretical doctrines. Then Huss had the theologians and philo¬ sophers of the Prague University as his opponents. The animosity was caused partly by scholastic, and partly by religious and national differences. In 1408 the Germans condemned the chief doctrines of Wycliffe. Huss then induced King Wenceslaus to cut down very considerably the numerical influence of the Germans at the university, whereupon the German professors and students left Prague and founded the Leipzig University. All these incidents gained for Huss the venera¬ tion and love of the Czechs, who perceived in him the spiritual captain of the nation. There is no object in discussing here the

68

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

religious quarrels in which Huss became involved. What interests us is his attitude towards communism. In this matter he may have followed his English prototype, although apparently he did not champion communistic theories generally. His zeal for Church reform and for the national assertion of the Czechs completely absorbed his energy. His fate is well known. Ex¬ communicated in 1413 by Pope John XXIII, at the end of 1413 he journeyed to Constance, to defend himself before the council there assembled, and there he was burnt to death as an obstinate heretic on the 6th July 1415. About a year later Jerome of Prague was also burnt as a disciple of Wycliffe and Huss. All Bohemia, leaving out the Germans—including the German miners and other workers—as well as a small section of the Czech magnates, regarded Huss and Jerome as national martyrs, and took their part against the Council and the Papacy, whose bulls and ordinances were greeted with contumely.

69

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

io. The Hussite Wars The sparks emitted in 1415 and 1416 from the fires of Constance kindled the Hussite wars, which lasted from 1419 to 1436, and were fostered by national as well as religious and social revolutionary pas¬ sions. The Czech nation, although united against Constance and Rome and all outside attacks was, from the social and economic standpoint, divided into classes, and con¬ sequently could not achieve internal unity regarding the extent and purpose of the reforms. It became gradually clear that there were numerous sections of the popula¬ tion which were not satisfied with the Church reforms, but aimed at a social transformation. The nobles and the citizens were content to demand the confiscation of Church property and the administration of the sacrament in the two kinds (sub utraque specie) wine (the cup) and bread, in order to symbolize the Christian equality between the clergy and laity. The demand for the cup (calix) was to some extent the watchword of democratic equality, the summons to return to simplicity, as it obtained in the primitive Christian com70

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

munities. The adherents of this tendency called themselves Utraquists or Calixtines, and desired only to enjoy the confiscated Church property in peace and the clergy to abate their arrogance. They formed the moderate (noble and bourgeois) tendency and did not want the social order disturbed any further. Opposed to them were the poorer sections of the people : the small peasants and landworkers, the Czech handi¬ craftsmen and workers, impoverished nobles, and similar elements, who demanded the full realization of the Wycliffian doctrines, and therefore social reforms. This was the radical tendency, and its adherents called themselves Taborites, as they established their headquarters in a small town on a hill (south-west of Prague) to which they gave the biblical name of Tabor. Unlike the moderate tendency, the followers of the radical tendency were not united. All of them demanded a funda¬ mental Church reform on the lines of primitive Christianity, but in social and economic matters they differed among themselves : many were moderate social reformers, others were consistent com¬ munists. Both sections defended their

71

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

opinions with Czech tenacity and logical thoroughness and were at constant feud with each other, but always closing up their ranks so soon as it was a question of offering battle to the common enemy. Strong reinforcements flocked to the Taborites, who administered the sacra¬ ment in both kinds to the masses at their headquarters. On feast days many thousands of Czechs made pilgrimage to Tabor ; and Beghards, Waldensians, Paci¬ fists, and other communistic sectaries, who were persecuted in the various countries, sought refuge in Tabor, from whence they propagated their doctrines ; Tabor became for some time the centre of the hereticalsocial movement of Europe. With the growth of the Hussite follow¬ ing, their courage mounted, and the Tabor¬ ites made preparations to depose King Wenceslaus, but the influential priest Koranda dissuaded them from carrying out their intention; he considered they would gain scarcely anything from a change of monarch, as King Wenceslaus was given up to drink, and they could do what they liked with him. The King, however, was more often under the influence of the 72

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

higher nobility and the priesthood, who induced him to oppose the reform move¬ ment and forbid public processions carrying the Host. This prohibition was the be¬ ginning of the Hussite Wars. On the 30th July 1419 the populace of the New Town of Prague set this prohibition at defiance, and found a resolute leader in the moderate Taborite, Johann Ziska. Under his leadership the masses stormed the Town Hall, threw the councillors assembled there out of the window, to be slain by the crowd in the street. When the “ good ” and lazy King Wenceslaus heard of this incident he fell into such a state of agita¬ tion that he was seized by an apoplectic fit, and two weeks later died. He was followed on the Bohemian throne by his brother, Sigismund, who had been German Emperor since 1410 and had played a base part in the proceedings against Huss in Constance, upon which account he wras not acceptable to the Hussites. Moreover, as German Emperor he would be an object of suspicion to the Czechs. Nevertheless Bohemia remained quiet when Sigismund came to enter into his heritage. The magnates and the patricians did him

73

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

homage, but the masses adopted a waiting attitude, fortifying Tabor and transforming it into an impregnable camp. But when the Catholic party embarked upon the persecution of the Hussites, and employed coercive measures, the papal legate preach¬ ing a crusade against the Bohemian heretics in March 1420, the storm burst. On the 3rd April 1420 the Calixtines united with the Taborites to carry on the struggle in common. This unity was urgently necessary, for crusaders from all the countries of Europe answered the papal appeal against the Hussites. About 150,000 knights, soldiers, adventurers, and pious Catholics, attracted by the prospect of slaughter, flocked together against Bohemia in 1421 in order to prepare a bloody end for the Hussite heresy. Five times the crusading army attacked, and five times was it repelled with heavy losses. The struggle was waged on both sides with great cruelty. In 1424 Ziska died, and his place was taken by the Taborites, Prokop the Great and Prokop the Little, who were more inclined to the Left, and who in 1427 passed over to the offensive, embarking upon devastating forays through

74

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

the neighbouring German countries: Bavaria, Austria, Franconia, Saxony, Lausitz, Silesia, and Brandenburg, where they inflicted a decisive defeat upon the Imperial army which opposed their progress. Hussites were then the terror of the German countries, like Sweden was two hundred years later. After the crusade met with an inglorious end at the battle of Taus in 1431, the Pope and the Emperor began to think of re¬ conciliation by compromise. After long negotiations at the Council of Basle peace was concluded in 1433, which allowed the Hussites to use the cup at the sacrament, and the Czech language in sermons, the confiscated Church property being left to the nobles. This peace is known as the Compact of Prague. While the Calixtines and the moderate Taborites were satisfied by the concessions of the Prague Compact, these concessions were by no means likely to appease the earnest reformers and the communists, that is, those Taborite elements which had always formed the spear of the Hussite attack and had made enormous sacrifices in prosecuting the war. The Compact of

75

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

1433 split the Hussite movement, and left the extreme Left weakened and isolated to await the speedy oncoming of its fate.

11. Tabor's Communism and End

In the years 1418 to 1421 and onwards, that is, exactly five hundred years before the Russian and German Revolutions, Tabor was the centre of all the heretical, social, and communistic aspirations of Europe. In its initial primitive Christian enthusiasm Tabor lived like the primitive Christian community at Jerusalem. The spirit of brotherhood embraced all who were pure in heart. All distinctions due to status or property vanished ; Mine and Thine, the source of all evil, were unknown there. Deep piety and joy, labour for the community, popular meetings and popular festivals in the open air characterized the life of the Taborites. Then the seriousness of the times invaded their peace. They became involved in war against their persecutors and oppressors. The Taborites divided their population into house and field commun¬ ities ; the former were drafted into the war, the latter attended to the food supply—a 76

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

division of duties similar to that described in Social Struggles in the Middle Ages among the Swabians and the Teutons. The Austrian poet, Alfred Meissner (18221885), sang the struggles and hopes of Tabor in his lyrical epic poem “ Ziska.” “ All dwell in similar houses, each being near and ready to help his neighbour ; united they sit at the same table in the Hall, in similar attire. There is neither Mine nor Thine, and property is common to all—Brotherhood. One section does the peaceful work in the field, the other with horse and waggon joyously departs to fight the battle, and dreams of world¬ wide conquest/' In this atmosphere, filled with the primi¬ tive Christian ideas of redemption and apocalyptic excitement, there was a burst of millennial enthusiasm at the end of 1419, which carried away the masses and plunged them into a state of joyous hopefulness and extraordinary readiness for sacrifice, but also made them receptive to all extreme communistic ideas which had arisen in the course of the Middle Ages since Joachim of

77

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

Floris and Amalrich of Bena and the Cathari. The Beghards (Picards), who, as we know, had at that time assimilated all heretical-social ideas, announced in Tabor at the end of 1419 the imminent return of Jesus, who would establish the millennial kingdom, the communistic future State. All the martyrs who had died for primitive Christian and communistic truth and righteousness would rise again, among them Huss and Jerome. The blessings and joys and knowledge and innocence and perfection which had characterized Adam before the Fall would be partaken by the comrades of the future State. It would be an epoch of equality and freedom, which would know neither royal nor human laws. State, Church, theology, and the whole scholastic erudition would vanish. Among the Bohemian extremists the priest Martinek Huska, called Loquis (the eloquent), became the spokesman of these ideas. The strong antinomian tendency among the extremists led in the case of one group to polygamy. This group was known by the old Gnostic sect name of Adamites, as their members, scorning the customs of

78

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

civilization, were not ashamed of their nakedness. The moderate Taborites under Ziska, who were as zealous to persecute the extreme communists as the Calixtines were to persecute all communists in general, embarked upon a crusade against the Adamites towards the end of 1421, and extirpated them with fire and sword. The Prague Comp actate (the peace of I433)> which satisfied the economic and the very moderate spiritual interests of the Calixtines and the Right Taborites, created a most dangerous situation for the Left Taborites. Submission was equivalent to treason to their past, opposition signified war with their former allies, whose numeri¬ cal and economic strength was superior to that of the Left Taborites, all the more so as the Catholic and Imperial sections were also ranged against the Left Taborites. Actually the Prague Compactate created an aristocratic, middle-class, and lower middleclass social reform coalition against the communistic Left. Nevertheless the latter persisted in an attitude of implacable opposition, and was obliged sooner or later to appeal to arms. In the whole posture of

79

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

affairs a warlike decision was the only way out, although the upshot could not be doubtful. Scarcely six months after the conclusion of the Prague Compactate the collision occurred. A coalition army of 25,000 men defied 18,000 communists. The decisive battle was fought on Sunday, the 30th May 1434, at Lipan. The battle raged all through the day and night until three o'clock on Monday morning, and proved unfavourable to the communists ; about 13,000 corpses of the bravest Taborites, including that of the supreme commander Prokop, were strewn on the battlefield. Nevertheless the survivors again flew to arms in Decem¬ ber of the same year; but they were no longer a serious menace. And what was the result of the betrayal of the Taborite communists ? The very moderate ecclesiastical con¬ cessions were gradually rendered nugatory ; the Prague Compactate led to no Bohemian Reformation ; in 1483 serfdom was im¬ posed on the Bohemian peasants. Out of the remnants of the Taborites there arose in 1457 the sect of Bohemian and Moravian brothers, which has many 80

NATIONAL AND HERETICAL

i

resemblances to the Quakers. In principle they are pacifists, social reformers, in¬ dustrious, and philanthropic. The only spiritual result of the Hussite wars was the transplantation of the doc¬ trines of Wycliffe to Germany. They came into prominence both in the German Peasant War and in the Reformation.1 1 Loserth, Hus und Wiclif, Prague, 1884; Palacky, Geschichte von Bohmen, vol. iii. 1-3, iv. 1-2, v. 1-2, Prague, 1845-67 ; Wadstein, Eschatologische Ideengruppe, Leipzig, 1896.

F

8l

IV GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 15161535 i. The First German Revolution

HE two decades, 1516-1535, in JL which four great movements, the Reformation (Luther), Imperial Unity Plans (Sickingen), the Peasant War (Florian Geyer, Thomas Miinzer), Communism and Anabaptism (Sebastian Franck, John of Leyden), so powerfully agitated the whole of Germany, form the first revolutionary epoch in the history of the German people. None of these movements alone is adequate to explain the significance of these two decades. Only when they are regarded in their connections as a whole can the magnitude of the efforts of this time be appreciated. From Wittenberg to Basle and Innsbruck, from the Tyrol and Swabia to Holland, the revolutionary fire glowed in the spirit of the German races. Re-

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

ligious, national, political, and socio¬ economic ideas and activities were sub¬ jected to the most drastic examination. The knighthood, the lower clergy, the in¬ tellectuals, the citizens, the peasantry, the poorer sections in town and country became an opposition party and, according to their interests and ideals, formulated their re¬ ligious and sociological tenets and articles and sketched their programmes. Germany found herself in the melting-pot, and entered on her first revolution. In the centre of the social and economic struggles of that time was the peasantry, just as this posi¬ tion was occupied by the middle class in the second German revolution of 1848, and by the wage-earning class in the third German revolution of 1918. The first revolutionary period was opened by Luther. His commencement was most promising. In 1516 he published the manuscript of an old German mystic under the title of Teutsch Theologia, which is a temperate treatise, composed in the German language, upon mystical, pan¬ theistic, and communistic lines, the signifi¬ cance of which Luther scarcely realized ; it attracted him on account of the language

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

in which it was written, and its inward piety. The publication of this essay is only a symptom that Luther had been in¬ fected by the agitation. His real mission began with the nailing of the ninety-five theses at Wittenberg on the 31st October 1517. It was confined solely to questions of ecclesiastical reform and German nationalism, and formed only a small part of the first German revolution. We shall return to it later. More important for us, who are writing upon socialism and social struggles, is the circumstance that the appearance of Luther, in itself of small social revolutionary moment, fanned into flame all the social reform sparks which glimmered under the ashes. Pamphlets and draft programmes for the radical reform of the Imperial constitution and of the economic life appeared and were distributed, efforts were made for their forcible realization ; prophecies of an im¬ minent historical crisis kindled the imag¬ ination of large sections of the people ; from 1519 onwards a great part of the nation lived in a state of tension and unrest, as if a catastrophic new order of things was near at hand.

84

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

That the only outcome of this immense travail of a great nation was a fragmentary, poor-spirited, ecclesiastical reformation. It is one of the chapters of the German tragedy. Let us turn to our proper task and trace the origin and course of the Peasant War and of communistic Anabaptism.

2. Economics and Politics

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Germany was one of the wealthiest countries of Christendom. The sources of German national wealth were the mineral treasures of the soil, the expert diligence of the handicraftsmen, the enterprise and the activity of the merchants, the untiring labour of the peasants. The Harz, Saxony, Bohemia, Styria, and the Tyrol supplied silver, gold, iron, lead, copper, and salt. In the mines, forges, and workshops, skilful hands and heads created with all the technical appliances of their time. Im¬ provements of old productive processes and inventions of new labour methods, including the most famous and revolution¬ ary ; that of printing, established the fame

85

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

of Nuremberg, Augsburg, Strassburg, and Basle. And south and north German merchants had accumulated sufficient ex¬ perience and capital since the thirteenth century to adapt their undertakings to the growing world intercourse, the altered trade routes, and the overseas discoveries of the Portuguese and Spaniards. Even in the thirteenth century the merchants of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Ulm had commenced to develop the Levantine-Italian export trade from Venice and Genoa as far as north-western Germany and Flanders. North German merchants, organized in the powerful Hanseatic League, were the masters of the Baltic Sea commerce from Lubeck to Novgorod. The activity of the Hansa had, however, at the beginning of the modern epoch a much smaller importance than that of the south German merchants : firstly, because the latter were increasingly bound up with native produc¬ tion, while the north German merchants had confined themselves to commerce; secondly, because the south German mer¬ chants had learned much in their inter¬ course with industrially rich north Italy, which had a highly developed commercial

86

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 and financial technique, whereas the Han¬ seatic League in its intercourse with the Baltic only came in contact with colonial and raw material districts, which still remained impervious to civilization. The greater mobility and adaptability of the south Germans was shown when maritime communications were transferred from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. The advance of Osman, which led to the fall of Constanti¬ nople (1453), and eventually to the stoppage of Mediterranean Sea communication, com¬ pelled the nations to seek new ways of communication between Europe and Asia. The consequences were : the rounding of the Cape, the discovery of America, and the material ascendancy of Portugal, the Nether¬ lands, and England. Lisbon, Antwerp, and London became centres of world trade, while Spain, which through her Clericalism and her Inquisition mortified or dispersed the economic forces, achieved only a poli¬ tical ascendancy, and became the first world power at the turn of the sixteenth century under the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic (1479-1516) and of Isabella. As Ferdinand was allied by marriage and 87

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

treaties with the House of Hapsburg, and therefore with the German Emperor, it came about that, after his death (1516), the Spanish Crown, and three years later also the German Imperial Crown, fell to his grandson Charles, who became Charles I of Spain, and is known as German Em¬ peror under the name of Charles V. He reigned from 1519 to 1556, and witnessed the epoch of early capitalism in south Germany, the German Reformation, the first German unity movement, the German Peasant War, the rise and fall of com¬ munistic Anabaptism—in short, the whole German social, political, and spiritual revolution. To this revolution the south German merchants unconsciously contri¬ buted a great deal; they made the fullest productive and financial use of the expan¬ sion of German-Spanish world intercourse. Among the great business houses of Nurem¬ berg and Augsburg those of Fugger and Welser were specially prominent. In their hands were the German mining industry, Spanish and Hungarian mines, the trade with Lisbon and Antwerp, and the financial operations conducted by the Emperor Charles V. In addition, numerous south

88

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

German trading companies were engaged in the metal trade and colonial commerce, bringing small-scale industry under capi¬ talist control, and conducting loan and usury business. The urban life of south and central Germany dominated the culture of the whole German land of the modern epoch. But this urban life came into increasing conflict with patristic-canonical ethics, with the mediaeval Christian con¬ science, with the whole outlook of primitive Christianity, to which trade and commerce, usury and profit were godless. How diffi¬ cult it was to be saved by works ! This was the feeling which began to torment the German middle classes of those times.

3. Social Consequences

The consequences of the early capitalist prosperity of Germany were numerous and manifold. The widening of the horizon, the growth of national well¬ being, the general hurry and chase after trade and wealth aroused among the labour¬ ing masses the desire for greater freedom and equality, and a larger share in the good things of the earth. All those sections 89

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

of the people who imagined themselves injured or oppressed were seized with dis¬ content, which increased as the class divi¬ sions of society became acuter and the pressure upon the lower sections sharper. The gulf between the landowning patricians, the great merchants, the monopolists, the newly enriched financiers, and the land¬ owning and trading clergy, on the one hand, and the small handicraftsmen, agri¬ culturists, and the proletariat (the im¬ poverished handicraftsmen and peasants, unemployed knights, and serfs), on the other hand, became deeper, the antagonism more marked and acute. In addition, there was the rising cost of living and the con¬ tinually increasing taxes, duties, and levies to Town and Church. As a result of the increase in the supplies of precious metals— thus of the means of payment—as well as of the many monopolies, a general rise in the prices of the necessaries of life set in, from which the less favourably placed and proletarian sections suffered most. Taxation grew, as, in consequence of the disruption and impotence of the Empire and the increasing demoralization of the Knighthood, the towns were obliged to 90

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

expend ever larger sums for the mainten¬ ance of military defence. And the Church demanded and received numerous fees for baptisms, marriages, deaths, and indul¬ gences, and she had to collect very con¬ siderable sums and send them annually to Rome. At a time when discontent spread over wide circles of the people, Germany's large annual tribute of gold to Rome was certain to become the object of a vigorous agitation, and to stimulate the discontent. The consequences of the economic trans¬ formation hit the peasants with particular severity. As producers of the means of sustenance and raw materials for the growing urban population the peasants, had they been free, could have shared to a large extent in the national wealth, but they were prevented from doing so by the relations of servitude in which they stood to the lords of the soil. They had to pay the lords what was due : to the " greater ” tithes of corn, to the “ lesser ” tithes of cattle, often even the third sheaf ; more¬ over they had to do socage service—unpaid labour with hand and plough; finally, they had to pay them a kind of inheritance 9i

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

tax on the death of the head of the family. In view of the rising prices of the necessaries of life, and the increase in the value of the soil, the peasants recollected that the land¬ lords appropriated a portion of the heath and meadows of the village commune, and in addition monopolized the hunting in the forests and the fishing in the waters. Then the nobles also, since the fourteenth century, had been seized by the mercenary spirit and oppressed the serfs. All traces of canonic law, and also of the old Teutonic communal rights, were obliterated, and their place was taken by Roman law, according to which the Allmende belong¬ ing to the village communes were promised to the landlords, and the tribute-owing peasants were regarded as the serfs of the lords. A social ferment of great strength and wide extent set in, in which—seen from our viewpoint—three chief tendencies are to be distinguished : one was peasant and social-reformist, the second proletarian and communistic, the third was bourgeois and Church reformist. Parallel to these ran a fourth tendency, which had national political aims: the establishment of Imperial 92

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

unity under a German Emperor ; its pro¬ gramme was set forth in the pamphlet, Teutscher Nation Notdurft (1523) ; the champions of this tendency were the Knighthood (the impoverished poor nobles), the peasantry, and a section of the bour¬ geoisie ; its opponents were—as in 1848— the local princes, the higher nobility. We cannot, however, treat of the national political movement in detail, as it lies outside the scope of our work. The peasants demanded the inviolability of the village communes, democratic ad¬ ministration in Church and municipality, personal freedom. The proletarians and those theologians who adhered to the ideas of primitive Christianity advocated communism and took the side of the peasants. Anabaptism was the most ex¬ treme wing of this section. The demands of the middle classes may be summarized as an attempt to adapt Christianity to individualistic interests and the individual¬ istic ethics which arises from them; further, separation from the universal Church and establishment of a national Church. The middle class knew well enough from

93

SOCIAL STRUGGLES the Christian tradition that the life of industrial activity which had just come into existence, usury, exploitation, and monopolizing were sinful, but they felt themselves to be powerless, in face of the new economic forces, to live according to the patristic ethic and canonical law, and to be blessed by works. They were smitten with an uneasy moral feeling. During periods of economic crisis and social insurrection they had forced on their attention the wealth and the financial and industrial competition of the churches and cloisters, as well as the tribute to Rome, and to these circumstances they ascribed a great part of the social evil. Lastly, they were among the representatives of the national idea in Germany, and for this reason they adopted an antagonistic atti¬ tude to the Papacy. Even in the time of Ludwig of Bavaria the towns were against the Papacy and in favour of a national Empire. The spiritual expression of the middle-class ferment was the Lutheran Reformation. In the first place the Reformation may be regarded as an endeavour to overcome the moral difficulties into which large sections

94

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

of the bourgeoisie fell in consequence of the contradiction between the patristic and canonical tradition and the new economy, between the mediaeval Christian conscience and the economic greed which was gaining the upper hand ; the Age of the Reforma¬ tion did not feel well morally. In the time of Jesus the Judaeic middle classes in Palestine passed through a similar crisis ; dominated by the spiritual influence of the Pharisees, they imagined their difficulties could be overcome by the strictness and variety of injunctions and prohibitions, by a code of religious ritual which was elaborated to the smallest detail; the number of laws was as infinite as their burden was oppressive, and their effect was to heighten the feeling of the moral impotence of mankind. In this crisis, Paul, who as a fanatical Pharisee had felt the weight of the law with particular severity, rejected the entire Judseic legal code with its enervating conviction of sin. He discarded the crutches with which he had supported himself in his weakness, and prostrated himself before the spiritual appearance of Jesus, in order to draw new strength and freedom and dignity from the

95

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

grandeur of the crucified, from His propitia¬ tory sacrifice, and from His divine grace. The German bourgeoisie found their Paul in Martin Luther, who, however, as a hardy and native Teuton, living on the confines of civilization, could only absorb a portion of the Pauline soul, which was saturated with the ethics and mysticism of a rich civilization. Secondly, the Reformation was an attempt to create a national Church, in order to break away from the Papacy ; but here too the work accomplished was only fragmentary. From the national standpoint Luther stood on a much lower plane than Sickingen and Hutten : he was satisfied with the local princes, while the latter aimed at a national empire. With this very summary and piecemeal descrip¬ tion of the Reformation we must content ourselves, as the purpose of our book is not the history of Christianity, but of communism. We therefore turn to the Peasants’ War and the Anabaptists.

4. Precursors of the Peasants’ War

Two years after the termination of the Hussite Wars—that is, in the year 1438— 96

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

the first serious symptoms of the social ferment among the German peasantry manifested themselves. Under the title of Reformatio Sigisnmndi (the reform policy of the Emperor Sigismund), a pamphlet was circulated in 1438, in which the grievances and the demands of the German peasants were set forth. The theoretical ideas in this writing were those of the social thought of the Middle Ages. The pro¬ gramme demanded the abolition of serfdom, the restitution of the forests, meadows, and waterways which the nobility and the Church had appropriated from the village communes, and the dissolution of the com¬ mercial companies and guilds which ex¬ ploited the masses of the people. The programme was based upon conclusions drawn from the Bible, which adumbrated the last Age, in which the poor and lowly should be exalted and the rich and mighty pulled down from their seats. The influ¬ ence of the WyclifAtes and Taborites is distinctly perceptible in this document. It goes without saying that the Emperor Sigismund, who had summoned the crusad¬ ing armies against the Hussites, would have been the last to draw up Such a programme G 97

SOCIAL STRUGGLES of reform, but an imperial name still possessed a considerable attraction and could be made to further the agitation. About four decades later (1476) the young shepherd, Hans Bohaim, known as the Pauker of Niklashausen, became notorious in the district of Wurzburg through his addresses upon the approaching age of equality. Thousands of peasants flocked to listen to his speeches; eventually the excitement was so great that the Arch¬ bishop of Mainz persecuted him as a heretic and delivered him to the stake. In 1493 a secret peasant organization arose in Alsace, called the “ Bundschuh,” which aimed at substituting “ the divine law ” (or natural law) for human law, and liberat¬ ing the labouring people from their burdens. The association was discovered and its leaders executed. In 1514 a league of peasants and urban proletarians, directed against the nobles and patricians, arose in Wurtemberg, known as der arme Konrad (poor Conrad). This association also was destroyed, partly through the treachery of the lords, partly by superior force. Simultaneously with the appearance of a social revolutionary movement among the

98

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-8

peasants, a primitive Christian and com¬ munistic agitation arose among the handi¬ craftsmen in the towns. Insurrections of this character occurred in Erfurt in 1509, in Ulm and Schwabisch-Hall in 1511-1512, in Brunswick and Cologne in 1513. The town preachers, belonging to the lower and badly paid clergy, and drawn from the poorer sections of the people, sought for a • remedy for social crimes in the Bible, in the Mosaic law and social legislation, or in the gospel, in the community of goods of the first Christians. The preachers were the intermediaries between the theoretical com¬ munists and social reformers and the labouring classes in town and country— to the great anger of the patricians, the wealthy citizens, the higher nobility, and Church reformers like Luther, Melanchthon, etc. Thomas Zweifel, the town clerk of Rothenburg, has bequeathed to us a lamentation upon this state of affairs: “ And thus the holy Gospel and Word of God has fallen into a sad disrepute. When one preaches of Christian and brotherly love, the common people want all things to be common, and that there should be no supremacy, government, or overlordship.”

99

SOCIAL STRUGGLES And when the masters defend themselves against such conduct, the common people dare to reproach the authorities that “ they will not allow the Word of God to be preached ” (Kaser, Politische und soziale Bewegung im deutschen Burgertum, p. 219. Stuttgart, 1899).

5. Communistic

and

Social-Reformist

Tendencies in Humanism, Expiring Scholasticism, and the Anabaptist Movement

The end of the Middle Ages—thus the centuries of the peasant wars of Western and Central Europe—were marked by three intellectual movements which profoundly influenced European feeling, thought, and aims. These movements were: the Re¬ naissance (re-birth of antique Art and Poetry), Humanism (the systematic study of the Greek and Latin languages and literature), the Reformation (national Church reform). The Renaissance and Humanism brought about the result that, side by side with the anti-Catholic criticism, antique modes of feeling and thought, freer investigation, and the authority of 100

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

reason, become important factors in life. What the Middle Ages knew of Greek and Latin culture was subordinated to Church authority, and became the hand¬ maiden of theology. On the other hand, since the fourteenth century, the learning and art of Antiquity were revered as an independent authority, and made an object of education. In particular the treasures of Greek literature in the original language were made acces¬ sible to Italian, German (Dutch), English, and French savants by cultivated Greeks, who fled from the victorious march of the Turks to Italy, and settled in Florence, the centre of the economic and intellectual civilization of the country, and diffused a knowledge of their language. Thomas a Kempis (b. 1380, d. 1471) sent six of his most diligent pupils to Florence, in order to learn Greek; the Brethren of the Common Lot1 paid great attention to Humanism in their schools. Among other things the close of the Middles Ages signified the decay of schol¬ asticism and its philosophical authority— 1 See Social Struggles in the Middle Ages. IOI

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

Aristotle. Scholasticism was supplanted by free investigation, the growing repute of reason; Aristotle's place was taken by Plato, who became the favourite author of the Humanists, by reason of the beauties of his style, the wealth of his philosophical and social ideas, and the noble elevation of his mind. A Platonic academy was founded in Florence, which was also attended by foreigners with a thirst for learning. Thanks to the newly invented art of printing, Western and Central Europe became acquainted with the treasures of the antique intellect, among which Plato's Politeia (Republic) and Nomoi (Laws) enabled the Humanists inclined to social criticism to become acquainted with communism. Two of the most celebrated Humanists, Erasmus of Rotterdam (b. 1467, d. 1536), and Sir Thomas More (b. 1480, executed 1536), were sympathetic towards communism. More is the author of Utopia (1516), of which we shall speak in detail later; Erasmus, whose reputation and influence were very considerable, re¬ ferred the theologians to the Greek original text of the New Testament and of the Church Fathers ; in his exegesis (biblical 102

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

interpretation) he gave an exposition of the doctrines of Jesus in the spirit of Plato, the Stoa, and the ethical theories of Cicero. First and foremost he made of theology a social and moral philosophy. He con¬ tended that a Christian ought to possess no property, as whatever earthly goods might fall to his lot would come from God, who has lent the goods of this world not to a particular man, but to all men in common {Opera, Leyden, 1705-1706, vol. ix. p. 1070). When More published his communistic Utopia, Erasmus hastened to apprise his humanistic friend, Ulrich von Hutten, of the fact. The Swiss Humanists arranged for a second edition of Utopia in Basle in 1518, and for a German translation in 1524, so lively was the interest in communism, and so great was their enthusiasm to spread communist ideas among the handicrafts¬ men. It may be accepted as a general rule that those Humanists who remained faithful to the Catholic Church sympathized with communism, or at least with a fundamental reform of society upon social ethical lines, emphasizing the importance of being saved through works, whereas the Lutheran 103

SOCIAL STRUGGLES Church reforming Humanists were anti¬ communist, socially conservative, and lower middle class in their outlook. This was particularly the case with Melanchthon, the most eminent Latin and Greek scholar in Wittenberg. He was at great pains to explain away the passages pertaining to communist natural law in Latin literature and the patristics, as well as the commun¬ istic verses of the New Testament. In this respect he esteemed the individualistic Aristotle greater than the primitive com¬ munity of Jerusalem, than Ambrose and Chrysostom (Melanchthon, Opera 1854, “ Corpus Reformationis V,” vol. xvi. p. 549 et seq.). As already observed, the Reformation sprang directly from the moral crisis which overtook the serious members of the middle class ; consequently it was instinctively hostile to everything that was proletarian and communistic or that per¬ tained to primitive Christianity and natural law. Luther could not endure the Epistles of S. James and the Revelation, as these are proletarian in spirit, and treat of the millennium, and lay emphasis upon works as redeeming factors. Even the widely diffused scholasticism, 104

GERMANY‘S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 so far as it was dominated by Ockham's spirit, exerted a communistic influence upon German thought. Gabriel Biel (d. 1496), Professor of Theology at Tubingen, taught that private property was a con¬ sequence of the fall from grace ; he also stoutly maintained the natural law concep¬ tion of the primitive equality of mankind. More lasting and momentous was the influence of the communistic Baptist move¬ ment, which arose simultaneously with the initial stages of Luther's Church reform activity, and with the social revolutionary peasant movement, deriving its theoretical strength from humanistic and commun¬ istic as well as primitive Christian and patristic sources. It arose in Thuringia, Saxony, Switzerland, and spread to south Germany, Austria, Moravia, etc. In his¬ tory it is known as the Anabaptist Move¬ ment, as its disciples held the baptism of infants to be invalid, and advocated the baptism of adults—after the example of John the Baptist—as a sign of entry into the Christian community. Moreover bap¬ tism was only a symbol; what essentially interests us in this movement is its biblical communism. It embodied the traditions

105

SOCIAL STRUGGLES of the whole mediaeval heretical movement, which we have dealt with in Social Struggles in the Middle Ages. Its adherents took the social ethics of the New Testament seriously, they endeavoured to put the Sermon on the Mount into practice, to revert to the Apostolic Age, and to inaugurate the king¬ dom of God. The overwhelming majority of its supporters belonged to the class of handworkers, while its leaders were often men of humanist and theological culture. All of them recognized the principle of community of goods, even if unanimity did not prevail regarding its realization or upon many details. There was a note¬ worthy difference of opinion about tactics : the Swiss Baptists with their leaders, Hans Denk, Konrad Grebel, Felix Manz, Bal¬ thasar Hubmeier rejected all force and political coercion, while many of the Ger¬ man Baptists, who were living in the atmosphere of the impending peasants’ war, favoured the use of all methods. This was specially the case with Thomas Miinzer, whereas Karlstadt and Sebastian Franck, who shared his zeal for social reform and were intellectually superior to him, were peacefully disposed savants. 106

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

The Swiss, as well as the German Baptists and communists, were equally hostile to the Church reformers, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin.

6. Sebastian Franck and Thomas Munzer

Franck (b. 1500 at Donauworth, d. at Basle 1542) was a younger contemporary of Munzer. The difference in age amounted to some ten or twelve years. Both were theologians who were at first fired by Luther's example, but were later repelled by Luther's dogmatism and his petit bour¬ geois limitations, when they went their own way. Munzer became a revolutionary leader, and Franck a communist, social-ethical and religious mystical writer and historian. In 1528 Franck resigned his position as a pastor, and supported himself by the labour of his hands, some time as printer, some time as soap boiler, writing books in his leisure. His communist testimony is embodied in his Paradoxa (1534), the most important of his works. The Paradoxa reveals an extensive acquaintance with the Church Fathers and the writings of German 107

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

mysticism. First he explains the meaning of the word Paradoxon. This word “ means a pronouncement which is certain and true, but which the whole world and all who live in a human fashion regard as anything but true.” Of such paradoxes there are two hundred and eighty. No. 153 deals with communism under the heading : “ The common is pure, thine and mine are impure.” Franck challenges the accepted idea that the common is impure, and that to be common signifies to be mean or bad. Our language is so debased that the con¬ cept " common,” which originally signified the communal life of the people, is inter¬ changeable with “ bad,” “ morally base,” and “ low.” Against this confusion Franck protests in his paradoxes and says : “ We ought indeed to have all things in common, like common sunshine, air, rain, snow, and water, as Clement (Epistle 5) indicates. . . . The common God has from the beginning made all things common, pure, and free, after His fashion. There¬ fore is it that the things that are common and commonly used alone, in which they resemble God, are pure, and 108

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

what is personal of personal usage and property sound harshly even to-day in all men's ears, which are naturally attuned to the sentiment that all things should be common and indivisible, which is written by the finger of God in their hearts. . . . The common, what it (the world) esteems as impure, God esteems as alone pure. Were it not for egoism, so testifies Teutsche Theology (chap, li.), there would be no property and no hell. Therefore the Holy Spirit had all things common in the first Church, in His pure community (Acts of the Apostles, ii. 4), wherefore it was called Communio, that is, something com¬ mon of God. It is plain that this condition was still in force at the time of (the Church Fathers) Clement and Tertullian. See Tertullian, Adversus gentes, de disciplina Christianorum1 (ii. 9), and Adversus Marcionem de lapsu primi hominis. (Against Marcion, Of the Fall of the First Men.) See Clement (Epistle 5). However, I opine that there was no strict pro¬ hibition, but that the matter was left to individual discretion, as may be in¬ ferred from Paul (2 Cor. viii. 9), who 1 “Against the Heathen : of Christian discipline.” IO9

SOCIAL STRUGGLES never gave a law to anybody. . . . How much nobler a thing is the commoner it is, and how much more common a thing is the nobler it is, see Tauler, Fourth Sermon after Easter, p. 259. There wilt thou find that egoism and property is against nature and the purpose of its creation/'1 Franck did not participate in the great struggles of his time. He was occupied with his work and his books, of which he wrote more than a dozen. Thomas Miinzer was of quite a different temperament. Created for a time of sturm und drang, he was a man of action and of revolution. He was ever on the side of the revolting masses against the rulers and possessing classes, and against the easy living reformers. Small of stature, he had a swarthy countenance and black hair, fiery glance, and rugged, popular eloquence. He was no party man, but anarchistic in his dis¬ position, an independent, reckless char¬ acter, following his own inspirations, and bold to the point of rashness. He was 1 Sebastian Franck, Paradoxa. Lehmann-Zeigler edi¬ tion, published by Diederichs, pp. 188-91. Jena.

no

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

born in Stolberg (Harz), received a good education, studied theology at Leipzig (1506) and Frankfurt, lived some time in Halle, and became acquainted with Martin Luther in Leipzig in 1519, when Karlstadt was publicly disputing with Eck. Carried away by Luther’s example, Miinzer first worked for the Reformation, and, on Luther’s recommendation, received a chap¬ laincy in Zwickau, where, however, he came into contact with Baptist hand¬ workers—the enthusiasts of Zwickau—and joined them. Contact with the Baptist and communist handworkers and labourers in the year 1520 to 1521 was decisive for Miinzer’s future. He turned to mysticism, read Teutsch Theologia, Tauler’s writings, Joachim of Floris’ Commentary on Jere¬ miah, progressing far beyond the Reforma¬ tion, and henceforth stood for the funda¬ mental reform of the whole of society through religious-mystical communism. Luther appealed from the Papacy to the biblical word, Miinzer appealed from the Holy Scripture to the mystical-communist inner light, to the Divine Spirit, which fills mankind, and gave and gives every¬ thing in common. hi

SOCIAL STRUGGLES After this turning-point in Mfinzer’s spiritual life a breach with Luther was inevitable. The four or five years of life which still remained to Mfinzer were full of unrest, strife, and struggle. He lost his pastorship at Zwickau, repaired to Prague, then to Nordhausen, and found for a time a resting place in Allstadt (near Halle), where he prosecuted with vigour his reforms pertaining to divine service and his communistic agitation. His sermons attacking the princes, the rulers, and the wealthy met with great approbation among the peasant and mining population. Thuringia and the district of Mansfeld were henceforth Mfinzer’s proper field of agita¬ tion. His influence became so great that the Saxon princes incited by Luther did not venture to adopt coercive measures against the communist rebel leader. The peasants war which was gathering strength in south Germany threw its waves as far as Thuringia, where the labouring population became impatient and called for deeds. Mfinzer preached patience, but organized a secret association “ against those who persecuted the gospel ”—the gospel of communism. Mfinzer derived 112

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 his communistic ideas not only from the Bible, the Church Fathers, and the mystics, but also from Plato’s Politeia. In one of his sermons he says : “ It is indeed a splendid faith, which will effect much good. It will indeed create a subtle people, as Plato the philosopher has speculated.” In 1524 he announced to his community that a change in the world was at hand, which will bring power to the common people. This belief was widely spread in Germany at that time, and many princes who were religiously inclined shared this belief in secret. It was emphatically a revolutionary period. After Miinzer had prepared the soil in the district of Mansfeld he repaired to Miihlhausen in Thuringia, a small indus¬ trially active and prosperous town, where since 1523 the democratic and lower middle-class preacher, Heinrich Pfeiffer, had agitated the lower classes against the councillors—" the respectability” and the higher clergy—so that the patricians had been compelled to democratize the municipal administration. Thus Miinzer found here a ripe soil, but a letter from Luther to the Council had the result h

113

SOCIAL STRUGGLES of forbidding Miinzer and Pfeiffer to preach. They then withdrew to Bebra, where they were received by the Baptist, Hans Hut. Miinzer separated from his colleague, and journeyed to Nuremberg, in order to publish his polemic against Luther. He then sojourned at the German-Swiss frontier, where he mixed with the Baptists, and also had an oppor¬ tunity to observe the first convulsions of the Peasants' War; in Hegau, in the vicinity of Switzerland, the peasants had already embarked upon a revolutionary movement in the summer of 1524. Upon his return to Miihlhausen, Miinzer stayed in south Germany, preaching upon the Old Testament agrarian reform (the Jubilee Year), and all that he saw there confirmed him in his belief that a general rising of the masses in town and country could no longer be prevented. He hastened to re¬ turn to his old field of agitation, in order to enlist the Thuringians and the Mansfeld people in the revolutionary armies, and to place himself at their head.

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 7. The Peasants' War and the Twelve Articles

In March 1525 the revolutionary move¬ ment was, in fact, general. From Allgau to the Harz, from Wasgau as far as Bohemia hosts of peasants, and town workers, and many lower burghers entered the struggle partly for democracy and agrarian reform, partly for communism. The real revolutionary troops were the peasants, whose practical programme con¬ sisted of twelve articles, the essential portions of which are given hereunder : The First Article For the first it is our humble prayer and desire, also the will and opinion of us all that henceforth the power to choose and elect a pastor shall lie with the whole com¬ munity, that it shall also have the power to displace such an one if he behaveth unseemly. The pastor that is chosen shall preach the gospel plainly and manifestly, without any addition of man or the doctrine or ordinance of men. For that the true faith is preached to us giveth us a cause to pray God for His grace that He implant

IJ5

SOCIAL STRUGGLES within us the same living faith and confirm us therein. For if His grace be not im¬ planted within us we remain flesh and blood which profiteth not. How plainly is it written in the Scripture that we can alone through the true faith come to God and that alone through His mercy shall we be saved. Therefore is such an ensample and pastor of need to us and in such wise founded on Scripture. The Other Article Furthermore notwithstanding that the just tithe was imposed in the Old Testa¬ ment and in the New was fulfilled yet are we nothing loth to furnish the just tithe of corn, but only such as is meet. Accordingly shall we give it to God and His servants. If it be the due of a pastor who clearly proclaimeth the Word of God, then it is our will that our Church overseers such as are appointed by the community shall collect and receive this tithe and therefore shall give to the pastor who shall be chosen from a whole community suitably sufficient subsistence for him and his, as the whole community may deem just ; and what remaineth over shall be furnished 116

GERMANY‘S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

to the poor and the needy of the same village, according to the circumstance of the case and the judgement of the com¬ munity. What further remaineth over shall be reserved for the event that the land being pressed it should needs make war, and so that no general tax should be laid upon the poor, it shall be furnished from this surplusage. . . . The small tithe we will not give, be it either to spiritual or to temporal lord ; for the God the Lord hath created the beast for the use of man. For we esteem this tithe for an unseemly tithe of man's devising. Therefore will we no longer give it. The Third Article Thirdly the custom hath hitherto been that we have been held for villeins which is to be deplored, since Christ hath pur¬ chased and redeemed us all with His precious blood, the poor hind as well as the highest, nobody excepted. Therefore do we find in the Scripture that we are free, and we will be free. Not that we would be wholly free as having no authority over us, for this God doth not teach us. We shall live in obedience and not in the freedom n7

SOCIAL STRUGGLES of our fleshly pride, shall love God as our Lord, shall esteem our neighbours as brothers, and do to them as we would have them do to us, as God hath com¬ manded at the Last Supper. The Fourth Article Fourthly was it hitherto a custom that no poor man hath the right to capture ground game, fowls, or fish in flowing water, which to us seemeth unbecoming and unbrotherly. For when God the Lord created man He gave him power over all creatures over the fowl in the air, and over the fish in the water. The Fifth Article Fifthly we are troubled concerning the woods; for our lords have taken unto themselves all the woods, and if the poor man requireth aught, he must buy it with double money. Our opinion is as touching the woods that they fall again to the whole community. The Sixth Article Sixthly our grievous complaint is as concerning the services which are heaped

118

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 up from day to day, and daily increased. We desire that this should be earnestly considered, and that we should be not so heavily burdened withal; but that we should be mercifully dealt with herein, that we may serve as our fathers have served, and only according to the Word of God. The Seventh Article

Seventhly will we henceforth no longer be opprest by a lordship, but in such wise as a lordship hath granted the land, so shall it be held according to the agreement between the lord and the peasant. The lord shall no longer compel him and press him nor require of him new services or aught else for naught. But when the lord hath need of the peasant's services, the peasant shall be willing and obedient to him before others, but it shall be at the hour and at the time when it shall not be to the hurt of the peasant, who shall do his lord service for a befitting price. The Eighth Article

Eighthly there are many among us who are opprest in that they hold lands and in that these lands will not bear the 119

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

price on them, so that the peasants must sacrifice that which belongeth to them to their own undoing. We desire that the lordship will fix a price as may be just in such wise that the peasant may not have his labour in vain for every labourer is worthy of his hire. The Ninth Article

Ninthly do we suffer greatly concerning misdemeanours in that new punishments are laid upon us. They punish us not according to the circumstance of the matter, but sometimes from great envy, from the unrighteous favouring of others. We should be punished according to ancient written law and according to the thing transgressed and not according to respect of persons. The Tenth Article

Tenthly we suffer in that some have taken to themselves meadows and arable land which belong to the community. We will take the same once more into the hands of our communities, wheresoever it hath not been honestly purchased. But hath it been purchased in an unjust manner, 120

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

then shall the case be agreed upon in peace and brotherly love according to the circumstance of the matter. The Eleventh Article

Eleventhly would we have the custom called the death due utterly abolished, and will never suffer or permit that widows and orphans shall be shamefacedly robbed of their own. The Twelfth Article

Twelfthly it is our conclusion and final opinion, if one or more of the articles here set up be not according to the Word of God, we will, where the same articles are proved as against the Word of God, with¬ draw therefrom so soon as this is declared to us by reason and Scripture. The twelve articles, or the grievances and resolves of the German peasantry, are compiled with great skill; they are wise, tactful, respectful, and embody general principles. It is a peasantry who are conscious of their dignity, their rights, and their duties. They demanded : democratic Church government; abolition of hier¬ archical despotism and of dues not justified 121

SOCIAL STRUGGLES by the Bible; freedom of person or aboli¬ tion of serfdom ; restoration of communal rights in woods and waters; statute labour to be reduced to the measure fixed in olden times ; for all other services they are to be adequately paid. Further, they demanded a graduated land tax; abolition of all arbi¬ trary punishments and the establishment of impartial tribunals ; finally the restora¬ tion of the inviolability of the village community, and the restitution of the meadows and arable land stolen by the nobles. The course of the German Peasants' War was similar to that of the English Peasants' War. At the beginning of May 1525 the revolution had attained considerable success. However, the peasants were partly betrayed by negotiations, and partly incapable of achieving a decisive victory, owing to their defective organization, or their lack of unity and the absence of a supreme com¬ mand. One after another the separate hosts of fighting peasants were defeated. The chief enemy of the peasant revolution was Bavaria. In the autumn of 1525 the German peasant movement was suppressed. That Luther incited the princes and the 122

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

authorities against the revolting peasants in a most passionate and unchristian manner is not to be surprised at. Luther possessed only a part, and not the best part, of the Pauline soul. He lacked the abounding love of mankind, the deep-seated moral culture of the apostle to the heathen, or even of any of the great German mystics. And then revenge was wreaked upon the vanquished. “ Everywhere/’ wrote a patriotic his¬ torian, “ where the peasants were put down with force, they were henceforth chastised with scorpions instead of with whips ; the cruelties incident to the revolt were exceeded tenfold by the cruelties of a reaction dehumanized beyond concep¬ tion. The number of slain peasants was estimated at 130,000. The leaders, so far as they did not escape, were put to death under torture :1 many peasants were expelled from the country. . . . The Ger¬ man nobleman remained master of the field, and the peasantry had to bear their yoke for centuries longer. No wonder that 1 Among them Thomas Miinzer ; Florian Geyer was assassinated. 123

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

the people lapsed into pessimism, and the Saxon peasants mocked Luther : ‘ What is the wily parson saying about God ? Who knows what God is, or if there is a God at all ? ' ” (Egelhaff, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation, pp. 245-48. Berlin, 1903).

8. Suppression of the Anabaptists : Final Episode of the Revolution

A victorious ruling class always does its work thoroughly. It exploits its success to the utmost, and the greater the danger in which it was placed, the more ruthlessly does it embark upon the persecution of the vanquished. After the peasant danger had passed, an exterminatory crusade was com¬ menced against the Baptist movement. Thousands of Baptist communists were burnt, beheaded, or drowned. In the Austrian hereditary lands, in the German provinces, in the Swiss cantons, in the Dutch towns, the Baptists during the years 1527 to 1536 suffered the fate of the mediaeval Cathari. Even the pacific Baptists, the peaceable communistic settlements, were not spared; 124

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35

imprisonment, banishment, confiscation of property, and violent death were meted out to numerous victims, who went to their death with serene steadfastness. The perse¬ cutors encountered no opposition except in Munster (1534-1535), where Dutch and lower German Baptists made a last desper¬ ate stand, defending their lives with arms. As in so many German towns in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the humbler guild handicraftsmen in Munster fought against the patrician town council, the spiritual overlordship, and the indus¬ trial competition of the cloisters. The peasant revolt of 1525 found an echo in Munster, and a revolt broke out, which was appeased by concessions from the Council and the local priesthood, but the Archbishop of Cologne intervened, and restored the old state of affairs. This intervention, which nullified the conces¬ sions, only strengthened the anti-clerical faction, and in the year 1531 Munster became evangelical. The chaplain, Bernt Rothmann, a theologian of the school of Melanchthon educated on Humanist lines, placed himself at the head of the evangelical movement, and around him all the dis125

SOCIAL STRUGGLES contented burghers, handicraftsmen, and workers flocked. To this economic, religious, and municipal agitation was added the Baptist element, which was reinforced by immigrations from the Julichschen and from Holland. The Dutch Baptists, the baker, John Mathys of Haarlem, and the tailor, Johann Bockelson of Leyden (the latter was of German origin), were distinguished by eloquence and a talent for leadership, and soon assumed the direction of affairs. Eminent among the natives was the cloth dealer, Bernhard Knipperdolling, who co-operated with the Dutch Baptists. The Baptists quickly gained the upper hand, whereupon the Bishop of Munster commenced hostilities against them, and the war started in February 1534. At first the Baptists succeeded in scattering a portion of the episcopal forces, and compelling another portion to retreat; but the Bishop did not relax his efforts, and undertook a systematic siege of the town. Meanwhile it was necessary to elect a new town council. The Baptists came out of the elections victoriously, and took over the administration of Munster. War had now to be waged, and at the 126

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 same time the Baptist principles had to be put into practice as far as possible. We know only from hostile reports how far these tasks were accomplished. In this respect the Munster Anabaptists share the fate of the Cathari: we can know them only from the pictures which their oppon¬ ents and accusers have drawn and painted of them ; prejudice and misunderstanding were brush and palette. After their electoral victory had raised the Baptists to power, their leaders, Jan Mathys, John of Leyden, Knipperdolling, and Krechting, assumed the direction of affairs. To protect the town, which was at war with the episcopal army, from traitors, the notorious anti-Baptist elements were expelled from Munster. Two things were thereby accomplished: purification of the town from the internal foe and economy in the means of life. As, in spite of this, opponents of the Baptists still remained in the town and attempted to get into touch with the enemy, they were executed. Under the circumstances, there could not be much talk of proper com¬ munism. All the money, gold, and silver of the inhabitants were handed over to the 127

SOCIAL STRUGGLES municipal coffers, partly voluntarily, and partly through an ordinance ; the shop¬ keepers were induced by promises and by reference to the gospel to surrender their stores, and to have nothing to do with trade and huckstering. Manual labour and agriculture were honoured and promoted. The poor received sustenance from public resources. Common meal times, seasoned with readings out of the Bible, were instituted. The distinguished Austrian poet, Robert Hamerling, in his epic poem, “ Konig von Sion/' makes John of Leyden preach : “ I have felt and seen it with my own eyes, in addressing the people, how at times the Spirit suddenly descends on them and carries them away, and all are sometimes seized at the same time : then men cele¬ brate a pentecost: to have one feeling and one thought for ever. . . . “ And when only a single will moves them, the laws of priests and lawyers will not be wanted. Then we shall need no kind of coercion any more, no kind of private property, and also no marriage vows. Then all will be of one mind, one 128

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 feeling, one life. . . .Well then commune with yourselves, obey the inner monitor, and ask yourselves if in you is the urge and the power of life divine ? We must build up in ourselves what we would destroy outside ! Let us arouse the God within us before we overturn the altars ! Test thyselves ! for only the pure will receive from freedom salvation ... in Sion, as the word must be fulfilled, I renew all things. “ How should the Lutheran doctrine content us ? It only half rejuvenates the world; it is lukewarm. Timorous in nature, it leaves the people in poverty, and flatters the princes of the earth.” In the same sense Jan Mathys of Haarlem taught the people : “ For thousands of years,” he exclaims, " pale and hollow-eyed Want, more dreadful than death, has dwelt in the midst of the Nobles, an object of frightful terror : the multitude, only counted by God, of those condemned to the torments of Hunger. . . . ask you how is order to be brought into chaos, and how a hoary wrong is at length to be repaired ? i

129

SOCIAL STRUGGLES “ Brothers, I have pondered the matter ardently : Self-seeking (egoism) is death, and our salvation is selfless and inspired Love. . . . Come then, brothers and sisters, as far as love is kindled in your hearts, come joyously and let us live together, sharing in Sion the toils, and sharing the wages, and also the enjoyment. Now each bring what he calls his, and henceforth let each take what he needs from the common store.” In Munster life was supposed to be directed upon the lines of the Old and New Testament. The community was called the New Israel; the chief—the king; the council—the elders of the twelve tribes; Munster—the New Jerusalem. A king¬ dom of God was to arise on earth. The Baptists, basing themselves on the Old Testament, introduced polygamy : a man might marry several women. Adultery, extra-nuptial intercourse with maidens, drunkenness, and other vices were severely punished. The effect of the introduction of polygamy upon the opponents of the Anabaptists can be imagined. For them it was a proof of the loose morality of the 130

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-85 communists, and served to excite opinion against the latter. The hatred of the bishop and of all good Christians was directed against this community. For about fifteen months the Baptists bravely held out against greatly superior forces, repelling various onslaughts. The Netherland comrades col¬ lected numerous forces in order to relieve Munster, but the Dutch authorities forcibly repressed all attempts at succour. Exhausted in men and food supplies, betrayed within and hard pressed without by the episcopal servile army, Munster fell at the end of June 1535. Undaunted, John of Leyden gazed on the catastrophe. Hamerling puts this pregnant utterance into his mouth : “ After tremendous battles,” he cries, “ the spirits of the vanquished will con¬ tinue their struggles in the atmosphere— so the story runs—Sion’s struggle will be fought out again in the air—yes, refought in a greater spiritual battle, and who can tell to whom the final victory will fall ? “ All the clash of lances and the rattle of swords on earth are vain turmoil; in the 131

SOCIAL STRUGGLES clouds it is the struggles of minds which finally decide the fate of humanity.’’ At the fall of Munster, John of Leyden, Knipperdolling, and Krechting fell into the hands of the victors. After unspeakable tortures, which lasted for more than six months, they were delivered to the hang¬ man on the 22nd January 1536. " Blood-red is the ground in Munster’s streets and blood-red flows through Munster the river Aa, swelled with corpses. “ On the market-place the last warrior of Sion has been cut down. The Landsknechte pulls the trembling heretics by the hair out of the houses and stabs them, or laughing thrusts them out of windows upon the spears of his wild comrades. The bishop’s bloody slaughter raged for days. The transgressor shall not even be strangled without trial. “ No, first he must be tortured : then his flesh torn with glowing tongs, or burnt, where his limbs are not twisted on the wheel. ...” (Hamerling, Konig von Sion). And this was not sufficient punishment. By word and picture Christians have subse132

GERMANY’S SOCIAL UPHEAVAL, 1516-35 quently endeavoured to brand the memory of the Anabaptists with everlasting shame. The post-revolutionary white terror cleared away the last traces of social heresy and the Revolution.

9. Epilogue

The first German revolution was ended. The lords were victorious, and with their victory Germany entered upon a long, long period of economic, political, social, and cultural stagnation and retrogres¬ sion ; the flowers of urban civilization withered ; the early capitalism remained an episode; the peasants relapsed into servitude, and in many districts were beaten and robbed of their common lands ; the Reformation ossified, and often thrown back, it constituted one of the causes of the Thirty Years War, from which Ger¬ many—the Germany of Ottons and the Staufers, the Germany of the Hansa and of Fugger and Welser—emerged exhausted, disgraced, crippled, and dismembered. But order had triumphed; the class struggle was extinguished, all the re¬ bellions defeated, and the power of the 133

SOCIAL STRUGGLES German people broken. The whole of German poverty from the year 1550 to the present day is the consequence of the triumph of the territorial princes and landlords over the first German revolution. German development was thrown back for centuries. REFERENCES Dollinger, Weissagungsglaube und Prophetentum, in Raumer’s Hist. Taschenbuch, 1871 ; Heinrich Werner, Pamphlet Onus ecclesice, etc., Giessen, 1901 ; Kautsky, Vorlaufer, vol. ii., Stuttgart, 1909; Herbert Schonebaum, Kommunismus im Reformationszeitalter, Bonn and Leipzig, 1919.

134

V THE AGE OF UTOPIAS i. Nominalism, Renaissance, and Humanism

HE age of the writing of Utopias, JL of descriptions of Ideal Common¬ wealths in remote and fictitious countries, extended from the beginning of the six¬ teenth until towards the end of the eighteenth centuries. Intellectually it is the age of discoveries, of the rise of natural science, of enlightenment, of the ascendancy of reason (Rationalism), and of moral philosophy. Appeal to reason took the place of ecclesiastical authority, and theology and scholasticism were supplanted by philosophy and the natural sciences. Mechanics was first in the order of the natural sciences, and mathematics was its helpmate. To the investigators the universe appeared to be a wonderful mechanism, which moved according to fixed mathematical laws—a universal machine, 135

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

a perfectly constructed clock. It goes with¬ out saying that a mechanism presupposes an engineer, an artificer. This engineer was God, whose works human reason reverently admires and seeks to investigate. Religion lost its denominational character: it was no longer Christian or Jewish or heathen, but deistic (from the Latin dens = God); its chief idea and content was the all-wise universal architect and divine engineer caring for all men. The conception of the world became to an increasing degree mechanical and mathematical. It corresponded in a re¬ markable manner with the needs of the manufacturing period that was then arising. This movement was inaugurated at the outgoing of the Middle Ages by the victory of Nominalism over Realism. We shall soon see what this signified. The contest between the two tendencies in scholasticism proceeds on parallel lines with the struggle between the urban and the feudal mode of production, or the modern and the mediaeval order. In the last resort this dispute was concerned with the position of reason. The Realists, who ascribed to ideas a supernatural origin and contended that they existed prior to the things which they 136

THE AGE OF UTOPIAS

characterize, favoured the subordination of reason to religion; the task of reason should not be free investigation but the establishment of religious truths; God and the world, faith and thought, should be synonymous terms. Against this it was contended by the Nominalists—whose most eminent leader was the Ockham who is already known to us—that reason has nothing to do with divine things ; God, the soul, and immortality, or all meta¬ physical truths, are objects of faith ; they belong to the realm of the irrational—that is, they cannot be apprehended by reason, which can neither establish nor contradict them ; there can therefore be no purpose in saddling reason with problems which it cannot solve. Reason is an instrument for everyday secular use, for the sensuous world. Let it operate here freely, and serve the purposes of our earthly life, without being hampered by ecclesiastical authority. The Realists have only one kind of truth : what is true in religion must also be true in secular affairs. Nominalists acknow¬ ledge two kinds of truths : that of faith and that of scientific investigation. Super¬ ficially, the Realists stood on a higher 137

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

plane, as they knew only a single order of truths, but these single truths were sub¬ ordinated to religion. Scientific truths in flagrant conflict with religious doctrine were dealt with by the Inquisition, or had to be concealed until their authors died. This was the fate of Abailard, Copernicus, Galilio, Giordano Bruno. The Nominalists, who recognized two kinds of truths, re¬ mained faithful Christians, and continued to accept the divinely revealed truths with¬ out reasoning about them, but on the other hand they gave free scope to reason in all secular things. The discovery of Coperni¬ cus that the earth moved would not in the least have destroyed the faith of a Nominal¬ ist in the Holy Scriptures, as there were two orders of truths. The consequences of this scholastic tendency were very consider¬ able. Reason, emancipated from Church control, could co-operate freely in the rise of natural science and the new economic order. Gradually, however, reason spread over all the territory allotted it by Nominal¬ ism, and moreover became an independent sovereign, summoning even faith to its bar. Rationalism gained ground. The miracles which reason performed in the realm of 138

THE AGE OF UTOPIAS

nature invested it with a high repute, and mankind turned to it more and more for support. Eventually, creative power was as¬ cribed to it. Right reason, embodied in great educators, legislators, and philosopher kings, could create perfect communities of virtuous and happy peoples. It is not surprising that reason was worshipped during the French Revolution. However, let us not anticipate. The victory of Nominalism was accom¬ panied by the Renaissance or the rebirth of antique art and literature. This, how¬ ever, was much more than the revival of antique art. The Renaissance is the re¬ vival of the European, or Western type of man: the discarding of the mediaeval, Oriental, and mystical strain with its con¬ tempt for reason and the worldly beauties of life. Europe proceeded to take up the threads of development at the point where they were dropped by the antique world, and to regard the Middle Ages as a period of darkness. The European again became earthly, and resolutely bent upon worldly happiness. He fretted under the yoke of the mediaeval conscience, and sooner or later threw it off. This was especially the case with the leading politicians and 139

SOCIAL STRUGGLES artists of Italy, whereas in the northern countries, where the connection with the Roman Empire, the heir of antiquity, was anything but close, the Reformation checked or hindered the influence of the Renaissance. In Italy, where urban life and urban economy were older and more intensive, and the connection with antiquity was intimate, the moral crisis to which we referred when dealing with the Re¬ formation was hardly felt. The Popes were secular rulers rather than spiritual shepherds. Pope Alexander VI (14921503), with his children Lucretia and Caesar Borgia, were absolutely worldly. Caesar Borgia, who ruled in the Romagna, was the prototype of Macchiavelli’s Prince (1515)— in other words, a statesman free from any kind of ethical considerations. The puri¬ tanical and eloquent Dominican Savon¬ arola, who conducted a campaign against these conditions, was executed in 1498. Alexander VPs successors : Popes Julius II (1503-1513), Leo X (1513-1521), Clement VII (1523-1534), were patrons of the Re¬ naissance and Humanist learning; they employed the most famous artists of their country and their time: Leonardo da

140

THE AGE OF UTOPIAS

Vinci (d. 1519), Raphael (d. 1520), Correggio (d. 1534), Michelangelo (d. 1564). Art and science are greatly indebted to the Renais¬ sance, which subdued Rome and rendered her accessible to the free spirit of antiquity, thus hastening the end of the Middle Ages. The Humanists had closer affinities with the Nominalists than with the Re¬ naissance leaders. Acquaintance with the Greek language and literature, especially with the divine Plato and the stoical philo¬ sophy, gave them, it is true, a freer outlook upon religion and ethics, but consciously or unconsciously they remained adherents to the twofold order of truths. They loved Plato, but Jesus still more ; they revered philosophy and the fundamental Christian doctrines ; they respected the authority of the Pope and that of reason. The Humanists were transitional figures ; they looked back to the past as well as towards the future. Thomas More was one of the greatest of these remarkable personalities. He wrote a communistic Utopia, based upon reason and moral philosophy, and died on the scaffold as a Catholic faithful to the Pope. The second great Utopian, the Dominican monk, Thomas Campanella, also revered 141

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

reason and natural science at the same time as the papal authority and the sacraments. 2. Moral Philosophy, Materialism, and Natural Law

It may be regarded as a law of the in¬ tellectual development of the individual as well as of whole peoples, that, after losing dogmatic religion or even only being shaken in their belief in the religion in which they have been brought up, they resort to moral philosophy, to a rational¬ istic (based on reason) ethic as a substitute or support. Thus it was in Hellas : when Greek mythology lost its hold, the whole of philosophy became ethical and rational; this was the special achievement of Socrates (b. 469, d. 399 b.c.). The popularity of the stoical philosophy among the Romans, commencing from the last century before Christ, was due to the same circumstance. A similar thing happened when mediaeval theology was undermined : moral philo¬ sophy based on reason gained in repute, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became the chief object of philosophical speculation. Even Christianity was justi142

THE AGE OF UTOPIAS fied because its morality accorded with that of reason. Men believed that the truths of moral philosophy were so secure that they required no religious, that is, irrational supports, that moral capacity could be taught and acquired like arithmetic and writing, that men could be educated into morally behaving beings as into good arithmeticians, writers, doctors, engineers, etc. Once the omnipotence of reason is ac¬ cepted, once it is admitted that thought and logic control our volition, this conclusion is thoroughly tenable. In the eighteenth cen¬ tury it passed as an axiom, as an unshakable truth, that everything might come by educa¬ tion. And education proceeded not only in the school, but also in life, in society, and in the State, by means of institutions, laws, and customs such as communism can create. Thus as philosophy, under the influence of the triumphant progress of natural science, became sensualist and materialistic—that is, as it taught that our reason can have no innate ideas, but is an empty receptive plate, only receiving impressions through our senses and shaping them into thoughts, that our thoughts are only the intellectual reflection of the events of the external 143

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

world—the conclusion was inevitable that the external world, society, the state, the whole order of mankind, must be estab¬ lished upon right and reasonable lines if right thinking and right behaviour were desired. If you want good citizens—that is, those who place the common interest before their own interest—society must be based upon communism, upon common interest. If this be done, the intellectual reflection will be communistic : our thoughts and actions will be involuntarily commun¬ istic, as cause and effect. We must not omit the fact that natural law was reinforced by the experience gained in the new countries discovered in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There the explorers and missionaries found tribal organizations and primitive com¬ munities which existed without private property and without a political govern¬ ment. Thus the nearer men were to the life of nature, the less they knew of private property and political coercion. Since then Utopias have been placed in strange, unknown countries, and invested with all virtues. We have already met with a similar phenomenon (see Social 144

THE AGE OF UTOPIAS Struggles in Antiquity) as a consequence of the passage of Alexander of Macedonia through Asia. Most of the jurists and philosophers of the modern epoch were firmly convinced that originally—in a state of nature—communism in some form or another prevailed, and is therefore natural. We will only mention the most eminent international jurist of the modern period, Hugo Grotius (b. in Delft 1583, d. in Rostock 1645). In his work Of the Law of War and of Peace, he states : " Imme¬ diately after the creation of the world, God gave the human race the right to all things of a lower kind, and this happened once more when the world was restored after the Flood. Consequently, in the beginning each could take what he wanted, and could consume what he would. Such a condition could only last so long as men remained in great simplicity or lived in very strong mutual love. Examples of the first kind are to be found among some of the peoples of America, who have lived in this fashion for many centuries, without social evils. Examples of the other kind are the Essenes and, later, the first Christians in Jerusalem.’’ Therefore, if communism was in accord-

K

145

SOCIAL STRUGGLES ance with the state of nature, it was natural —in harmony with human nature—and reasonable. Thus it behoved men to place society upon a natural and reasonable basis. The evils of a society which rests on private property are inevitable : they are the effects of an economic order which is unnatural and based on error. A comparison of this communism with that of the Middle Ages shows that the spiritual aspect has fallen into the back¬ ground. In the Middle Ages the antag¬ onism and the struggle were fought out in the religious-moral arena : between good and evil. The communists in the modern epoch perceived the antagonism to an in¬ creasing degree in the intellectual sphere : the struggle raged between truth and error, between knowledge and ignorance; it goes without saying that the moral antag¬ onism was not neglected, but it is a con¬ sequence of the intellectual antagonism : from truth flows goodness, and from error flows evil. In the following appraisement of the various Utopian writings we shall have the opportunity of examining their par¬ ticular features more closely. 146

VI ENGLISH UTOPIANS

S

i. Sir Thomas More 1

IR THOMAS MORE (after the Humanist fashion transformed into Morus) was born in London in 1478. His father was a judge, who gave his son a learned education. Thomas attended the Latin school and then the University at Oxford, the centre of England's theological and Humanist learning. Yielding to his father's pressure, he studied jurisprudence in London and became a lawyer, but he also followed his inclination to philosophy, theology, and social investigation, studied Plato and Augustine, and soon gained the reputation of being one of the greatest Humanist scholars of his time. Like his great predecessors, Duns Scotus and Ockham, he had the idea of entering the 1 References.—Erasmus of

Rotterdam, Epistolcs, 1642 ; Thomas Stapleton, Tres Thomce, Cologne, 1612, p. 164 ; Thomas More, Utopia, published by Lupton, London, 1895 ; Karl Kautsky, Thomas Morus, Stuttgart.

147

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

Franciscan Order, and only the conviction, gained after severe self-examination, that he would not be able to keep the chastity vows, determined him to remain a layman. He married, became a father, carried on his legal practice, and soon succeeded in attaining to a respected position in London. He became a Member of Parliament, and then a confidential agent of the London merchants, among other things composing their disputes with the German Hansa in London. In 1515 King Henry VIII sent him to Antwerp, in order to settle com¬ mercial questions between England and Flanders ; More found time there to write a portion of his Utopia. In 1518 he entered the service of the State, becoming Lord Chancellor in 1529, when he had an oppor¬ tunity of getting acquainted with the evils of English society; he deeply deplored the destruction of the village communes, the transformation of arable land into pasture, the expulsion of the peasants from their soil, in order to permit the landlords and the abbots to rear sheep and enrich themselves from the wool trade with Flanders. It goes without saying that More was a 148

ENGLISH UTOPIANS convinced disciple of natural law. The discovery of America and its social or¬ ganizations seemed to constitute a proof of the rightness of natural law. He read with engrossing interest Amerigo Vespucci’s Mundus Novus (New World) — a small pamphlet of eight pages, in which the famous explorer described his second voyage, upon which he had embarked from Lisbon on the 4th May 1501. The voyage passed the Canary Islands on the way to Cape Verde, “ where men live in a natural fashion ; they might be called Epicureans rather than Stoics. They have no private property, everything being common. They exist without a king, without authorities, each being his own master.” More had no doubt whatever about the moral perfec¬ tion of men who lived in a state of nature ; a state of nature and a state of innocence were for him synonymous. In a letter to his friend, who was one of the most eminent English Humanists and teachers, John Colet, he eulogized the virtues of country life : " In the country—in contrast to the town—the aspect of the earth is joyous, and the sight of heaven is enchanting ; one perceives there only the blessed gifts 149

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

of nature and the holy traces of innocence.” In his Utopia More refers several times to the “ laws of nature ” and “ living accord¬ ing to nature.” Such a statesman was bound sooner or later to come into sharp conflict with the despotic King Henry VIII (1509-1547). This conflict had a bloody result when More—from his Catholic standpoint—was unable to approve the King’s divorce. He was accused of high treason and executed in 15352. Utopia 1

More’s Utopia, which appeared in 1516, is an application of the ethics and politics of the Church Fathers, and the philosophy of Humanism, to the great secular problem : the organization of human society in general, and of English society of the age of transition from feudal to bourgeois economy in particular. It is divided into two parts : the first is social-critical and examines 1 The word

Utopia is supposed to signify “ Nowhere ” ; it is of Greek origin, but properly speaking ought to read Atopia, for only so can it be translated by “ No¬ where.’ * It is, however, possible that More intended to call his communistic country Eutopia (blessed country), pronounced Utopia.

150

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

the wounds of a society based on private property and of the body politic of England in the fifteenth century ; the other part is constructive and exhibits the structure and the conditions of the model communist society. Utopia is chiefly written in the form of a narrative. The principal figure is Raphael Hythloday, a world traveller and Humanist philosopher, enlightened, thoroughly familiar with the best products of Greek thought, an uncompromising and revolutionary communist: he is the dis¬ coverer of Utopia and the portrayer of its perfections. The second figure is More himself ; he agrees in every respect with the social criticism which Raphael enunciates, but not altogether with the practical possibilities of communism or with the rejection of compromises. The third figure is Peter Giles, a cultivated but conservative merchant, a good Christian and citizen as things go, who understands commerce very well, and is contented with the laws and conditions of his own country ; he defends the existing order ; his part, however, is very subordinate, as the existing order is theoretically untenable and cannot be defended ; Giles serves only as a foil 151

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

to Hythloday. Consequently, Utopia ex¬ hibits two tendencies of social thought : that of revolutionary communism and that of social reform. Hythloday is con¬ vinced that “ where possessions are private, where money is the measure of all things, it is hard and almost impossible that the commonwealth should have just govern¬ ment and enjoy prosperity.” More, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion that, although he cannot agree with every¬ thing that Raphael has said : “ I must needs express and grant that there are many things in the Utopian commonwealth which in our country I rather wish than hope for.” 3. Social Criticism

There is no trace of equity or justice in any country which gives great rewards and fees to gentlemen, goldsmiths (bankers), usurers, and such like who do nothing or are merely the flatterers or devisers of vain pleasures of the rich, and on the other hand makes no provision for the poor plough¬ men, carters, ironsmiths, carpenters, and other workers, without whom no common¬ wealth could exist. The lot of the working 152

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

people is even harder than that of the beasts of burden ; poverty is the recompense of their toil when they are strong enough to be in employment, and destitution and misery when old age or illness renders them incapable of work. And the laws are against them. Keeping all this in mind it is impossible not to perceive that what we call a commonwealth to-day is but a conspiracy of the rich to procure their own well-being. Money and pride are the roots of all evil. All crime would die if money perished; indeed poverty itself, which only seems to arise from lack of money, would disappear if money dis¬ appeared. The rich undoubtedly perceive all this and would be prepared to change the constitution of society, but Pride, the queen of all mischief, hinders them ; she measures her own felicity by other people's misery. Another source of mis¬ chief, peculiar to England, is the en¬ closure and the conversion of arable land into pasture. The sheep, once so meek and tame, have become wild and devouring ; they consume and destroy the peasant and his land. Where the finest wool is grown, there gentlemen and abbots leave 153

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

no soil for tillage; they are no more satisfied with the revenue, leisure, and pleasure that husbandry used to afford, but desire untold wealth ; insatiable coveteousness causes them to depopulate the country and fill it with sheep ; and they do so by fraud and violence, legal or illegal. The decrease of tillage has for its effect a dearth of victuals ; and the rise in the price of wool makes it impossible for the poor clothmaker to continue his employ¬ ment. The wealth of the country is being engrossed by a small number of persons. The coveteousness of a few has greatly injured the well-being of this island. The great dearth of victuals causes men to restrict their household, to curtail hospitality, and dismiss servants. The nobles disband their retainers. The rising tide of poverty and unemployment leads to robbery, vagabondage, and all manner of crime. The unemployed must either beg or steal, and despite all severity of punishment crime does not diminish. The nation brings up thieves and vagabonds, and then punishes them. Is this justice ? Horrible punish¬ ments are meted out to thieves, while 154

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

provision ought to have been made to enable them to get their living, so that no man should be driven to the extreme necessity first to steal and then to be hanged for it.

4. Reform or Revolution

But is there any use in proposing reform to kings ? Or, in other words, may a com¬ munist enter a non-communist govern¬ ment ? Raphael answers, No, reform pro¬ posals to non-communist rulers and govern¬ ments have no effect. But More considers that the possibility of promoting the welfare of the realm by advising kings should not be excluded, “ for you must not leave a ship in a tempest because you cannot rule the storm ; nor must you tender advice derived from new ideals which no king, except a king-philosopher—who, however, needs no advice—would accept, but you must handle the matter subtly and diplo¬ matically, so that if you are not able to achieve the best, you may at least prevent the worst; for it is not possible for all things to be well, unless all men are good, which cannot be expected for a good many 155

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

years yet.” To which Raphael retorts : “ Princes and governments do mainly care for warlike matters—for conquests, terri¬ torial expansion, great armies, and full treasuries. And their counsellors aid them in those schemes, therefore they are toler¬ ated ; they flatter the royal self-conceit, praise the princely wisdom, and oppress and tax the people for the sake of the aggrandisement of the princes. What could a social philosopher achieve in the teeth of such royal councils ? He would simply be made a laughing-stock of, or worse, he would become either as bad as the government, or the people would think him so, and thus learn to despise communist philosophy. Would a king listen to the advice of a counsellor who told him that the people gave him the crown, not for his own sake, but for the welfare of all ? Or would he perceive the truth that his kingdom, small though it be, is already too big to be ruled by one man ? No, it is no good to be subtle in such matters.” All attempts at palliating evil by craftiness and reform measures lead to naught. The only remedy is a radical change of the whole social system. Plato 156

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

acted rightly in refusing to make laws for a country where private property reigns supreme. Such countries may multiply laws until no lawyer could count them, and yet they will never enjoy prosperity, peace, and happiness. For, as long as private property exists, the greatest and best part of the nation will be condemned to overwork, poverty, and misery. Pallia¬ tive laws may cure one part of the disease, but will at the same time aggravate the sore of another part, so that the help afforded to one will cause harm to another. To this revolutionary conception of com¬ munism More objects that to withdraw the incentive of personal gain, and thus the motive of personal efforts, as must happen under a system of common property, will lead to the neglect of work and to general impoverishment, and when the pressure of poverty is felt, and there is no law to defend the means of production and life, will there not of necessity be continual strife, enmity, and bloodshed ? To this question, which has been ad¬ dressed to communists ever since com¬ munist systems have been propounded, Raphael gives no direct answer, but refers 157

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

to the example of the Utopians, who are made virtuous, dutiful, and active by trained reason, a wise religion, and good laws. Raphael therefore points out that More's objection is taken from social conditions based on private property which never admits good laws, and is in conflict with wise religion and right reason, while the minds and characters of the Utopians have been trained by a communist system of life.

5. The Structure and Institutions of Utopia.

Utopus, a king in the sense of Plato and the Humanists, conquered a rugged and rainless peninsula called Abraxa, and changed it into a prosperous island which henceforth bears his name and merits to be called Eutopia, the abode of felicity. The inhabitants, originally poor, rude, and rent by religious dissensions, are brought to a state of perfection in humanity, manners, virtue, learning, and material prosperity that surpasses anything that would be found among the other nations of the earth. The means that Utopus 158

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

applied were communism and education, the latter in the broadest sense of the word ; it includes not only schooling proper, but the training and experiences which the surroundings, occupations, customs, and laws afford. The island of Utopia consists of fifty-four shires, with a spacious and magnificent city in each as the centre of administration, public education, scholar¬ ship, handicrafts, markets, store-houses, and foreign commerce ; the hospitals are on the outskirts of the cities. The inhabi¬ tants have all the same language, manners, and laws, and this similarity promotes peace and harmony. None of the shires contains less than twenty miles of land, and none has any desire to extend its boundaries, for the people regard them¬ selves as mere tillers of the soil rather than its proprietors. In the centre of the re¬ public is the capital city, Amaurote, the seat of the National Assembly. The Republic is a democratic federation of autonomous shires. The laws are few, yet sufficient; the inhabitants know them well, and do not suffer subtle and crafty interpretations. The Central Government is a Senate or Council consisting of 162 159

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

members, three members for each shire, who meet annually at Amaurote to discuss the common affairs of the nation. The Senate has sometimes to settle unsolved questions of the local bodies ; they also keep account of the demand and supply of the commodities, so that nothing shall lack in the commonweal. The real management of the country is, however, in the hands of the governments of the shires. Each shire consists of 6000 families or farms ; each family of not less than forty members and two bondmen is under the rule of a pater- and materfamilias. Every thirty families elect annually their Phylarch or Syphogrant or head bailliff; every ten Phylarchies or 300 families elect their Chief Phylarchs or Tranibors. The Phylarchs of the shires, 200 in number, elect by ballot the Prince or Chief Magistrate of the shire. The latter is elected for life, removable only on suspicion of striving after tyranny. The Chief Phylarchs and the Chief Magis¬ trate form the Council of the Shire ; they meet, as a rule, every third day and invite two of the Phylarchs to their meetings. Public affairs cannot, under penalty of 160

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

death, be discussed outside the Council or the election house of the Phylarch. Agriculture is the basis of the common¬ weal. There is no person, male or female, who has no expert knowledge of it. Agri¬ cultural instruction, theoretical and practi¬ cal, is compulsory. Every year a certain number of townspeople change places with farmers, so that city and village should keep in touch with each other. Besides husbandry every inhabitant learns one of the handicrafts necessary for the work of the commonweal—clothmaking, building, smithing, and carpentering; as a rule everybody is brought up in his father's trade. There is no other trade besides those mentioned—the life in Utopia being simple and knowing no luxury. The chief function of the Phylarch is to see that the citizens shall perform their duty of labour. Idlers are expelled from the republic. The hours of labour are six per diem. Where all labour there is no overwork for any one. Only illness, old age, and devotion to study and science give exemption from labour. Any crafts¬ man or farmer who, by devotion to learn¬ ing in his leisure hours, shows that he could L

161

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

be more useful to the community by study is promoted to the order of the scholars. All toilsome and unclean work of the commonweal is done by the bondmen, who are either prisoners duly convicted of heinous offences which in other countries are punished with death, or poor labourers from foreign lands. The first are treated with severity, while the latter are gently treated, and are allowed to leave whenever they like, and are not sent away emptyhanded. Monogamy is strictly enforced, and adultery is punished with most grievous bondage. Also ante-nuptial chastity is strongly insisted upon. Matrimony is in their eyes so solemn and holy an institu¬ tion that the man and woman who are about to enter it should know all about each other. They have therefore a custom that a virtuous matron shows the woman naked to the wooer, and a wise man exhibits the wooer naked to the woman. The Utopians are given the opportunity of having their meals in common. For this purpose there are in the residences of the Phylarchs large halls where wholesome food is prepared. Every meal begins with reading something 162

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

that refers to good manners and virtue. During the meals the elders hold con¬ versation on serious, but not unpleasant, subjects, and the younger members are encouraged to express their opinions. The dinners are short, the suppers somewhat longer, and these are followed by music, and other harmless entertainments. At eight o'clock they all go to bed to rise at four. The morning and, generally, the leisure hours are devoted to public lec¬ tures, study, and play. The Utopians regard war as gross and cruel injustice. Yet they undergo the discipline of war in order to be able to defend themselves or to help their friends to repel invasion or to deliver any people from tyranny. They likewise declare war upon any nation who, possessing vacant land in abundance, prohibit the immigra¬ tion of the surplus population of Utopia who desire to cultivate it and to form a colony there ; such a prohibition they re¬ gard as a violation of the law of nature. The constitution of the commonweal aims chiefly at saving time from the necessary labours, and giving it to the free cultivation of the mind. Herein they sup163

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

pose the happiness of this life to consist. Education of the children is general and compulsory. . They study music, logic, arithmetic and geometry, astronomy and physical geography. Children who show special aptitude for learning are exempted from bodily labour, and are allowed to devote themselves to study ; they form the Order of the Learned. Good and evil, virtue and happiness, soul and body, immortality and God's kindness to man are much discussed by the Utopians. Their principles are : the soul is immortal and created for happiness by God's kindness ; virtue is rewarded and vice punished after this life. These purely religious truths, which are beyond reason¬ ing, they think meet to prove by argu¬ ments from reason. The chief discussion, however, turns upon happiness. They think that it consists of pleasure as differen¬ tiated from lust, for it is only good and honest pleasure which they believe to pro¬ duce happiness. They are opposed to the Stoics, who attribute happiness to a virtue that implies self-torture and abnegation. Life according to nature and reason they interpret as meaning a life that produces 164

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

joy by good actions to others and to one¬ self. They distinguish between true and false pleasures. True pleasures are those which give intelligence to the mind, satis¬ faction to moral conscience, or which arise from the contemplation of truth and art, listening to good music, recollection of good deeds in the past, and hope of future happiness. False pleasures arise from vain¬ glory, titles, fineries, so-called precious metals and stones, gambling, hunting, and all cruel pastimes that cause pain to beast or man. The Utopians enjoy complete freedom of religious worship. By this means Utopus healed the wounds caused to the nation by religious dissensions. It enabled them to discuss their religious differences, carefully to weigh each other's arguments, and to arrive at a certain unity as to the essence of religion. The great majority worship under various forms one sovereign spiritual power, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, the initial and final cause of all things. Atheists, however, are not regarded as good citizens. Summing up Hythloday said : Utopia is the only commonwealth which deserves 165

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

that name. It is in reality a common¬ weal and public wealth. In all other places they speak of commonwealth while everybody is trying to secure his own private wealth at the expense of his neigh¬ bour. In Utopia, where nothing is private, everybody cares for the common affairs. In other countries where nobody is secure against poverty and hunger, though the national wealth may be very considerable, everybody is compelled to make provision for himself and disregard the common interests of all. Conversely, where all things are common, nobody has reason to fear lest he should starve, so long as the public storehouses are well supplied with commodities. Therefore it is the interest of everybody to care for the community. In such a republic everybody is rich, though nobody possesses anything. This form of a republic will endure for ever, for, by destroying pride and money, the Utopians have uprooted the main causes of ambition, sedition, and all those vices which in other countries lead to internecine struggles, civil wars, and finally to the destruction or decay of nation and Empire.

166

ENGLISH UTOPIANS 6. Francis Bacon's New Atlantis

More's violent death (1535) may be re¬ garded symbolically as the end of mediaeval social thought in England and the be¬ ginning of the Reformation period. The contest between the old and the new Church lasted until the end of the sixteenth century, that is, until far into the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). During this period England laid the foundations of her colonial empire ; in 1584 Walter Raleigh founded the colony of Virginia ; in 1558 an English fleet, chiefly composed of merchant vessels, destroyed the Spanish Armada ; in 1600 the East India Company was formed. The spirit of the new time : natural science and moral philosophy, experimental and inductive logic (thought arising from ex¬ perience) found many adherents. The herald of the modern epoch, Francis Bacon (Viscount Verulam, b. 1560, d. 1626), basing himself on the doctrines of the Italian investigators, Telesius and Galilio, established the experimental (based on experience)’ method in his Novum Organum, and in his New Atlantis created a Utopia of natural science. There is no doubt that 167

SOCIAL STRUGGLES the latter writing came into existence under the influence of More's Utopia, but the two have scarcely anything in common. Bacon believed that the happiness of man¬ kind could be secured by the application of natural science to production, and not by an alteration in the property relations. The New Atlantis is an island in the South Sea. It is governed by a wise law¬ giver, who has established, by means of applied natural science, a flourishing and happy community. The centre of the New Atlantis society is “ Solomon's House," or “ The Six Days' University " ; to-day we should call this a Polytechnic. This place of learning, situated in the capital of Bensalem, has for object the investiga¬ tion of the causes and secret movements of things, and the enlarging as far as possible of the bounds of human know¬ ledge and capacity. It contains prepara¬ tions and instruments for physical and technological experiments ; deep caves for the investigation of the recesses of the earth ; high towers for the study of air and its phenomena ; laboratories for the production of organic and inorganic matter, as well as for the study of medicine; 168

ENGLISH UTOPIANS agronomical stations ; shops for mechani¬ cal arts and manufacturing processes; furnaces for the production of high tem¬ peratures ; halls for experiments in light and sound. Likewise there are enginehouses, where the most various engines and instruments are manufactured. The investigators who are engaged there can imitate the flight of birds; they have ships and boats for going under the water. This college also has its theorists who test, co-ordinate, and elevate into axioms the discovered facts. The inhabitants of this happy, scientific community revere the inventor and the discoverer. To the author of every great invention or discovery a memorial is erected, and a considerable reward granted. The religious service there consists in praising God for His mar¬ vellous works, and of imploring His aid and His blessing so that their scientific labours may flourish, and mankind be enabled to use the new achievements for good ends. From the laboratories, the inventions and discoveries, come the forces which raise production, augment wealth, and enable all the inhabitants to live a dignified existence. 169

SOCIAL STRUGGLES 7. • Winstanley’s

Laws of Freedom

As we have seen, the Elizabethan Age signified a material and intellectual strengthening of the mercantile and in¬ dustrial sections, as well as of the nobility associated with them. Queen Elizabeth was wise enough to procure the support of these sections by com¬ promises, and to avoid conflicts. The case was otherwise with her successor, James I (1603-1625), and the unfortunate Charles I (1625-1649). The latter king especially failed to understand the signs of the times, attempted to restore absolutism, regarded economic activities only as a source of taxation, and came into sharp antagonism with the new tendencies which flowed from the development of urban civilization, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and science. In 1642 the civil war broke out, whose leader, Oliver Cromwell, became a man of tremendous revolutionary energy, but of a middle-class cast of mind. In 1649 he caused King Charles I to be executed. The revolutionary events favoured the revival of ideas associated with communism and natural law. Their adherents called 170

ENGLISH UTOPIANS themselves the “ true levellers,” or the “ Diggers/' as they were not content with political freedom, or with the republic, but demanded the socialization of the land, and sought to provide every man with the liberty and equality necessary to cultivate a piece of land. The Diggers themselves set the example, and proceeded with axes and spades to cultivate fallow land. Their most important writer was Gerrard Winstanley (b. 1609). It is clear from his writings that he was acquainted with the whole historical and social outlook of patristic-canonical natural law. Upon this theoretical foundation he formulated his criticism of the social condi¬ tions of his time : When God or reason created the world, communistic natural law prevailed; then man fell from his estate through egoism, through “ Mine ” and “ Thine ” (private property), through buying and selling, which ushered in the sad history of mankind. Only by trans¬ ferring the land to common ownership could self-seeking be restrained and extirpated. In his work, Law of Freedom, published in 1652, he sketched a new social order which, based on communism and democracy, 171

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

should assure freedom and bread to every¬ body. The ideal commonwealth was to be governed in the following manner: At the head of it would be a Parliament chosen by the whole people ; its task to consist in enacting laws in the spirit of natural law and reason and supervising their execution. Common ownership of the soil would be secured by law ; general obligation to labour would be proclaimed, and trade strictly forbidden. All the old tyrannical and ecclesiastical laws and cus¬ toms would be abolished. The fruits of the earth are to be reaped and carried into barns and storehouses. The commodities manufactured in the industrial workshops, and all articles of use, domestic animals, and other property shall likewise be adminis¬ tered on communist lines. Every family shall produce according to their capacities, and take what they need from the stores. The execution of these laws is placed in the hands of officials to be elected by the people. Men shall be chosen who are of a calm and peaceable disposition ; further, those who have suffered much from former tyrannical governments and therefore abhor all oppression ; likewise, those who under 172

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

the former tyrannical government have distinguished themselves by courage, can¬ dour, and readiness for sacrifice, and for this cause have been condemned to imprison¬ ment and fines ; finally their ages shall be over forty years, for such men must also possess the necessary experience and know¬ ledge of human nature. Each parish shall choose a number of peacemakers to settle disputes. It shall also choose overseers who will supervise the general obligation to labour and the delivery of the goods produced. The overseers shall be over sixty years old. Moreover, each parish shall also choose a taskmaster, who will set to work those comrades who have been condemned for laziness. Education must be general and compulsory. The children shall be educated to become producers rather than bookworms. Knowledge and experi¬ ment shall take the place of believing and imagining. Monogamic and moral family life and sexual purity must be strictly observed. 8. Chamberlen and Bellers as Social Reformers

The revolutionary and post-revolutionary period also produced a number of social 173

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

reformers, among whom Peter Chamberlen and John Bellers are distinguished by friendliness to labour. In his Poor Man's Advocate, which appeared in 1649, Chamberlen advocated the doctrine that labour is the source of all wealth. The poorer classes or the workers everywhere constitute the strength of the country, for the latter perform all the necessary work of society, and as soldiers fight the battles of the various states. Consequently they have the same rights as the rich; moreover, they provide the rich with all that the latter enjoy. The rich must therefore be regarded as the stewards, and not as the owners of their possessions. The object of the creation of wealth is not the enjoyment of the rich, but the removal of all poverty. Chamber¬ len demanded the nationalization of the royal and ecclesiastical domains for the benefit of the poorer sections of the population. John Bellers (b. 1655, d. 1725), a Quaker, in his pamphlet, A College of Industry, published in 1696, reminded the rich that their existence was dependent upon the labours of the poor. “ The labour of the 174

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

propertyless is the money of the rich.” He proposed to them that they should establish co-operative colonies for every three hundred propertyless persons ; these persons to be so selected that they could perform the whole range of agricultural labours. Each colony would require an outlay of £18,000, which should be raised by means of shares. “ The poor thus in college will be a community like the example of primitive Christianity.” The measure of value would not be money, but a definite quantity of labour. Robert Owen and Karl Marx held a very high opinion of Bellers’s knowledge.

9. Middle - Class Social

Social

Contract.

Theories :

Hobbes,

Locke,

Smith, and Paley

Natural law which, as we have shown in Social Struggles in the Middle Ages, domin¬ ated the social thought of the Middle Ages, also formed the centre of the social theories of the modern epoch. The best minds pondered over the question : How did the transition from primitive communism to private property take place ? That this

175

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

transition should have been effected simply by usurpation, by force and cunning, would be a moral condemnation of bourgeois society. Hence it became necessary to legitimize private property just as Wycliffe and Ockham had justified monarchy. And the lines upon which such justification proceeded were of a similar nature. Under the influence of the growing urban economy, where social relations arose through negotiations and contracts, the idea gained ground that in the degree that primitive conditions became more complicated and difficult (owing to increase of population, demand for commodities, and exchange with neighbouring peoples), men, who were still free and equal, agreed either openly or tacitly to share the earth, in order to assure freedom and existence to each contracting party, and also to set up a government which should maintain the order that was once agreed upon. Private property and the State arose, therefore, not through force but by agree¬ ment (social compact). The consequence was a new law, which is as valid as the old natural law. The English conservative political philo176

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

sopher, Thomas Hobbes, who wrote during the English Revolution (1651), held that originally everything was held in common, but this condition was a war of all against all, and therefore men agreed to introduce private property, found a State, and make its head sovereign. Since then the people have had no voice in the matter, having renounced their right to self-determination. Locke, who was a supporter of the middle-class revolution, and recorded the victory of the upper middle class in 1689, while rejecting Hobbes's ideas concerning a sovereign king, held that private property arose even before the social compact, and therefore existed in a state of nature; thus it was doubly justified. He supported this contention by the following argument [On Civil Government, Part XI. London, 1691). What nature yields in treasures and fruits belongs indeed to all men in common, but it is only personal labour that gives value to natural products. As, however, a man only belongs to himself, and as it is his labour that gives value to natural things, the values thus created belong to the labouring man as his private property. “ When man removed a thing m 177

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

from the state of nature and made it useful, he mixed with it his labour, and joined to it something that was unques¬ tionably his own, and thereby made it his property. This work draws the boundary line between the worked-up things and the community. This work adds to them something which they did not possess from nature—the common mother. Labour is therefore the title to property/’ And as this creative activity was going on in the state of nature, private property prevailed at that time, and is consequently justified by natural law. Only, however, so far as it relates to what was produced by a man’s own efforts. Locke did not infer com¬ munist doctrines from this principle, but used it in support of middle-class property against feudal property. He contended that middle-class property was the product of labour, while aristocratic land ownership only derived from force. At a later date, however, Locke’s principle of labour as the creator of property was used as a socialist argument against the middle class. The economist, Adam Smith, declared (Wealth of Nations, 1776, Book I, Chap, vi), that the early and rude state of common 178

ENGLISH UTOPIANS

property could only have assured the labourer the products of his labour, but it was private property which first increased the productivity of labour. Archdeacon W. Paley, whose work, Moral and Political Philosophy (London, 1785) became a text-book of the English univer¬ sities, held private property to be morally and logically reprehensible, while it was necessary for the good management of labour. He is the author of the famous fable of the pigeons, which is as follows [Moral and Political Philosophy, Book III, Chap, i): “ If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field ; and if (instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted, and no more) you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into one heap, reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and the refuse, keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps worst, pigeon of the flock ; sitting round and looking on all the winter, whilst this one was devouring and throwing about and wasting it; and if one pigeon more hardy or hungry than the rest touched a grain of the hoard, all the others 179

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

instantly flying upon it and tearing it to pieces ; if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men. “ Among men you see ninety-nine toiling and scraping together a heap of super¬ fluities for one (and this one too oftentimes the feeblest and worst of the whole set), a child, a woman, a madman, or a fool, getting nothing for themselves all the while, but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry pro¬ duces, looking quietly on while they see the fruits of all their labour spent or spoiled, and if one of the number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him and hanging him for the theft.” This unjust and illogical proceeding was* nevertheless necessary, because private pro¬ perty has proved the best means of increas¬ ing the productivity of labour and raising general prosperity. In this manner private property was founded and natural law set aside in England.

180

VII THE ITALIAN UTOPIA i. Thomas Campanella

HE fate of Italy since the downfall of 1 the Roman Empire until the last third of the nineteenth century was from the national standpoint even more melan¬ choly than that of Germany. Alien rulers, native tyrants, papal ambitions, municipal separatism and rivalries kept the country in a state of distraction. Its immortal achievements in religion, literature, art, and science did not avail to protect it from Teutonic rage, French thirst for domination, Spanish craft, and later Austrian narrow¬ mindedness. The people frequently broke out in local rebellions and hatched con¬ spiracies, which, however, produced no result. In one of these unfortunate conspiracies the great Italian Utopian was involved, in order to liberate his south Italian home from the Spanish yoke. 181

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

Campanella, one of the most learned and eloquent men of his time, was born of poor parents in Calabria, the " foot ” of Italy, in 1568. While very young he showed a great faculty for philosophic study, read the writings of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, arguing, however, against Aris¬ totle, and after the fashion of Humanist scholars turned to Plato, in other words to social political studies upon communist lines. Later he defended Plato’s Republic against the “ malicious ” and pedantic objections of Aristotle. In his thirst for knowledge, he became acquainted with the Jewish Gnosis, the so-called Kabala, which at that time enjoyed considerable repute, and likewise with the writings of the school of natural science. He entered the Dominican Order, which, however, did not prevent him from engaging in political activity. Campanella manifested the two¬ fold character of the Humanist: dogmatic faith and rationalist thinking, veneration of papal authority and of free research, astronomical and medical knowledge coupled with astrological and magical superstition, cloistral seclusiveness and political activity. The most important political event of 182

THE ITALIAN UTOPIA

his small native district was the attempt to overthrow the Spanish domination over south Italy, and to establish an independent community. Campanella was the soul of the anti-Spanish conspiracy, which was to deal a decisive blow in 1599. The plan was, however, prematurely betrayed, and in 1600 Campanella was imprisoned. He spent about twenty-seven years in prison, and suffered the severest tortures. Owing to papal intervention, his imprisonment was later alleviated, so that he was able to apply himself to study in his cell. Out of prison arose his Utopia, “Civitas Solis ” (The City of the Sun), which, together with his other writings, he handed to a German, who published them in Frankfort-on-Main, 1620-1623. After his release he journeyed to France, where he was received with great honour by King Louis XIII and his minis¬ ters. His last years were passed peacefully in the Paris Dominican Monastery, where he died in 1639. 2. The Sun State

Plato composed his Republic and Laws as a patriot, aristocrat, and philosopher ; he laid the chief emphasis upon the highest 183

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

development of political government, upon the philosopher kings, and the conscientious officials. More wrote his Utopia as a statesman, an active politician, and a democratic and Catholic social critic. Campanula's Sun State, written avowedly upon the model of Utopia, is the work of an abstract thinker, of a monk and rationalist—consequently he also calls his Sun State “ the idea of a philosophical community." There is mon¬ astic, authoritarian severity in the political government, a dictatorship of philosophers, and institutions of social life framed accord¬ ing to human reason. More perceived the chief evil to consist in economic condi¬ tions based on private property. While Campanella sharply emphasizes the evils of private property and of individualism, he is nevertheless of opinion that the chief evil is to be found in the bad human material and defective education. He therefore puts the chief stress on the con¬ scious rearing of efficient, and therefore conscientious men, and upon good, all¬ round physical and intellectual education. Besides Plato and More, Campanella had Lycurgus in mind. 184

THE ITALIAN UTOPIA

The Sun State is composed in the form of a dialogue between the Grand Master of the Order of Hospitality and a muchtravelled Genevese ; the latter has in the course of his travels visited the Sun State, become acquainted with its institutions, and now describes his experiences : Upon an island in the Pacific Ocean there exist four town states, whereof three are organized according to European modes of living, whilst the fourth is the Sun State. The latter has to protect itself against the three, and is therefore en¬ circled by seven strong walls. The Sun townspeople (Solarians) have a philo¬ sophical and communal mode of life. Everything is common property; even the women are not the particular property of this or that man ; marriage is a political and not a private affair. Campanella con¬ tends that private property arose out of individual marriage life. Men who found favour with particular women would not let them go, and favoured the children which such women bare, by creating for them greater places of honour and greater wealth. It was this individual parental love which induced men to appropriate 185

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

property and to introduce the law of in¬ heritance for the children they favoured, thus disrupting the original communism. At the head of the Solarian community is a philosopher priest, a metaphysician whom they name Sol. He is the highest official in all secular and spiritual matters. By his side are three ministers : Power, Wisdom, and Love, whom they call in their language, Pon, Sin, and Mor. " Power ” is the War Ministry. The Wisdom Ministry is concerned with all matters pertaining to the arts and sciences, education and instruction. It is the business of the Ministry of Love to rear a healthy, efficient, physically and intellectually pre-eminent race of men. The education of human beings by means of schools and example cannot achieve much, if their dispositions be not consciously moulded upon eugenic prin¬ ciples. Consequently eugenics, or selection for breeding purposes, is of such great importance. Not until they operate upon efficient human material can education and instruction achieve the desired suc¬ cesses. In this respect men have hitherto been blinded by prejudice. They knew 186

THE ITALIAN UTOPIA

perfectly well that beautiful and useful species of animals and varieties of plants could be produced by selection, but in their own case they have left the pairing of the sexes to chance or to personal in¬ clinations and interests. The purpose of sexual life is not lust and enjoyment, but the propagation of children for the good of the community. To assist this object the Ministry of Love issues the following instructions. Only physically and mentally well-developed men are permitted to pro¬ create children ; the less developed men might have intercourse with barren or pregnant women. The sexual age of woman commences at nineteen years, that of man at twenty-one years ; sexual ab¬ stinence until the age of twenty-seven years is rewarded with special honours and cele¬ brated in songs. Whoever experiences an irresistible sexual impulse before reaching the age for intercourse shall inform matrons, officials, or doctors of this fact in confid¬ ence, whereupon the latter will direct him to have sexual intercourse with a barren or pregnant woman. With those admitted to the married state, sexual intercourse may take place only twice a 187

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

week, after both spouses have bathed and prayed to God to give them beautiful and healthy children. In the bedrooms artistic statues of famous men are erected for the women to look at. The hour of coitus is fixed by the doctor and the astrologer ; until then the spouses sleep in separate chambers ; not until the specified hour does a matron open the doors, whereupon the man enters the bedroom of the woman allotted to him. The authorities, who are all priests, pair the men and women who are to enter the married state ; tall and beautiful women with tall and well-built men; stout men with slender women and contrariwise ; tenacious brainworkers, whose sexual impulse is generally weak, are paired with beautiful and passionate women; sanguine and quick-tempered men receive phlegmatic, cautious women ; imaginative men—matter-of-fact women. In a word, every care is taken to produce a breed of men with harmonious natures from the intermixture of temperament and character, the crossing of physical and intellectual tendencies, dispositions, and qualities. During pregnancy the women are placed 188

THE ITALIAN UTOPIA

under medical supervision; the doctor prescribes their diet and other mode of living. After childbirth, mothers suckle their children for two years or longer, if the doctor so orders. When the infants are weaned, the boys are handed over to male, and the girls to female nurses. Education then begins. Gymnastics (nude bodily exercises) for boys and girls ; both sexes receive the same education on the whole. Instruction is not given in closed rooms, but during walks, especially by the seven town walls, whose surface is covered with geographical, astronomical, zoological, botanical, mineralogical illustrations. The teachers must watch the special inclina¬ tions and talents of the children and report to the authorities which are con¬ cerned with particular choices of vocation. The chief object of education is to make the children productive workers ; agricultural and industrial instruction is general. All adult Solarians gladly perform their allotted tasks, as a healthy mind dwells in a healthy body trained to purposeful activity. As every one labours, the work¬ ing time only amounts to four hours daily. All kinds of work and service are equally 189

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

esteemed. Clothing is simple and natural, as is also feeding*. Upon the foundations of the Sun State : common ownership, eugenics, and rational education, there arose a society inspired by a common feeling of solidarity and de¬ lighting in labour, which loves sciences, reveres God, and practises virtue. The Solarians seek eternal life in God and a happy earthly life through the community. Amongst them exists neither riches nor poverty, neither idlers nor slaves, but all things are in moderation and harmony.

3. Objections against Communism

Campanella also devoted some attention to the objections which are usually brought against communism, and have been voiced by all opponents of common ownership since Aristotle. Objection

i. —

Communism is against

human nature. Answer.—Communistic communities are not only conceivable, but also practicable. The primitive community of Jerusalem among the Apostles was communistic; 190

THE ITALIAN UTOPIA

as was also the primitive community in Alexandria under St. Mark. The clergy also lived in this manner until the time of Pope Urban I. Plato's State was praised by S. Clement, S. Ambrose, and S. Chry¬ sostom. Objection 2.—Communism destroys the incentive to labour. Answer.—Only where men are brought up in egoism, as a result of private property, is selfish interest an incentive to labour; for property poisons the springs of Chris¬ tian charity and of common feeling; it brings with it ambition, usury, hatred of one's neighbour, envy of the great, as well as other vices. It is understandable that vicious men only find an incentive to labour in their egoism. But a commun¬ istic community like the Sun State, in which men are purposely reared and edu¬ cated to enjoy labour, to diligence and virtue, and where every labourer receives his proper wages, and where all labours and services are equally respected and honoured, love of the community is the best incentive. Objection 3.—Community of women is unnatural and immoral. Answer.—Only that is unnatural which 191

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

injures and destroys either the individual or the species : violent assault, robbery, adultery, sodomy, etc., are against nature because they hurt one's fellows, or prevent the growth of the race. Community of women, on the other hand, hurts nobody, destroys nobody, and does not hinder the development of the race. Therefore, it is not against natural law. It is also not immoral, for it is not the elemental conse¬ quence of sexual appetites and licentious¬ ness. It is not dictated by carnal lust, but by a deliberately conceived political object; it is carried out according to the rules of eugenic science and philosophy. In the Sun State, therefore, there is no indiscriminate community of women ; no¬ body there may have intercourse with any woman he likes at what time he likes ; sexual intercourse there is rather subordin¬ ated to a political end ; only it is not regulated according to ecclesiastical, but according to philosophical rules. An act which is not unnatural is only evil when its practice is dictated by lust, carnal appetite, and evil intent; on the other hand, it is moral when practised in a reasonable manner and for the welfare of the whole. 192

VIII FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

i. Economics and Politics FTER the conclusion of the Hundred ii Years Succession War between England and France (1329-1421) the French kings continued their policy of centraliza¬ tion. They protected to a certain extent the peasants and the town industries, and restricted the rights of the nobles, the Church, and the guilds as special corpora¬ tions. Consolidation within led to policies of expansion without. Louis XII (14981515) laid claim to Milan, and in alliance with Ferdinand the Catholic conquered the kingdom of Naples, which, however, France was obliged to renounce. Francis I (1515-1547), a contemporary and rival of Charles V, waged war against the Swiss and the German Empire, and received a concession from the Pope, which left the choice of bishops and abbots to the French Crown. During his reign flourished the

N

193

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

French Church reformer John Calvin (b. 1509, d. 1564), who was supported by many members of the middle class as well as by savants and nobles, but who was persecuted by the Catholic Party. Calvin removed his field of activity to Geneva. Under the French kings, Henry II (1547-1559), Francis II (1559-1560), and Charles IX (1560-1574), bloody persecu¬ tions against the French Calvinists (Hugue¬ nots) broke out, which reached their fright¬ ful culmination in the massacre of S. Bartholomew in 1572. Over 20,000 Cal¬ vinists were murdered. Henry III (15741589) who favoured the reformed faith was murdered by the monk, Jacques Clement. With him the House of Valois became extinct, whereupon kings of the House of Bourbon (1589-1789) ascended the French throne. The first of these kings was Henry IV (1589-1610) who was a Calvinist, but abandoned the reformed faith and returned to the Catholic Church : “ Paris is well worth a mass.” His tolerance (Edict of Nantes, 1589) and sympathetic policy towards the peasants (every peasant ought to have a fowl in his pot on Sunday) contributed greatly to the economic

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM prosperity of the country. With his likeminded minister, Sully, he encouraged manufacture (silk, carpets, nails), in¬ vigorated industry and maritime commerce, and founded colonies in Canada. Both formed an elaborate plan to check the Hapsburg - Spanish European policy. Henry IV was murdered by a religious fanatic named Ravaillac. His successors, Louis XIII (1610-1643) and Louis XIV (1643-1715), with their statesmen, Richelieu and Mazarin, introduced a regime of coercion, smashed the last remnants of feudal power, ushered in the long series of wars against Spain and Germany; op¬ pressed the Huguenots in France, while encouraging Protestantism in Germany, in order to keep the Empire in a state of turmoil. French policy accentuated and prolonged the Catholic and Protestant war in Germany which broke out in 1618, and would have ended in 1635, had not France turned it into the Thirty Years War, that is, protracted it to the point of the utter exhaustion of the German nation. Louis XIV then became involved in war with Holland and England, Spain and Austria, until he suffered shipwreck in the

195

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). At the Peace of Utrecht (1713) he lost most of his overseas possessions to England. However brilliant the position of France under Louis XIV, especially at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, might have seemed, and great as were the efforts which his ministers—chief of all the famous Colbert—made to promote trade and industry, the economic life was ruined by the policy of conquest and the wars. The nobles flocked to Paris and Versailles, leaving their properties to the great farmers, whose sole concern was to extort higher ground rents ; the heavy burden of taxa¬ tion, ruthlessly imposed by the tax farmers and their numerous officials, oppressed the peasants ; the revocation of the Edict of Nantes caused the diligent Huguenots to turn their backs on their homes and to emigrate ; the extravagance of the Court ate up all that the wars had left the people ; only the great bourgeoisie, the speculators, the tax farmers, and the usurers enriched themselves ; their sons were enabled to purchase for large sums of money the juridi¬ cal and official positions. At the death of Louis XIV the French peasantry was 196

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

impoverished ; the nobles were courtiers, eager to make money easily; the upper section of the bourgeoisie was rich and partially ennobled. The long wars had shaken belief in the blessings of honest toil and business conduct; everybody wanted to get rich quickly. It was a time of financial swindlers. A certain John Law could turn France's head with his share certificates and banknotes, and plunge the country into a severe financial crisis (1720). The latter part of the reign of Louis XV (1715-1774) coincided with the beginning of the industrial revolution, when the revolutionary call to freedom became dis¬ tinctly audible. French thought turned away from all State interference in produc¬ tion and distribution, and all restrictive tradition, and demanded that free scope should be allowed to nature and natural law. Away with ecclesiastical authority (Voltaire) ; away with the vestiges of all feudal and absolutist privileges; away too with the obsolete village communities; away with the old guilds and industrial restric¬ tions ! The free citizen shall produce under the protection of human law and the laws of nature. And in the midst of the intoxi197

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

cation with middle-class theories of freedom, social and communist critics arose and re¬ vealed the evils of private property. An epoch of great and bold thinkers approached. From about 1750 to 1793 the French spirit illumined the civilized world. It announced the Revolution. The ideas of Rousseau, of the Physiocrats, and of the Encyclopaedists flashed on the horizon. I divide these social-critical intellectual activities into the following three groups : more or less communistic social critics ; middle-class social critics, who indeed per¬ ceived the evils of private property, but either accepted them as inevitable, or sought to alleviate them by reforms ; finally into Utopian writers, who fled from reality into the realm of Utopia. This classification can¬ not be strictly maintained, as the first and third groups have many characteristics in common, but it will suffice as an indication. 2. Social Critics :

Meslier, Morelly,

Mably

While Corneille, Racine, and Moliere were writing their plays for the Court and the nobility, Lafontaine spinning his fables, 198

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM Bossuet preaching, making the epoch of Louis XIV the Golden Age of French literature, a poor pastor had been labouring since 1692 in the village of Etrepigny (Ardennes), fulfilling his duties as a shep¬ herd of souls, although in his heart he despised the whole of Christianity as utter nonsense, and condemned society and the State in the most bitter fashion from the standpoint of communism and natural law. Either out of love for his poor peasant parish, or owing to lack of courage, or the conviction that the time was not yet ripe for revolutionary truths, and therefore nothing would be gained by martyrdom, he kept his revolutionary opinions to him¬ self, and bequeathed them in manuscript as his testament. This peculiar clergyman was Jean Meslier (born in the Champagne 1664, died in Etrepigny 1729 or 1733), whose literary remains, Le Testament de Jean Meslier, were not completely published until 1864, when they were issued in Amsterdam in three volumes, after having been known for more than a hundred years in the form of truncated extracts edited by Voltaire. The complete Amsterdam edition represents the work of a man who passion199

SOCIAL STRUGGLES ately hated Christianity. Religion and the Church appeared to him only as a means of keeping the people stupid and obedient. With unsurpassable acumen he deals with monarchy, aristocracy, priestcraft, militar¬ ism, officialdom, the tax farmers, and the money changers. No radical freethinker or republican could have excelled in acute¬ ness the criticism which Meslier passes upon these institutions and persons. The criticism was directed in the first place against the France of Louis XIV, but it also applied generally to every monarchy, religion, and coercive regime. What in¬ terests us, however, are his opinions about private property and communism. Upon these subjects he expresses himself as follows : Another evil which exists and is applauded almost everywhere is the special alienation of the goods and riches of the earth, instead of their being commonly owned and enjoyed. The inhabitants of each parish ought to regard themselves as a united family of brothers and sisters, and take care that they all work and produce useful things, in order to provide the necessary means of life for all. The 200

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM direction of affairs in the individual parish should not rest in the hands of those ambitious for power, but in the hands of the wisest and most benevolent. The separate parishes ought to unite with each other, so as to preserve peace and render mutual support. . . . From the division of the goods and riches of the earth, from private property arose the antagonisms between rich and poor, satiated and hungry, high and low. ... If one looks at the injustices, at the luxury of the one and the poverty of the other, at superfluity and want, which class divisions do not corre¬ spond which virtue and vice, it is impossible to believe in the existence of a God, for it is inconceivable that a God could tolerate this inversion of justice (Testament, Book II. pp. 210 et seq.). The first Christian communities lived according to communism, but sophistic priests have substituted the communion (communism in imaginary things) for com¬ munism in earthly goods. The monks, however, appreciate, so far as themselves are concerned, the com¬ munism in earthly goods, and are pro¬ tected against any kind of want. Pascal 201

SOCIAL STRUGGLES is manifestly of the same opinion when he observes in his Pensees that the alienation of the soil, as well as the evils that arise from this, are to be traced to the fact that everybody tries to appropriate things that ought to be commonly held. And the divine Plato desired to establish a republic, in which “ Mine ” and “ Thine ” would not exist. Inequality is a violation of natural law. “ All men are equal by nature, they have the same right to live and move, to enjoy their natural freedom, and share in the good things of the earth, while usefully working with each other in order to produce the necessary means of life, but as they live in society, and as human society could not be regulated and kept in order without a certain degree of dependence and subordi¬ nation, men ought to submit to this, but the subordination must not degenerate into inequality ” (vol. ii. pp. 170-71). The salvation of mankind lies in the peoples uniting against the tyrants, and in recognizing and following the law of nature, which ordains the community of goods and requires everybody to labour. A profounder influence than that of Meslier was exercised upon communist 202

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM thought by Morelly, the author of the once famous Code de la Nature. Almost nothing is known about Morelly's life. He came from Vitry-le-Frangois, and is supposed to have been the son of an official, and to have been engaged as a private tutor. In 1753 he published his natural law romance, The Shipwreck of the Floating Isles (Naufrage des lies flottantes), a heroic poem in fourteen cantos, in which he described a society based upon communism and free love, and predicted shipwreck for the floating isles which symbolized the institu¬ tions of private property. Two years later (1755) his Code de la Nature appeared, which for a long time was falsely ascribed to Diderot. His chief ideas are : Social poverty arises from the circum¬ stance that the moral philosophers and politicians either do not understand the principles of nature, or draw incorrect con¬ clusions from them. Nature is an admirably intelligent machine, which endows men with the same wants and strength, and places them in an environment which—if the intentions of nature were understood and followed—would have infallibly main¬ tained them happy and virtuous. Man is 203

SOCIAL STRUGGLES born neither good nor bad ; he has no innate ideas or inclinations ; he comes into the world as a completely indifferent being. He is aroused from this indifference by his natural needs, which are always greater than his personal strength, so that the isolated individual is not in a position to satisfy them. From this disparity between wants and ability to satisfy them arose the most beneficent consequences for man. It com¬ pelled him to work, to think, and to unite with his fellows, in short to be sociable. The variations of human needs and capacities render sociality still more pressing. To enable human needs to be satisfied, nature gave men the earth with its treasures and its fertility. The earth and its fulness belong to all in common. It is the common basis of their existence. Upon this basis is reared society, which in the variety and range of its activities, its intelligences, and its arrangements, would represent an admir¬ able equilibrium, an undisturbable harmony of interests, if philosophers, legislators, and politicians had studied and followed the laws of nature. This, however, they have not done. They have turned the earth into private property, created divisions and 204

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM fissures and class antagonisms, whereby the intentions of nature are defeated, and the wants and forces which with wise fore¬ thought she has created are emasculated.From this cause flow all the evils from which society suffers, and which are not to be removed by human laws and political constitutions, whether they be democratic, aristocratic, or monarchic. The sole means of salvation is return to the laws of nature, whose character is as follows : No one in society should have the exclusive ownership of anything except those things that a person really needs for his daily work or his pleasures. Each citizen is an equal citizen of society, and should be fed, kept, and employed at the public expense. Each citizen contributes for his share according to his strength, his talents, and his age, which are taken into account in fixing his duties according to social and economic laws. This social economy is of the following nature : Each people should be divided into families, tribes, races, and communities, and, if necessary, into provinces. Each 205

SOCIAL STRUGGLES tribe is to consist of an equal number of families. All the commodities which they produce are to be deposited in the public storehouses, whence they will be distributed to all citizens at specific times. Commodi¬ ties which will not keep long shall be distributed at the market-places. The superfluous comestibles of each parish or province shall be stored against times of need. Trade with neighbouring peoples may only take place by means of barter, and is to be publicly supervised. Each citizen capable of work, between the ages of twenty and twenty-five years, must without exception be engaged in agricultural labour. Government shall rest in the hands of a supreme senate, which will be annually chosen from heads of families over fifty years of age. Marriage is contracted for a period of ten years, and requires the sanction of the town senate. Better known is the life story of Gabriel B. Mably (b. in Grenoble 1709, d. 1785). He received a careful education, studied theology, but turned to public affairs and became a secretary in the Foreign 206

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM Ministry. He wrote a good deal upon ancient and French history, as well as upon diplomatic questions. At first de¬ fending the old order, he subsequently developed a critical attitude, and in 1768 published his ingenious polemic, Doutes proposes aux philosophes economistes, against Count Mercier de la Riviere, the head of the economists, who regarded private pro¬ perty, supported by a despotic government, as the best and most natural order. Against these theories Mably championed com¬ munistic natural law, praised the Lycurgean legislation, Plato's Republic, and emphas¬ ized their superiority to private property and inequality. Mably was considerably influenced by Morelly. In another work, he opines : “ Whenever I read in a travel book of a desert island whose climate is mild, whose water is healthy, I feel anxious to go there and found a republic, in which everybody will live equally free, equally rich, equally poor (propertyless), and equally brotherly. Our first law would run : Nobody shall possess private pro¬ perty. We would carry the fruits of our labour into the public storehouses, in which would consist the public treasury and the 207

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

heritage of every citizen. Fathers of families would annually select adminis¬ trators whose duties it would be to give to each person the necessities of life and direct him to perform the work required of him by the community ” (quoted by Villegardelle-Koppen, Geschichte der sozialen Ideen, p. 84. Berlin, 1846). Mably concedes, however, that men brought up in the present society are too much dominated by their own interests to be able to make the general interest the motive of their actions. Rapacity is to¬ day stronger than the feeling of social duty. Consequently, Mably proposes for the time being only to introduce reforms, which would restrict the rights of property, curb greed, and favour only those forms of property which are acquired by personal effort. Right of inheritance is to be re¬ stricted, property in the soil and movable capital are to bear the heaviest taxes, but the workers are only to be slightly taxed. The differences in the salaries of officials are to be abolished, and equal pay is to be introduced as far as possible, inasmuch as with collective labour and the co-opera¬ tion of forces, natural inequality of effort 208

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

almost entirely disappears, and an average unit of effort results. 3. Middle-Class Critics : Rousseau, Linguet, Necker, Brissot

During the last half of the eighteenth century France was so steeped in natural law ideas that even political philosophers who were far removed from communism adopted a critical attitude towards private property. The most famous, if not the most consistent of them, was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). In his treatise upon Inequality among Men, he says : “ The first man who enclosed a piece of land, saying, ‘ This is mine,’ and found simple people who believed him, was the real founder of middle-class society. How many crimes, wars, and murders, how much misery and suffering would have been spared our race if another man had torn up the palings, filled up the trenches, and cried to his comrades : ‘ Beware of be¬ lieving this impostor; you are lost if you forget that while its fruits belong to every¬ body, the earth belongs to nobody.” In Emile (1762) several passages of a o 209

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

socially critical nature may be found. Every social enjoyment, he says there, is paid for by labour and labour alone. To work is the duty of a social man. Every idle citizen, be he rich or poor, powerful or powerless, is a rascal (Emile, Book III). The conservatist jurist, N. H. Linguet (1736-1794), laments in his Theorie des lots civiles (vol. i. pp. 171-200), which appeared in 1767, that middle-class society destroys the natural freedom of man. . . . The moment a man is born, he is fastened to that immense chain called society. . . . The first glance from his cradle falls on beings like himself, who are loaded with chains and are delighted to see a companion who will share their slavery. Rapacity and force have taken possession of the earth, and have formed a compact to grant a share in this possession only to those who follow their banner. . . . “ Justice is the eternal and persistent will to grant every¬ body his rights/' so say the lawyers for example. But the poor man has nothing but his poverty. Consequently the laws cannot grant him anything else. Their aim is rather to protect those who have abundance against the attacks of those who 210

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

lack even the most necessary things. . . . In this consists the proper purpose of laws, which are dictated by the rich, and it is the rich who derive the greatest benefit from them. Laws are, as it were, the fortresses built by the rich in a hostile country where nothing but dangers threaten them. Wars are a consequence of laws, for wars originate from a love of property, and upon what is property based but laws ? The aim of a society based on private property to free the rich from work. The free labourer is worse off than the slave.. .. The latter does receive his food when he does not work. But what becomes of the free labourer when he can find no employment ? Who troubles about him if he dies of hunger and misery ? Many other daring criticisms of this kind are to be found in Linguet. Nevertheless he remained a conservative to the end. He held that if men wanted society, they must take gross inequality and its evils into the bargain. Jacques Necker, the Finance Minister of Louis XVI (b. 1732, d. 1804), closed his treatise upon the Corn Trade with the following words : “If one casts his eye over society and its conditions, the general idea 211

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

immediately comes into his head that all bourgeois institutions are created for the benefit of property owners. It is shocking to open the legislative code and stumble upon nothing but proofs of this truth. It might be said that a small number of men have divided up the earth and subse¬ quently made laws to afford them pro¬ tection against the masses, just as they have enclosed forests to protect themselves from wild beasts/' In another part of the book Necker dealt critically with the rela¬ tion between capital and labour, as well as with the concentration of property and the diminution of the number of proprietors. We would further quote from J. P. Brissot (b. 1736, executed 1796). In his work entitled Recherches philosophiques sur la propriete et le vol, which was published in 1780, the following passage occurs: “ When equality was banished, the hateful distinction between rich and poor became more sharply pronounced. Society divided into two classes : to the first belong the middle-class proprietors, to the second the mass of the people. And terrible punish¬ ments are threatened in order to bolster up the terrible rights of property. Any 212

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

attacks upon these rights are called steal¬ ing, and yet we know that in the state of nature the thief is the rich man or the person who lives in superfluity; in a state of society, on the other hand, a thief is he who steals from the rich. How opinions alter ? Yet Brissot was no revolutionary, even no Jacobin, but a Girondist (a moderate republican), and as such was sent by the Jacobins to the guillotine. 4. Utopian Description by Vairasse d’Allais

The first French description of a com¬ munistic Utopia was given by Denis Vairasse of Allais (south France) in his Histoire des Sevarambes, which appeared first in English in London in 1675, and then in French in Paris in 1677 to 1678. Vairasse had an adventurous youth ; he served in the French army, then (1665) in the English fleet, lived for a time in London, and then settled in Paris as a teacher of languages; he also compiled a French Grammar (1681-1683). His abovenamed Utopian history was soon trans¬ lated into German and Dutch. It describes with many imaginative and romantic de213

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

tails the happy conditions of the Sevarambians, who lived upon an Australian island, and were organized by a wise Parsee named Sevaris, a sun-worshipper. The happy inhabitants of this island called themselves Sevarambians, obviously after the name of their political founder. The principles according to which Sevaris carried out the social reorganization of this people were as follows : The evils of human society flow from three great sources: pride, greed, and idleness. Pride creates the inequality of station among men—noble and commoner, ruler and servant. Greed divides society into rich and poor, and brings about the injustices which are consequent upon this antagonism. Idleness leads to extrava¬ gances, conspiracies, neglect of the treasures of nature and of the human intellect. To dry up all these sources, Sevaris abolished all distinctions of status, except those that arose from the moral qualities of men. Then he abolished private property ; all commodities and wealth ; all the land and soil were declared to be the property of the State. “ In this manner he got rid of rapacity, litigation, taxes, duties, the 214

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

scarcity and the poverty that brought so much evil into the world. Since the en¬ forcement of this law all the Sevarambians are rich, although they may call nothing their own. All the goods of the State belong to them, so that everybody may esteem him¬ self as happy as the richest monarch in the world ” (Histoire des Sevarambes, Part I. pp. 276-78. Amsterdam, 1711). A community of goods involves a general obligation to work. Sevaris introduces a measure on these lines, and ordains that the day should be divided into three parts : eight hours work, eight hours recreation, eight hours sleep. Only old people, preg¬ nant women, sick persons, and young children are exempted from labour. But as idleness is considered the greatest disgrace, even those exempted from work seek for some kind of occupation. The greatest importance is attached to the education and training of the children. From the seventh to the twelfth years they receive elementary instruction, and are physically and intellectually strengthened; then they attend agricultural and industrial establishments, where the hours of labour are fixed at four daily. They are brought 215

SOCIAL STRUGGLES

up to be temperate, to have respect for the laws, for age, and for religion. As a rule the Severambians are monogamous, al¬ though the officials form an exception, as they may have several wives. The form of government is heliocratic (the ruler being the deity worshipped as the Sun). Its Presi¬ dent is chosen by lot from among the highest officials. On the other hand, the remaining officials are directly elected by the people. The Severambians dwell under communal conditions in Osmasians (large buildings). Each Osmase has its storehouses, where the finished articles are delivered, and whence each comrade takes, upon official direction, the necessary means of life. 5. Imitations of the Great Utopians

We can see that Vairasse exhibits little originality in his fundamental ideas, borrow¬ ing from More and Campanella. But what appeared later in the way of Utopias and Utopian travel narratives—and they were published in great numbers in France and England during the eighteenth and nine¬ teenth centuries—are mostly insipid imita¬ tion or fine poetry. The variations relate firstly to marriage ; some champion mono216

FRENCH UTOPIAS AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

gamy or periodical marriages, others cham¬ pion free love ; secondly, opinions differ regarding the form of government—some advocate monarchy or democracy, others anarchy. Nothing new appeared until Bellamy's Looking Backward—a genuine product of the industrial conditions in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. For the sake of completeness we will here indicate most of these Utopias. In 1676 Gabriel de Foigny published the anarchist- * communist description, Terre Australe Connue ; in 1710 Jacques Masse his Voyages et Aventures, upon deistic and communist lines ; in 1746 Berington the Memoires de Gaudence de Lucques, borrowed from Campanella and Vairasse ; in 1768 Fontenelle the Republique des Philosophes, a communist society without religion and based on slavery ; in 1770 appeared Histoire Naturelle et civile des Galligenes, free love and communism; in 1781 (?) Restif de la Bretonne (a compositor) published Decouverte Australe, ethical-communist features. Fenelon's Telemaque (1698), in which the antique (Greek) life is idealized, likewise produced imitations which have a Utopian strain. 217

APPENDIX AMERICAN RELIGIOUS-COMMUNIST SETTLEMENTS

W

HILE the authors of Utopian narratives were satisfied with painting more or less enter¬ taining social pictures, heretical-communist traditions continued to survive in Christian circles, especially in Germany and England, bringing manifold persecu¬ tions upon their adherents, so that they were pre¬ vented from living according to their ideals in their own homes. The times of the Inquisition and of the Stake were, however, past—this is one of the finest achievements of middle-class enlightenment— so that the communist sectaries could emigrate, and put their doctrines to the practical test in America. The United States became the refuge of remnants of the heretical-communist movement of the Middle Ages, so far as it felt the inward urge to live accord¬ ing to its ideals. In addition, there were later the colonies of the followers of Owen, Fourier, and Cabet, but these enterprises belong to our fourth volume, as they were not founded until the first half of the nineteenth century, and moreover owe their intellectual origin to another phase of thought—the critical Utopism which corresponded with the first period of the industrial revolution. 218

APPENDIX One of the oldest religious communist colonies is that of the Shakers. It originated in 1776 in Watervliet (New York State). Its foundress was the Englishwoman Ann Lee, who came to America in 3774. In course of time the Shaker communities increased, but the number of their members never amounted to more than five thousand. They live monastic and ascetic lives, and are characterized by celibacy, strict morality, ecstasy, and temperate recreations. They accumulated great wealth. Each community is divided into “ families," whose property is administered on communist lines. Next in importance is the colony of Harmony (Pennsylvania), founded by religious and communist Swabian peasants, who emigrated in the year 1803 under the leadership of the dictatorially inclined George Rapp (b. 1770, d. 1847), and established the above-named communist settlement in Pennsylvania. Community of goods, equality, and unity prevailed among the Rappists, as the settlers called themselves after their leader. In 1814 they sold their flourishing settlement for 100,000 dollars, and removed to Indiana, where they established a new one, which thrived equally and became very wealthy. As the climate did not suit them, in 1824 they sold the colony to Robert Owen for 150,000 dollars, acquired a new settlement, which they called Economy, and also raised to great prosperity, although they were joined by many adventurers who carried on a disruptive activity and caused splits. Until 1807 they regarded marriage as permis¬ sible, but afterwards introduced celibacy. The rapid progress of Pennsylvania since 1870, owing to the petroleum industry, made an end to the communist 219

APPENDIX idyll. At the present time the Rappists form a joint stock company, which owns valuable territory, oil wells, factories, etc. Very similar is the colony of Zoar, whose members were also Swabian peasants who suffered considerably in their Wurtemberg home on account of their religious communist convictions. With financial assistance afforded them by the English Quakers, they emigrated to America under the leadership of Josef Baumler, settled in Ohio, and in 1819 decided to live as communists and celibates ; after 1831 marriage was introduced. Zoar also enjoyed great economic success and existed until 1898. On the dissolution of the colony each member received 1800 dollars as his share. Similar settlements were Bethel and Aurora (in Missouri and Oregon), founded by a certain Dr. Keil (b. 1812, d. 1877). The majority of their members were of German origin. They lived under communist conditions, but marriage was permitted. Both settle¬ ments led a peaceful and happy life until the death of their leader. Some years later they were dissolved. Noteworthy too is the settlement of Amana (Iowa), which was founded by communist sectaries from central Germany. As early as the beginning of the eighteenth century the sect had been organized in central Germany, and had embraced the communist ideal, but not until 1842 did some thousands of its members emigrate to America. In 1901 Amana numbered 1767 members, living in seven villages and engaged in agriculture and industry. In 1901 its property was valued at 1,647,000 dollars. The commodities manufactured in their workshops (they own mills, smithies, soap220

APPENDIX boiling works, and textile factories) are of exception¬ ally fine quality, and easily find a market. They also employ wage workers. The workshops are airy ; each worker is provided with a seat for resting ; hurry and speeding-up are unknown there ; work proceeds steadily with several intervals daily. The colloquial language is still German. Amana com¬ bines communism with monogamy. The mode of life is very simple and genuinely primitive Christian. On the whole it may be said of such colonies that their prosperity is dependent upon the fidelity of their members to their primitive Christian ideal, as well as upon the efficiency of their leaders.1 Hillquit, History of Socialism in America TuganBaranowsky, Kommunistische Gemeinwesen dcr Neuzeit, Gotha, 1920. Regarding Utopias in general, see George Cornwall Lewis, On the Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, vol. i. London, 1852; Robert von Mohl, Geschichte der Staaiswissenschaften, Erlangen, vol. i. 1855. ■

221

INDEX Amana, communistic settle¬ ment, 220. America, 87, 145. Aristotle, 104. Bacon, Francis, 167, 168. Ball, John, 44, 45, 46, 49, 53. Baptist movement, 107, hi, 124, 125, 126, 127, 133. Bellamy's Looking Backward, 217. Bellers, John, 174. Biel, Gabriel, 105. Black Death, 35. Borgia, Caesar, 140. Borgia, Lucrezia, 140. Brissot, J. P., 212. “ Bundschuh," 98. Cade, Jack, 54, 56, 57, 58. Calle, Guillaume, 31. Calvin, Jean, 194. Calvinism, 11. Campanella, Thomas, 182, 183, 184, 190. Chamberlen, Peter, 173, 174. Charles IV, German Emperor, 65, 66. Chaucer, Geoffrey, 37. Communism, 112, 190, 191. Community of women, 191. Correggio, 141.

Edward III, 26, 27, 47. Erasmus of Rotterdam, 102. F6nelon’s TSlemaque, 217. Fontenelle, 217. Franck, Sebastian, 107, 108, 109, no. Froissart, 45-46. Fugger, 88, 133. Germany in fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 85, 86, 87, 88. Geyer, Florian, 82, 123. Grotius, Hugo, 145. Hamerling, Robert, 128-29. Hansa, The, n, 86. " Harmony " communistic settlement, 219. Henry IV of France, 194, 195. Hobbes, Thomas, 177. Huguenots, 195. Humanism, 141, 142. Huss, John, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69. Hussite Wars, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74-

Da Vinci, Leonardo, 140, 141. Deism, 136. “ Diggers," 171.

Jan Mathys of Haarlem, 126, 128, 129. Jacquerie, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 3i. Jerome of Prague, 67. John of Leyden, 126, 127, 128, 132.

“ Economy " (communistic settlement), 219.

Karl V, 88. Konrad, der arme, 98.

223

INDEX Langland, William, 37, 38. Linguet, S. N. H., 210. Locke, John, 177. Lollards, 36. Louis XIV, 195, 196. Luther, Martin, 32, 33, 82, 83, 84, 104, 103, 106, 123. Mably, G. B., 206, 207, 208. Machiavelli, 140. Marcel, Etienne, 28, 29. Materialism, 144. Melanchthon, 99, 104, 125. Meslier, Jean, 199, 200, 210. Michelangelo, 141. Moral philosophy, 142. Moravian Brothers, 80, 81. Morelly, 203. More, Thomas, 102, 147-66. Munster, Anabaptists in, 124, 125. Miinzer, Thomas, no, in, 112, 113, 114. Natural Law, 142. Necker, Jacques, 211-12. New Atlantis, 167. Nominalism, 135.

Raphael, 141. Raleigh, Walter, 167. Rapp, George, 219. Rationalism, 135. Realists, 136. Reformatio Sigismundi, 97. Reformation, 10, 32, 94. Renaissance, 100, 139. Richard II, 51. Rothmann, Bernt, 125. Rousseau, J. J., 209. Savonarola, 140. Sevarambia (Utopia), 21314. Shakers, 219. Shakespeare, 54. Sickingen, Franz von, 82. Smith, Adam, 178. Social Contract, 175. Sun State, 183. Statute of Labourers, 36, 47. Tabor, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80. Thirty Years War, 133, 195. Tyler, Wat, 49. Urban antagonisms, 13. Utopia, 59, 147.

Ottokar II, 61.

Vairasse, Denis, 213.

Paley, William, 179. Peasants’ War, English, 47. Peasants’ War, German, 96. Peyt, Jakob, 23. Philip of Valois, 24, 25, 26, 27. Plato, 102. Prokop, Andreas, 34, 74.

Winstanley, 170. Wycliffe, John, 32. Zannekin, Nikolaus, 23. Ziska, 73, 74. Zoar, communistic settle¬ ment, 220. Zweifel, Thomas, 99.

224

Social Struggles and Modern Socialism

CONTENTS I. Germany (1800—1847) 1. Wars and National Freedom and Unity . 2. Economic and Social Agitation . . 3. Socialist Impulses: Criticism, Poetry, Periodical Literature, 1825—1847 . . 4. Social Criticism and Revolutionary Pro¬ jects: Gall, Buchner . . . , II. German Foreign Revolutionary Societies. 1. The League of the Banished . . . 2. The League of the Just: Weitling . . 3. Weitling and the Revolutionary Dictator¬ ship . • . ■ • • . 4. Weitling’s Latter Days 5. The “Just” become the Communist League III. Political and Social Movements in Germany (1840—1847) 1. Stormy Petrels ..... 2. Social Criticism: Hess, Grim, Liming, Oelckers . . * . . . .

9 12 20 21

26 28 34 37 38

42 50

IV. Karl 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Marx His Significance.56 Marx and the Hegelian Dialectic . . 58 The Materialist Conception of History . 66 The Class Struggle.71 The Essence of his Economics . . 73 Evolution and Revolution . . . 77 Friendship with Friedrich Engels . . 79 Foundation and Programme of the Communist League .... 82 9. Communist Reaction upon Germany: Stefan Born, Mentel . . . . 84

V. German Conservative Social 1. Romantic Personalities 2. Marlo-Winkelblech . 3. Karl Johann Rodbertus

Reform . . . . . . . . ....

88 91 95

CONTENTS—continued VI. The 1. 2. 3. VII.

Second German Revolution (1848—1849) Political Course . . . . .103 Social Reform Tendencies (1848—1849) . 107 End of the Communist League . . 114

Economics and Politics (1850—1880) 1. The Age of Liberalism . . . . 2. Transition to Imperialism and Socialism

118 121

VIII. The Period of the First International 1. Lassalle and the German General Labour Union ...... 126 2. Foundation and Career of the First International . . . . .130 3. The Paris Commune . . . 135 IX. The Age of Imperialism (1880—1914) 1. The Economic Roots of Imperialism . 2. The Spread of Socialism—Karl Kautsky .

141 145

X. The Second International (1889—1914) 1. Successes and Failures . . . .149 2. The Second International and the War 152 3. Germany ...... 159 4. Austria-Hungary ..... 163 5. Great Britain . . . . . .166 6. France ....... 170 7. Italy.176 8. Russia and Poland . . . . 178 9. United States of America . . .188 XI. Revolution and The War of Nations (1914—1920) 1. Breakdown of the Second International . 193 2. The Russian Revolution . . . .198 3. The Third German Revolution (1918—1919) 201 4. Social Agitation in France and Great Britain (1917—1920) .... 206 XII. The Smaller Parties (1870—1920) 1. In Europe.209 2. In Australia, South Africa, South America, Asia . . . . . . .218 Index

223

SOCIAL STRUGGLES AND MODERN SOCIALISM I GERMANY (1800-1847). i.

O

Wars and National Freedom and Unity

NE of the most disastrous mistakes of German policy was the participation of the German States in the war against the hrench Revolution and against Napoleonic France, 1792—1815. Without the counter¬ revolutionary coalition wars, there would have been neither Jacobin terrorism nor Napoleonic imperialism. The German States, together with England, bore the main responsibility for the defeat or the declension of the French Revolution. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, French popular vigour almost succeeded in defeating the European coalition, and presenting the German bourgeoisie with the opportunity of winning its freedom and

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM developing its industry, for under Napoleon's blows, the old German Empire collapsed, Prussia and Austria were smitten with impotence, and English competition on the Continent suffered a considerable restriction. But this favourable opportunity was lost on a generation that was neither great nor far-seeing. Sentimental loyalty, short¬ sighted nationalism, narrow-minded servility drove the German people back into the arms of reaction, of unfreedom, of economic poverty, although it must be confessed that even the slender reforms which Stein and Hardenberg carried out in Prussia after Jena, municipal reorganization and the socalled emancipation of the peasants (18071816), were only to be ascribed to the influence of the French Revolution. Nothing but the sense of national solid¬ arity, the impulse towards unity, remained alive—in spite of all catastrophes—in the breasts of the German middle class. After Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow, this aspiration was taken into account, both by the King of Prussia (Friedrich Wilhelm III. 1797—1840), and the Czar, Alexander I., who promised the German people that Germany should be free and independent— 10

GERMANY (1800—1847) a promise which the King of Prussia repeated on the 22nd May, 1815, accompanied by the promise of a just constitution. With boundless enthusiasm, the German tribes then engaged in the so-called war of liberation (1813—1815), defeated Napoleon, saved the world markets and the colonies for the English, and the thrones for the petty princes. The reward for the Germans was : the Holy Alliance, the rule of Metternich, the muzzling of the press and of public meetings, the imprisonment and persecution of national patriots as demagogues, the division of the national forces in the German Confederation (one emperor, five kings, twenty-nine sovereign princes), the Frankfort parliament. Or as Julius Mosen lamented in his poem, “ The Leipzig Battle of Nations.” Many true hearts were wanting At Leipzig, with iron ells, To buy a fatherland ; A fatherland that was free. At Leipzig lie peacefully buried, Right many a mother's son, Their grave-song is croaked by the raven Which thither has flown. 11

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM What, ask you, comrades in death, Resting beneath the sod, What use was it that such Streams of red flood have flowed ? But the laments of the poets, the protests of the students and intellectuals, of en¬ lightened citizens and political writers on behalf of national unity and freedom, whether expressed through the students’ unions, the gymnastic clubs, or the Hambach festival (1832), or the storming of the Frankfort guard-house (1833), remained ineffectual, until the French people in the July Revolution (1830), and the French lower middle-class and proletariat in the February Revolution (1848), cleared the path for liberalism and socialism. 2.

Economic

and

Social

Agitation

The German races emerged from the counter-revolutionary campaigns and the war of liberation, divided, exhausted, and poor. The French occupation had extorted from them in war contributions about a milliard marks ; the years 1816 and 1817 brought bad harvests and starvation, the 12

GERMANY (1800—1847) following years brought forth scarcity out of plenty; the purchasing power of the masses fell almost to zero; warehouses, granaries, and shops were full of provisions, but the market was without any effective demand ; and English competition, equipped with the achievements of modern technology, ruined the Silesian linen industry, and im¬ poverished the weavers, and competed successfully with Saxon industry, for the impoverishment of the nation did not permit of an expensive re-organization of industry upon the basis of machinery, and the incredibly low wages which then prevailed, rendered labour-saving machines superfluous. Only the Rhineland and Westphalia, where the French Revolution had created freer conditions, and where French policy, with an eye to the eventual incorporation of the Rhine valley, had adopted a friendly attitude, exhibited some measure of economic prosperity and was gradually drawn into the general course of the industrial revolution. Conditions improved after 1830—the July Revolution in Paris inspired the German bourgeoisie with fresh courage. In Brunswick, Hesse, Saxony, and Hanover, revolts broke out, which extorted some 13

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM

political concessions from the governments ; in the South German States the lower chambers became more lively ; in the Baden Diet members ventured to discuss the sum¬ moning of a German parliament. Business life also grew more animated and science was stimulated. The philosophic and sociological writer, Friedrich Albert Lange, very finely described the developments of Germany at that time in his “ History of Materialism/' He says : “ But what so specially endeared the July monarchy and French constitutionalism to the men who now gave the tone in Germany, was their relation to the material interests of the monied classes. “Now, for the first time, was it possible in Germany for a merchant and a promoter of limited companies like Hansemann to become the leader of public opinion. Chambers of Commerce and similar societies shot up at the beginning of the thirties, like mushrooms from the ground. In education, polytechnic institutes, schools for technical and com¬ mercial teaching, were established by the citizens of flourishing towns. . . The chief activity of governments was directed to the means of transport, and the most important 14

GERMANY (1800—1847) political result was the German Customs Union (1834)." which established free trade within Germany. This period coincides with the commencement of railway construction in Germany. Noteworthy in this respect is the year 1835 : it saw the first railway, the appearance of Strauss' critical religious work, " The Life of Jesus," which was a daring book for that time, as well as the publication of Gutzkow's " Wally the Sceptic," a free-thought romance which brought its author imprisonment. At the same time natural science took a leap forward, and Germany supplied her share of great natural investigators : Liebig (chemistry), Johannes Muller (physiology), Alexander von Humboldt (geography), Karl F. Gauss (mathematics, electro¬ magnetism, telegraphy). Intellectual activity as a whole turned away from extravagant, idealistic, and romantic aims. Idealistic philosophy, which placed intellectual concepts before sensual perceptions, or gave them undue weight, was supplanted by a realistic method of thinking, that is : henceforth it was averred that being preceded thinking; first, there was the thing, and then the concept or idea 15

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM thereof. Philosophically, this means that idealism gave way to materialism. In religious investigation this was of great importance. Whereas it used to be said that God created mankind, it was now asserted that mankind, as a species, from time to time creates God out of all the incomprehensibilities which are apprehended by its mental and spiritual faculties, out of the intellectual sediment of its experiences in, and ponderings upon, the world, out of all the moral feelings and sensibilities which dominate and pulse through its brain and heart. Man deifies his own mind ; he makes of it an absolute and supersensual power, raised above all conditions and all limitations. Theologically regarded, this conception is atheistic, godless. Its propagator in Germany was Ludwig Feuerbach, whose chief works, “ Essence of Christianity ” and “ Preliminary Theses,” appeared in 1841 and 1843 respectively. Philosophically, the new orientation was likewise of great importance. Whereas it used to be thought, with Hegel, that the infinite Spirit or God created the world and governed it, or—expressed in more modern language—that an infinite Spirit 16

GERMANY (1800—1847) evolved, and in the course of this evolution caused to arise the material world (fixed stars, planets, minerals, plants, animals), as external visible forms and stages, hence¬ forth it was averred that matter has always existed, and is regulated and developed by its inherent forces : from the inorganic (the mineral kingdom) to the organic (plant and animal kingdom) ; further, that mind cannot exist apart from matter, but is either only a function of matter (that is : the brain converts sensual impressions into ideas, just as the stomach converts food into blood), or has always permeated matter, manifesting itself ever more distinctly in the organic world until it culminates as reason in man. According to the purely natural scientific and materialistic conception, mind does not exist as a special force : intellectual life is only a product of physical activity. According to the other conception, mind exists as a special force, but always and everywhere in association with matter and operates in conjunction with, or parallel to it; mind and matter form the unified substance : the proper essence of the world. The latter conception may also be called pantheistic or monistic.

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM The attack on the theological and idealist philosophy: the attack on God and the angels, went hand in hand with the attack on absolute monarchy and the bureaucratic State. It is not the king and the police who create and sustain the State, but it is the citizens, those engaged in husbandry and industry, who animate and sustain the State and society: consequently, these classes ought to govern, or at least actively partici¬ pate in government. The opposition to the territorial despots was sustained by the national movement of the German middle class to bring about a consolidation of economic forces, the national unity of the German races, and the reorgani¬ zation of the German Empire to new power and brilliance. Freethinking in religious matters instead of ecclesiastical dogma, scientific investi¬ gation instead of philosophical speculation, economic enterprise instead of State regulations, a liberal constitution in place of personal monarchy, national unity in place of provincial dispersion—such was the programme of the German middle class as from about 1830. Its spokesmen in philosophy were the young Hegelians (David 18

GERMANY (1800—1847) Friedrich Strauss, 1808—1874 ; Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804—1872 ; Bruno Bauer, 1809 —1882), in literature, young Germany (Borne, Heine, Gutzkow, Laube). It was a very agitated intellectual generation, inter¬ ested in all human problems, but only a few of its representatives succeeded in developing their personalities and accomplishing permanent work, and even this only in exile : in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and England, whither they fled to avoid languish¬ ing in German prisons, or having their works emasculated by the censor. This essentially liberal tendency found its most extreme expression in Max Stirner’s (Caspar Schmidt) “ The Ego and His Own ” (1845), which repudiates all general ideas such as God, humanity, community, morality, as figments of the imagination, and perceives the sole reality in the individual and his force. “ My cause is neither the divine nor the human, it is not the true, the good, the right, the free and so on, but it is solely mine own ; and it is not a generality, but is egoistic, just as I am egoistic.” Stirner is the most extreme representative of individualist anarchism. This book drew a part of its polemical vigour from its author’s 19

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM

opposition to the communist movement which was then emerging. 3. Socialist Impulses : Criticism, Poetry, Periodical Literature, 1825—1847

The socialist impulses, which began to be perceptible after 1842, in the Rhineland and Westphalia and in Berlin, where modern industry had gained a foothold, came from abroad. German socialism was at that time only an echo of French socialism, but in Left Hegelian circles, efforts had already been undertaken to make German philosophy the foster mother of socialism. We shall return to this question ; here we content ourselves with the general observation that since 1842 socialist ideas had been propagated in Germany, and that a socialist movement was in course of formation by the side of the national unity movement. Attention should also be drawn to the labour unrest which broke out in 1844, among the weavers in Silesia and Bohemia (*). It may be said that 1844 was the birth year of modern German socialism. In 1844, Marx (l) “ These revolts of workers, not against the Government, but against the employers . . gave a fresh impulse to socialist and communist propaganda.” Marx, “ Revolution and Counter Revolution.”

20

GERMANY (1800—1847) began to formulate his doctrines in Paris ; in 1844, the young Lassalle, then a Berlin student, wrote to his father that the labour unrest signified the first convulsions of communism ; in 1844, Heine composed his song of the weavers, and wrote “ Germany : A Winter's Tale,” the prologue of which was altogether communistic ; in 1844, the Berlin Artisans' Union was founded; in 1844, Alfred Meissner published his poems. 1844 was also the birth year of German socialist journalism. Let us enumerate some of these periodicals in chronological order : “ Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrblicher,” Paris, 1844 ; “ Vorwarts,” Paris periodical, 1844 ; " Weserdampfboot,” of Dr. Otto Luning, Bielefeld, 1844 ; “ Gesellschaftsspiegel,” of Moses Hess, 1845—1846 ; “ Deutsches Burgerbuch,” of H. Puttmann, 1845-1846 ; “ Dies Buch gehort dem Volke,” of Otto Luning, 1845—1847 ; “ Deutsche Brusseler Zeitung,” of Adalbert von Bornstedt, Brussels, 1847. 4. Social

Criticism

Projects :

and

Revolutionary

Gall, Buchner

The first attempt to analyse the social conditions in Germany (1815—1830), was 21

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM made by the government official and physio¬ logical chemist, Ludwig Gall (1791—1863), about the year 1824. On the one hand, he notes, poverty, consequent upon unemploy¬ ment, was embracing ever-wider circles, “ and threatens to plunge everybody into a common abyss.” (“ Was soli helfen ? ” “ What's to be done,” Treves, 1825), and, on the other hand, the granaries were full of cereals, the workshops and factories full of the possibilities of production, and the many artisans, peasants, and workers ready to increase wealth still more, but, in spite of all, the country was abandoned to poverty. Germany and likewise France and England,, were then in the grip of a crisis which arose from relative over-production. The usual answer, said Gall, that riches and poverty have always existed, and that human institutions were imperfect, was not valid. Such objections were only wretched evasions. For, in truth, " the earth supplies more means of life and clothing than would be necessary to sustain double the existing population ; and it is not true that there has always been such a wide gulf between the lower and the higher classes as there is now, for this gulf has widened from year to 22

GERMANY (1800—1847) year with the progress of the arts and sciences, inasmuch as this progress has only benefited the higher classes.” (pp. 9—10). “ These two classes,” he asserts, “ sharply divided by antagonistic interests, confront each other as enemies ; the position of the money owners always improves in the same degree as the position of the labouringclasses worsens. This transformation, as dangerous as any that has ever been, leads to disaster ; it leads inevitably to the con¬ centration of all property in the hands of the privileged monied class ; to this sole class all the other classes become subservient, and even servile, and all their higher aspira¬ tions are extinguished; all civilization is being destroyed, in short, a condition is being created which will perplex the highest wisdom.” (pp. 93—94). Gall then proposed to relieve the pecuniary embarrassment of the peasants by issuing com credit notes; an improvement in the position of the agricultural population would react favour¬ ably on trade and industry. The poet Georg Buchner (17th October, 1813 — 19th February, 1837), was f°r some time more interested in revolutionizing the working class, than in social reform 23

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM measures. After leaving the Grammar School at Darmstadt, he studied medicine and science in Strassburg (1831—1833), where he doubtless became familiar with the ideas of the French revolutionary organisations, “ Amis du peuple ” and the “ Droits de l'homme.'' Probably he was also acquainted with Blanqui's speech before the Paris jury in the year 1832. When he returned to Giessen in 1834, he founded a secret “ Society of the Rights of Man,” but, with the police hot on his track, fled to Strassburg, and then to Zurich, where he became a University lecturer and soon died. Buchner's dramas : “ Danton's Death,” “ Wozzeck,” etc., do not contain any socialist suggestions ; at the most they exhibit a lively sympathy with the oppressed classes. Only in his letters to Gutzkow do we find a num¬ ber of passages which distinctly reveal the influence of French secret societies upon Buchner's republican thoughts. On the 5th April, 1833, he wrote to his family, on the occasion of the storming of the Frankfort guard-house, ” It is my opinion that if anything could be helpful in our time, it is force.” The German princes were not to be induced to grant reforms by any other 24

GERMANY (1800—1847) means. In July, 1835, he wrote from Strassburg, “ The relation between the rich and the poor is the sole revolutionary element in the world.’’ Buchner did not believe that the goal could be reached through the enlighten¬ ment of the middle class, through the propaganda of liberal ideas. He wrote from Strassburg to his family (1st January, 1836) : “ Moreover, for myself, I do not by any means belong to so-called Young Germany, to the literary party of Gutzkow and Heine. Only a complete misconception of our social conditions could make people believe that a complete reformation of our religious and social ideas is possible by means of periodical literature.” Likewise he wrote to Gutzkow : “ To be candid, you and your friends seem to me not to be going the wisest way to work. Society is to be reformed by the educated classes by means of ideas ? Impossible ! I am convinced that the educated and prosperous minority, however, many concessions it may desire for itself from the powers that be, will never give up its inner opposition to the working class.

25

II

GERMAN FOREIGN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES.

T

HE persecution of the champions of

German unity and freedom which set in after 1815, reinforced by economic necessity, impelled many Germans to seek refuge abroad, whence they continued to work for their cause. After the July Revolution 1830), after the Hambach festival of the South German democrats (1832), which was attended by thirty thousand persons, and after the storm¬ ing of the Frankfort guard-house (1833), the proscribed patriots emigrated in increasing numbers to Paris, where they found support among the advanced French elements. First of all they founded the “ German Patriotic Union ” (Association patriotique allemande) which was only concerned to further the aims of political freedom and German unity. Out of this grew the “ League of the Banished” (early in 1834), which was led by Jakob 26

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES

Venedey and Dr. Theodor Schuster. Venedey (born Cologne 1805) was a Heidelberg pro¬ fessor. From Paris he edited the periodical “ Der Geachtete ” (The Banished), and sym¬ pathized with the Fourierists, while remaining a German democrat; he returned to Germany in 1848 and was elected, a member of the Frankfort Parliament. His colleague in the “ League of the Banished ” was Dr. Theodor Schuster, formerly a law tutor in Gottingen where, in conjunction with Dr. Rauschenplat and Dr. Ahrens, he tried to provoke an insurrection immediately after the July Revo¬ lution (1830). He fled to France and joined secret societies. Already he could see the class division of society into a minority of possessors and a propertyless majority. He followed Buchez in advocating State-aided co-operative production. Schuster did not advance beyond the ideas of Buchez. The“League of the Banished*1 was associated with the French society “ Droits de FHomme. In the general statutes of the League, its aims were defined as: “ Liberation and re-birth of Germany and the realization of the principles set forth in the declaration of human and citizen rights/' 27

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Just as in the French society “ Droits de l'homme " there was a Right Wing (purely democratic and nationalist), and a Left Wing (social reformist and internationalist), so it was with the “League of the Banished/' The Left Wing, under Schuster's leadership, organ¬ ized in 1836 as the “ League of the Just," was at first communist and Utopian, and then communist and revolutionary. In 1847 it was transformed into the “ Communist League," for which Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto. 2. “The League of the Just: " Weitling.

Of the five hundred members of the “ League of the Banished/’ about four hundred went over to the “League of the Just." Their train of thought was deeply influenced by Lamennais’ “ Paroles d’un croyant " (Words of a believer), which appeared in 1834 an(f was immediately translated into German by Ludwig Borne and widely circulated among the travelling Ger¬ man artisans. Lamennais (1782-1854) was a rebellious priest, who wrote in biblical style on behalf of democracy and social justice. Or, as Heine said, Lamennais put the red cap of liberty on the top of the cross. 28

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES Schuster soon withdrew from his activity in the League, and his place was taken by Wilhelm Weitling, a journeyman artisan well read in communist literature; the latter be¬ came the real leader of the League. He was assisted by Karl Schapper (1812-1870) ; born in Weilburg (Nassau), Schapper studied forestry in Giessen, became a forester, took part in the attempted revolt at Frankfort (1833) and fled to Switzerland, whence he repaired to Paris, where he joined the secret “ Families ” and then the “ Saisons.” He was not a man of science, but emphatically one of action, a conspirator, a secret leaguer, always ready to take part in a democratic revolt. His further fate is bound up with that of the Communist League. Associated with Schapper were : (1) the shoemaker Heinrich Bauer, an extremely energetic Bavarian, who was likewise active in Paris in the French and German secret organizations; (2) the watchmaker Joseph Moll, born at Cologne in 1811 ; came to London in 1840 ; joined the Chartist movement (the physical force wing) ; fell in the Baven Revolution 18491 (3) Dr- Aug. Hermann Everbeck (pseudonym: Wendel Hipler) of Dantzig, who lived in Paris many years as a journalist,

29

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM yet was unable to traverse the road from Utopian to revolutionary communism; he translated Cabet's “ Icaria " into German ; (4) Dr. German Maurer, a Berlin higher teacher, who did not progress beyond the old school of communism, and from Paris wrote much in German newspapers; he lived later at Frankfort-on-Main. But the real thinker of the League in the years 1837-1844 was Wilhelm Weitling, an able and constructive mind and a selfless character —the only really great German communist of pre-Marxian times. He was born in Magdeburg on the 5th October, 1808, learned the trade of tailoring, left his native town in 1828, worked in Saxony and Vienna until 1835, and then travelled to Paris, where he joined the “League of the Just/' and most probably also the “ Families/' At the request of the “ League of the Just," he composed his first communist work : “ Man¬ kind as it is and as it ought to be " (1838). Following the example of Lamennais, it was written in biblical style and bore as its motto : “ And when Jesu saw the multi¬ tudes, he was moved with compassion for them. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES labourers are few.” The harvest, said Weitling, is mankind ripened for earthly perfection, and the community of goods is its fruit. Mankind ought to live together according to the law of Nature and Christian love. Weitling was not, however, content with a communist sermon, but sketched the constitution of a future communist society: the organization of mankind in families, leagues of families and circles, for the purpose of a common economy and autonomous administration : agriculture and industry to be managed by elected councils and the whole country administered by a council composed of the heads of the leagues of families. The critical and constructive ideas set forth in this work formed the basis of the whole Weitling propaganda ; his later writings : the “ Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom ” (1842) and “ The Gospel of the Poor Sinner ” (1843) are only elaborations of these ideas. Weitling had learnt much from Fourier, Owen, and Blanqui, but he had also thought a good deal for himself and worked on original lines ; he gave the German workers a distinct vision of the future, a plan of communist organization, and taught them the employment of the 3i

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM tactics of revolutionary dictatorship during the transitional period from individual property to communism. He had taken part in Blanqui's and Barbes’ attempted revolt (12th May, 1839) against the July Monarchy, from which it seems that he escaped unpunished, unlike Schapper, Bauer, and Moll, who had to expiate their partici¬ pation with a long period of detention. While the latter made for London after their release and formed the central authority of the League, Weitling repaired to Switzer¬ land to continue his agitation there: in the monthly periodical “ A Summons to the German Youth, published and edited by German workers ” (Geneva, 1841). A con¬ tinuation of this periodical appeared under the title “ The Younger Generation/' which Weitling conducted. In the programme of the Summons it was stated : “We German workers also want to lift up our voices on behalf of our cause and the cause of mankind, to convince people that we have a pretty clear perception of our interests, and, without puffing ourselves out with Latin, Greek, and artistic expressions, know well enough how to say in plain German where the shoe pinches 32

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES and what's what." Gutzkow, who quotes this extract in his Paris letters, found in one of the issues of the periodical in question a sketch of Paris in the year 2,000, which particularly interested him, and about which he wrote as follows : “ To transform Paris and the world in a few centuries so that money, soldiers, and nations are no more heard of, as well as the dazzling mirage of a radical transformation in the condition of the working class and a systematically organized community of goods, is so audacious that these ideas which are seizing hold of German artisans working in Paris and Swit¬ zerland ought not to be prohibited, but seriously argued against." The growth of communist agitation in Switzerland disquieted conservative circles, which caused the authorities to take action. In June, 1843, Weitling was arrested in Zurich. His manuscripts, letters, etc., were confiscated and handed over to the Govern¬ ment, which remitted them for examination to a commission, under the presidency of the wellknown constitutional lawyer, Bluntschli. The report, published in 1843—the so-called Bluntschli report—however hostile the motives which guided the pen of the reporter 33

c

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM —quickly became the best means of agitation for the communists, as it contained a collection of material, printed at the Government’s expense, which otherwise would have only been accessible to a few. On the basis of the report, Weitling was accused of blasphemy and attacks on property and sentenced to four months’ imprisonment. An appeal to the Supreme Court resulted in increasing the sentence to six months and subsequent expulsion from Switzerland. After serving his sentence, he was deported to Magdeburg, whence he travelled via Hamburg to London (where he lectured in Owenite circles), and then to Brussels and New York, where a branch of the League existed and was to be made by Weitling into the nucleus of an Emancipation League. 3. Weitling and the Revolutionary Dictatorship

The object of the Emancipation League was : “ the establishment of the democratic communist league of families.” It is demo¬ cratic, because the foundation of real democ¬ racy does not consist in universal suffrage and political-parliamentary manipulations, 34

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES but in the organization of labour and enjoyments, of rights and duties in the light of the communist objective. As this foundation can only be created by a revolution “ those fighters who make the revolution will first capture the provisional revolutionary suffrage, and in armed assemblies will select a provisional revolutionary government and revolutionary arbitrators for the establish¬ ment of the new order. Only those who are engaged in socially useful occupations and display industry, capacity, and love of order will then have the franchise. Capitalists, merchants, clergy, lawyers, lackeys and similar parasites will be excluded from the franchise.” The League of Families is neither a govern¬ ment nor a State, but a central adminis¬ tration, which will direct the exchange of the goods produced ; the individual branches of industry will be administered by the councils and committees of master-workmen who will settle wages and fix hours of labour, etc. After the victory of the social revolution, the revolutionary army will announce that henceforth the principles of the Emancipation League will govern the administration of 35

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the country. The proletariat will be armed, the inimical rich and the anti-revolutionaries will be disarmed ; law courts and police will be abolished; the people entitled to vote will elect their representatives to the vacant positions. Universal compulsory labour will be decreed ; extravagance and idleness will be punished as crimes. Money will only consist of labour tokens : certificates of labour, time expended and the type of labour exerted, which will be exchangeable for an equivalent quantity of goods from the public stores. The friendly rich who support the revolution in word and deed will receive a pension adequate to their usual standard of life. By means of the introduction of labourtokens as money, the anti-revolutionary rich will soon be compelled to place their property at the community’s disposal, as they will be unable to procure any food or enjoyments with their gold and silver. The whole of the able-bodied population will be grouped in industrial organizations, and will elect from their midst to represent their interests : committees of industry ; chambers of industry and a social parliament of the democraticcommunist family leagues. These bodies will determine in all districts the labour value 36

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES of the various products according to their quality and quantity. “ The provisional government will remain in office as long as the social war lasts, and during this time will be reinforced by supplementary elections, but the social war will last as long as in any corner of the earth crowns and moneybags rule, and with their accomplices dupe the people the better to exploit them.” 4. Weitling’s Latter Days

After the outbreak of the March Revolution (1848), Weitling came to Germany and attempted to carry on his activity in Berlin but in this he was unsuccessful. He then moved from Berlin to Hamburg, where he had many followers, but was thence expelled, whereupon he returned to New York. There he laboured for his ideas, and for the support of his family. Beset with cares and privations, occupied with all kinds of inventions, dis¬ coveries and projects, he lived more than twenty years longer and died on the 25th January, 1871. He was one of our greatest and our best, and sufficient justice has never been done to him. His acts were marred by an extreme self-consciousness, 37

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM which he had in common with Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Proudhon. On the other hand, he had the virtues of the Utopists: constructive gifts and a selfless, self-sacri¬ ficing character. It speaks much for Weitling’s greatness that his writings may be read with profit even to-day. 5. The “ Just ” become the Communist League

Schapper, Bauer, Mall and their comrades, who had been imprisoned for the part they took in the Paris revolt of the “ Saisons,” were released towards the end of 1839. They betook themselves to London, and on the 7th February, 1840, founded the German Workers Educational Union—afterwards known as the Communist Labour Educational Union—which became the centre of the communist agitation amongst the emigrant German workers. Several branches of the League were formed in London. They came into touch with the Chartist movement, and gradually became acquainted with the democratic, social and political trend of ideas as it developed in the course of the economic revolution and 38

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES in the course of modern English history. Here the League members came for the first time into contact with a publicly directed social-democratic Labour movement, and this also led to the establishment of an international association of the socialists and democrats who had found refuge in London. This was the “ Democratic Brotherhood,” which consisted of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Poles, etc., and which spread social revolutionary ideas by speech and writing. The German Labour Educa¬ tional Union likewise became a second home for all non-German socialist artisans and workers who were temporarily sojourning in London. From this vantage point, the central authority of the “ Just ” maintained communication with the comrades in Paris, Brussels, Switzerland, and Germany, and followed the progress of communist doctrines as elaborated in the Paris “ Vorwarts,” the Elberfelde “ Gesellschaftsspiegel/, and simi¬ lar publications, its attention being gradually drawn to the views spread by Marx and Engels. In addition, Friedrich Engels, who arrived in England at the end of 1842, was in touch with the central authority as well as with the Paris League branches, where

39

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the ideas of Cabet, Proudhon, and Weitling had the upper hand, and new conceptions were discouraged. Besides Everbeck, there were active in Paris Dr. Karl Grim and Moses Hess, The latter may be regarded as the real liaison member, the intellectual bridge between critical-Utopian and Marxian communism. Consequently he deserves a somewhat longer mention, and further refer¬ ence is made to him in the next chapter. The intellectual centre of the League was in London, where the essence and aims of communism were keenly discussed and investigated. The partly printed and partly lithographed correspondence which Marx sent from Brussels to members of the League assisted the Londoners to find their feet. Thus it came about that in November, 1846, the central authority (Schapper, Bauer, Moll), sent a circular to the members, clearly explaining the proletarian-communist ques¬ tions connected with the objects and methods, and these questions were expanded in a further circular dated February, 1847. In the meantime (January, 1847), the Londoners had sent their representative, Joseph Moll, to Marx and Engels at Brussels, in order to enlist their co-operation. 40

GERMAN REVOLUTIONARY SOCIETIES As this brings us to the eve of the composi¬ tion of the Communist Manifesto, (1848), we must glance at events in the German States between 1840 and 1847.

4i

Ill POLITICAL, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY (1840-1847)

K

i. Stormy Petrels ing

friedrich

wilhelm

hi.,

who had reigned in Prussia for over forty years, died in 1840; his successor was Friedrich Wilhelm IV. (1840—1858), a man of intellectual gifts, but unstable character, who sought to conciliate all tendencies, and quarrelled with all, as he lacked consistency, as well as insight into the position of the nation, or did not possess the strength to cast off the prejudices in which he was born and brought up. He had much goodwill, without, however, the steadfast purpose to carry it into effect. With such a character it is always the traditional prejudices which are the most firmly rooted, and, therefore, overcome all new ideas and perceptions. Upon the first beams of hope of the new era, which inspired with fresh courage the

42

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY intellectuals, the young Hegelians, and Young Germany, followed bitter disillusionment, which found strong expression in the political lyrics of Herwegh, Prutz, Sallet, Heine, and Freiligrath. In the forties, German political poetry reached a high level. Even more than the classical period at the end of the eighteenth century, it drew its strength from the rising tide of material prosperity and national consciousness, on the one hand, and from the political and intellectual oppression, on the other : Demagogues ; Jacobins, This people is getting ever bolder And the Young Hegelians Who search the heart of wisdom, Who criticize the sacred so audaciously, Announcing new truths to the world, And with wanton looks adore The shameless, sprightly stars, And reason, that naked whore, Proclaiming them the new gods ! Strauss and Feuerbach and Bauer Send through us a holy shudder. (Rudolf v. Gottschall). And to the overwise, who put their trust in organic development, from which

43

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM they expect everything, Friedrich von Sallet replies : You tell us : young men, whose blood is overheated, Renounce your enthusiastic dreams of freedom, The good only develops itself in the course of history ! Yet, is it history where nothing happens ? History means the storming of bastilles, And the Convention’s stormy debates. " The question of socialism,” wrote Karl Grim in the year 1845, “ is beginning to be a practical one, even for Germany. Journals which never betray a suspicion of it re-echo the pregnant words : rising of the proletariat, organization of labour, nationalization.” With remarkable rapidity the industrial development was reflected in poetry, which dealt both with the lights and with the shades of the new economic picture : And in the town’s steam-enveloped midst How the flame flares from a thousand chimneys, Unwinding itself in purest forms ! (Georg Weerth, Puttman’s “ Burgerbuch,” 1845)

44

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY

And in Austria, Karl Beck hailed the railways as a factor making for the brother¬ hood of nations : These tyres—nuptial ribbons, Betrothal rings—all shining from the foundry. Fondly the countries exchange them, And thus the marriage is concluded. Yet the economic picture revealed few lights in the German States. The poets, more or less inclined to social criticism, turned their attention to the modern poverty. In the first place, the social-critical tendency came from France. Heinrich Heine's Paris letters to the “ Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung ” (1841—1843) upon the political and social conditions in France gave rise to further study of French Socialism. Although Heine was primarily an artist and an aristocrat, his sensitive social-ethical conscience impelled him to devote his attention to French communism. Neither could the numerous German refugees who lived in Paris, and were engaged in journalism, avoid concerning themselves with the socialist literature and movement. In 1842 there appeared Dr.

45

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Lorenz von Stein’s “ Socialism and Com¬ munism in Modern France,” in which the class antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the people, which had been notorious since 1831, is admirably worked out. Stein’s work is strangely unequal; many parts are brilliantly written, others—particularly that relating to communism—might have been compiled by any police agent. In any case, it contributed a great deal to the spread of social-critical ideas in Germany. More effective still was the propa¬ ganda of Moses Hess, who, as we shall see in the following section, had been busy since 1839 in the endeavour to link up socialism with the intellectual activity of the young Hegelians. The revolt of the Silesian weavers in 1844 provided social poetry in Germany with a topical interest. Through their translations of English social poetry, Georg Weerth and Ferdinand Freiligrath acquainted the German reading public with the dark side of industry, “ the goddess of our time ” (Weerth). But Weerth had already perceived : Labour’s lot that no one minds to ease Is that which will roll the stone away.

46

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY In Austria Alfred Meissner and Karl Beck were arousing the social conscience:

Other children, a pale brood, I saw where the tall chimneys smoked And the iron wheels in the glow Stamping out a slow-timed dance.

Meissner also performed notable work in his “ Ziska,” in which he emphasized the social-ethical ideas of the Tabor Hussites. His faith in the eventual redemption of mankind from spiritual and material need was unshakeable : " And the promised hour shall come, when all the alien powers will fall down before the spirit. The spirit is poured out on the poorest and the least. It comes, it comes, the Pentecost promised by the new knowledge . . . And, as he approaches, the new saviour, who will break the heritage of sins and necessity, who will speak of the iust division of labour, who will extend equal fraternity towards all the children of man, then wilt thou arise, transfigured, engarlanded, more lovely even than the Christian cross.” Karl Beck, in the poem, " Why are we

47

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM poor ? ” rich :

makes the poor exclaim

to

the

We borrow and sorrow, you heap up the guilders, We fill the churches and pray and have patience, And this patience is aught but our endless guilt, And—therefore are we poor. Above all contemporary poets towers Heinrich Heine, this immortal poetic genius : Greek in his art, Jew in his social ethics : ^ If I had lived in Rome in the time of the Emperor Nero,” wrote Heine on the 15th June, 1843, to the ‘ Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung/ " and acted as correspondent for the General News journal of Boaetia, my colleagues would not seldom have chaffed me for omitting to report anything about, for example, the political intrigues of the Dowager Empress . . . and for constantly talking about those Galileans. . . . My wellinstructed colleagues would have laughed at me with particular irony if I had been unable to relate anything more important about Caesar's banquet than that some of those

48

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY Galileans were smeared with pitch and set fire to, and in such wise illuminated the gardens of the golden palace. But this witticism would have missed fire; those martyr torches emitted sparks whereby the Roman world and all its worm-eaten brilliance were consumed in flames.” Heine intends to indicate the importance of his news about the French communists. Three years before, in his book upon " Ludwig Borne ” (1840), Heine had observed : For me “ The most remarkable verses in the ‘ New Testament' are the 12th and 13th of John, chapter xvi. : ' I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you unto all the truth : for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak : and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come/ ” The last word has therefore not been said, and here, perhaps, is the link to which a new revelation will be attached. ~ It begins with the redemption of the world, makes an end of martyrdom, and establishes the kingdom of everlasting joy : the millennium.

49

D

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM At last all promises are amply fulfilled. It is the third gospel of social peace, of common labour, of fraternal co-operation : Upon the rock we shall build, The church of the third, The third new Testament; And all tears are wiped away. 2.

Social Criticism :

Hess, Grun

While the German journeymen artisans were bringing to Germany the socialistic doctrines of the Fourierists and Saint-Simonians, German thinkers were endeavouring to deduce socialism from German philosophy, from Hegel and Feuerbach, and to create a German socialism. The most important among them, until the appearance of Marx, was Moses Hess, the pioneer of socialism in the Rhineland. Hess was born in Bonn on the 21st January, 1812. In his parents’ house, in an atmosphere of Jewish piety and learning, the boy grew up, attended the school, and at the same time was directed by his grandfather to the coming of the Messiah. Meanwhile, his father had founded a sugar factory in Cologne, and in

5°

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY 1826 attempted to draw Moses into the business, and educate him as the future director of the firm. But the counting house did not appeal to the lad ; he wanted to study. Already he had read the writings of Spinoza, whither Jewish youths were wont to turn when they strayed from parental faith. In 1830 he attended for some time the University of Bonn, and seems to have thought a good deal about religious problems ; he read diligently the gospels and ecclesiastical history, cast off the orthodox Jewish prejudice against Christianity, whereby he became more and more alienated from his parents' house. He fled abroad, where he remained for some time, but was soon obliged to return, owing to his lack of means of support. It is not known whether during this journey he came into contact with social revolutionaries, and received from them the new tidings, the third gospel. It is, however, certain that from 1835 onwards he paid considerable attention to social-religious and Hegelian ideas ; the fruit of this reflection is his " Sacred History of Mankind ” (1837), in which the various epochs of history are treated in a mystical-religious manner as

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM stages in the development of mankind towards spiritual and material unity and harmony. The expression “ socialism " or “ communism " does not occur therein— plain speech was then very dangerous—Hess only refers to the “ new sacred constitution ," which would impart to mankind a conscious¬ ness of unity and of the “ holy people's State." Four years later he published “ The European Triarchy" (1841), wherein he expounded the idea that the salvation of mankind was dependent upon the union of German philosophy with the French revolutionary spirit and the English practical reforms. As already mentioned, the same year saw the appearance of Feuerbach's “ Essence of Christianity," which made a deep impression upon Hess, and soon enabled him to throw a bridge between German philosophy and socialism. It was only an emergency bridge, and did not last long, for Marx very soon appeared, and, with the help of the Hegelian dialectic, constructed his system which will be summarized in one of the following chapters. Hess deduced, or rather excogi¬ tated, socialism out of Feuerbach in the following manner : Feuerbach showed that religion was only a glorification of the spirit

52

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY of man ; the correct perception of God is the acknowledgment of the real man. To this Hess added: not the individual man, but the human species in its social relationship, in its social harmony of interests ; the real theology is benevolence and human co-operation. Or all religion is social ethics. It is easy to see that Hess's entire deduction was a forced one, but at that time (1841— 1845), it found support, because it brought socialism into connection with young Hegelian philosophy and religious criticism. It was Hess who inspired Friedrich Engels with these views, and introduced him to socialism when they met in Cologne towards the end of 1842. Hess was unable to convince Marx in this way. Marx was too well-read in philosophy to be imposed upon by mere hair-splitting. About that time Hess was a contributor to the “ Rheinische Zeitung,” which Marx edited. In the winter of 1842—3 Hess journeyed to Paris where he consorted with members of the League of the Just. Then he wrote for various German socialist periodicals, became a disciple of Marx in 1846, and in 1847 wrote for the “ Deutsch Brusseler Zeitung ” some brilliant articles upon " the consequence of the revolution of

53

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the proletariat/' which are much better than Engels' sketch of a communist manifesto. Hess’s essays read exactly like a populari¬ zation of many chapters of Marx’s Communist Manifesto, which, however, was not written until several months later ; they were most probably a product of the Lectures which Marx had delivered in 1847 to the Brussels Labour Association, and of the discussions which arose out of these lectures. The last two decades of Hess’s life were occupied with Jewish-national, socialdemocratic, and scientific questions. Hess was a thorough-going humane socialist, tolerant, peace-loving—a Nazarene. As a young man he had married a German prostitute, with whom he lived happily to the end of his life ; he treated her with invariable respect and love. Mourned by her and by his friends, he died in Paris on the 6th April, 1875. A follower of Hess was the above-mentioned Karl Grim (1813—1884) ; originally a philologist, then a journalist, writing upon humanitarian-socialistic subjects from 1844 onwards, he too found a temporary harbour in Paris, instructed Proudhon in German philosophy, consorted with Consid^rant and

54

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY Cabet, and from the Rhineland exercised a considerable influence. His socialism dis¬ solved in love : in benevolence and justice ; he also took Feuerbach for his starting point. Grim wrote: " The last result of the “ Essence of Christianity ” is this : love must take the place of faith ... The essence of Christianity is the heart, is love, of which it only remains to give a practical proof.”

35

IV KARL MARX

i.

His Significance

I

N the midst of the elaboration and propagation of the ideas and projects of French socialism, and the gropings after, and speculations upon, a philosophic basis for socialist ideas, Karl Marx was busy in Paris formulating his doctrines, which were to supplant all other socialistic systems, and to become the common property of all socialists and thinking proletarians. Since then socialism has become the concern of the working class, and the working class the chief concern of capitalist statescraft. Before Marx the proletariat was the Cinderella of politics, the object of the sympathy of sociologists; after Marx, it became a pretender to the Crown, a nascent ruling class, the destroyer of the old, and the builder of the next stage of society.

56

KARL MARX Before Marx socialism drew its strength from the Golden Age of prehistoric times, from natural law, from primitive Christianity, from humanitarian ideas, from social ethics. Since Marx socialism has been a proletarian¬ revolutionary policy of the present, aiming at the furtherance of all the material and intellectual tendencies of the body politic, which point to the socialization and working class control of the economic forces. Before Marx socialism represented the millennial hopes, which the dead and the pious in the land set upon the Third Testament; since Marx socialism has been the political and economic aim of great and growing militant parties and classes. Marx found socialism an article of belief or a dogmatic, fixed, eternally valid doctrine ; he made it a living force in the transition of society from private property to common property. The working class and socialism were formerly separated; Marx welded them together as body and soul; he breathed a soul into the proletariat. Intellectually, the modern proletariat is the monumental work of Marx. Only he was precluded from executing it in all its details.

57

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM This task, however incomplete it may be, was performed by Marx because he was able to see through all the confusing medley of phenomena and incidents, to penetrate to the essence of things, and to grasp the pervading principle of modern times. This penetrating glance, before which all masks, all phrases, all hypocrisies, all objective disturbances, all refractions were dissolved and dispersed like the mist before the sun, shows the genius of the intellectual hero. 2. Marx and the Hegelian Dialectic

Marx was born at Treves on the 5th May, 1818. His father was a lawyer, and came from a Rabbi family. In 1824 his parents were converted to Christianity. Karl attended the grammar school of his native town, then the universities of Bonn and Berlin, and in 1841 the degree of doctor of philosophy was conferred on him at Jena. He thought of settling in Bonn as a university tutor, but soon perceived the hopelessness of his plan. He became a journalist, then a contributor to the “ Rheinische Zeitung,” which was founded in Cologne in 1842, and finally the managing editor of this journal,

58

KARL MARX which, however, was persecuted and muzzled by the censor in consequence of Marx’s articles. Marx retired from the editorship in 1843, married Miss Jenny von Westphalen, and in the late autumn of 1843 removed to Paris, there to study socialism and to edit the “ Deutsch-Franzosischen Jahrbucher ” (Franco-German Annuals) in conjunction with Arnold Ruge, a young Hegelian publisher and politician. In this publication, only two issues of which appeared in 1844, are to be found the beginnings of Marxism, especially in the article “ A Contribution to the Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law.” We have already noted that Marx was distinguished from his predecessors by the fact that he brought together socialism, the militant working class, and social develop¬ ment, and welded these factors into a unified system. How did he come by these ideas ? When Marx came to Paris in 1843, he brought with him a thorough philosophical training, love of freedom, and the desire to study socialism. The mark of a cultivated mind is its facility in finding a direction ; it is the capacity of detecting what is essential amid diverse and manifold phenomena, and discovering the connections among

59

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM phenomena. This capacity Marx possessed in a high degree. What did he find in Paris ? A medley of socialist ideas, Fourierist projects and Saint-Simonian opinions, as well as proletarian-revolutionary traditions from the time of the French Revolution, of Babeuf's conspiracy, and Blanqui’s secret societies. It goes without saying that he was also acquainted with English Chartism, which had reached its zenith in 1842. These manifold phenomena he welded together with the assistance of the Hegelian dialectic, which, as he believed, revealed to him the funda¬ mental law of historical development. What is the Hegelian dialectic ? By dialectics the ancient Greeks understood the art of speech and rejoinder, the refutation of an opponent by the destruction of his assertions and proofs, the emphasizing of the contradictions and antagonisms. When examined closely, this method of discussion, in spite of all its contradictory and apparently negative (destructive) intellectual effects, is seen to be very useful, because, out of the clash of opposing opinions, it brings forth the truth and stimulates to deeper thought. G. W. F. Hegel (born at Stuttgart, 1770, died at Berlin, 1831), a German philosopher

60

KARL MARX and mystic, who introduced the idea of development into logic, seized hold of this expression dialectics, and named his logical method after it. According to this method, each of our ideas has its opposite or contradiction, or every positive has its negation. This fact very easily escapes superficial observation. The latter, it is true, remarks that the world is filled with various things, for where anything is, there also is its opposite, e.g. existence— non-existence, cold—heat, light—darkness, mildness—harshness, pleasure—pain, j oy— sorrow, wealth—poverty, virtue—vice, idealism—materialism, realism—nominalism, classicism—romanticism, etc., but superficial thought does not realize that it is faced with a world of contradictions and antitheses. It is only active and critical reason that reduces the mere multiplicity and diversity of phenomena to antitheses, to contradictions, to a clash of the negative with the positive. It is only when this clash, this struggle of contradictories, takes place that there arises something higher. What Hegel understands by contradiction is not the result of confu¬ sion : it is not obscure and self-contradictory thinking, but external antagonisms : in course

61

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM of time right becomes wrong, the useful becomes the harmful, laws and institutions become obsolete and fall into conflict with the living interests, and new ideas of society ; consequently social struggles arise in order to bring the laws and institutions into harmony with the new interests and ideas, and to reach a higher social stage. This higher stage is called by Hegel: the negation of the negation or the synthesis. In order to understand this more distinctly, and to visualize it, let us consider an egg. It is something positive, but it contains a germ, which, quickening into life, gradually consumes (i.e. negatives), the contents of the egg. This negation is, however, no mere destruction and annihilation ; on the contrary, it results in the germ developing into a living thing. The negation being complete, the chick breaks through the egg shell. This represents the negation of the negation, whereby something organically higher than an egg has arisen. According to Hegel, the most important factor in the life process (or in the develop¬ ment of ideas and things and beings), is the quickening of the negative forces, the emergence of contradictory, antithetical factors. " Contradiction is the root of all

62

KARL MARX movement and life ; only in so far as anything contains within itself a contradiction does it move and have momentum and activity/’ to quote Hegel’s own words. Only through their differentiation and unfolding as opposing forces and factors, is progress beyond the antithesis to a higher positive stage made possible. Where, however, said Hegel, the power to develop the contradiction, and bring it to a head is lacking, the thing or the being is shattered on the contradiction. If we rightly understand this dialectical conception of the world, we shall also under¬ stand the essence of Marxism. It goes without saying that Hegel, the greatest and most German of all German philosophers, did not describe his method in such simple words as we have used here. For Hegel was an idealist: the idea, the spiritual, the absolute, the divine, was for him the original (the primary), self-propelling force, which develops itself and at the same time the world as its outward garment from stage to stage until it becomes divine in man. According to Hegel, all the vicissitudes of world and human history constitute a process of development of the world spirit from the stage of the idea (of simple thought) to that 63

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM of the divinity. According to Hegel, we may speak of a divine development in history, that is, God himself is contained in the development, and his highest expression is man. This is the culminating point of German mysticism. But all this does not concern us here. All we need do is to understand Hegel's dialectical method, for it will make the doctrines of Marx clear to us. In line with the whole tendency of German thought, which began to turn away from idealism in 1830, and gradually became materialistic, Marx also was converted to materialism in the years 1840 and 1841. The primary and propelling force was not the spiritual, but the material, and its indwelling forces constituted the primary and developing force. And this development was accom¬ plished by means of the clash of opposites, With these ideas Marx came to Paris. He threw himself, with all his energy, into the study of French socialism, and the French Labour movement. With the aid of the dialectic, he immediately perceived in the proletariat, the negation of the existing order, and in its struggles for socialism the higher synthesis. The positive was manifestly the existing economic order, based on private

64

KARL MARX property and competition, against which was directed the struggle, the opposite, the con¬ tradiction. The dialectic taught Marx that this struggle should be assisted, that out of this struggle, when accentuated and carried to a conclusion, a higher stage of social life must arise. Here we have already the fundamental sociological doctrines of Marx : unbridgeable antagonism between the supporters of the old order (of the positive, of private property) and the supporters of the nascent order (of the synthesis, of socialism). But who were these supporters ? Not some eminent individuals or groups of people, who for ideal reasons (the dictates of logic or moral motives) inclined to one or other of these opinions, but classes with special economic interests standing to each other in a relation of antagonism which cannot be bridged, but must be fought out. We may remember what ideas were abroad in France in 1837 : economics were already attempting to supplant liberal ideology, the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the “ people ” (the proletariat), between capital and labour, was then a familiar idea, and the phenomenon of the concentration of capital and the 65

E

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM disappearance of the industrious middle-class were no longer novelties to the socialists— if we recall all this, we shall the more readily comprehend how, with the aid of his dialectic, Marx welded this complex of phenomena into a firm and socialist philosophical whole. It blazed out for him a road to travel by : the study of political economy, the analysis of the capitalist economic order, the investi¬ gation of the role of the proletariat and of the forces which are developing in the womb of the old society and leading to a higher social stage. In Marx's articles and the “ FrancoGerman Annuals " (1844) the basic features of his later work are already indicated. He developed them a year later in the " Holy Family," and clearly and decisively in the “ Misere de la Philosophie " (Brussels, 1847), directed against Proudhon, and soon after¬ wards in the " Communist Manifesto," which he drafted in December, 1847, an(t January, 1848. 3.

The

Materialist

Conception

of

History

The study of political economy, of the origin and development of capital absorbed 66

KARL MARX him more and more, for he had become convinced that political economy constitutes the foundation of middle-class society, and that the intellectual movements are the expression of the economic movements. We will explain this conception of history more fully : A glance over human history suffices to teach us that from age to age men have held to be true or false various opinions on law, morality, religion, the State, philosophy, agriculture, commerce, industry, and so on, that they have had various economic institutions, forms of society and of the State, and that they have passed through an endless series of struggles and wars and migrations. How has this complicated variety of human thought and action come about ? Marx raises this question, which, so far as he is concerned, does not relate in the first place to the discovery of the origin of thought, of law, of religion, of society, of trade, etc. ; these he takes to be historically given. He is rather concerned to find out the causes, the impulses, or the springs which produce the changes and revolutions in the essentials and forms of the intellectual and social phenomena, or which create the

67

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM tendencies thereto. In a word: what interested Marx here was not the origin, but the dialectic (development and change) of things—the revolutionary element in history. Marx answered : The driving forces of human society, which produce the changes in human consciousness and thought, or which cause the various social institutions and conflicts to arise, do not originate, in the first place, from thought, from the Idea, from the world-reason or the world-spirit, but from the material conditions of life. The basis of human history is therefore material. The material conditions of life—that is, the manner in which men as social beings, with the aid of environing Nature, and of their own in-dwelling physical and intellectual qualities, shape their material life, provide for their sustenance, and produce, distribute and exchange the necessary goods for the satisfaction of their needs. The most important of all the departments of material life is the production of the means of life. And this is determined by the nature of the productive forces, which are of two kinds : inanimate and personal. The inanimate productive forces are : soil, water, 68

KARL MARX climate, raw materials, tools and machines. The personal productive forces are : labourers, inventors, discoverers, engineers, and finally, the qualities of the race—the inherited capacities of specific groups of men, which facilitate work. The foremost place among the productive forces is occupied by the manual and brain workers; they are the real creators of exchange-value in capitalist society. The next place of importance is taken by modern technology, which is an eminently revo¬ lutionizing force in society. (“ Capital/' i., chapters 12, 13, and 14, “ Poverty of Philosophy ”). If the productive forces expand, owing to the greater skill of the worker, discoveries of new raw materials, mineral deposits and markets, inventions of new methods, tools and machines, the application of science to production, or the better organization and extension of trade and commerce, so that the material basis or the economic foundation of society is altered, then the old conditions of production cease to promote the interests of production. For the conditions of production : the former social classes, the former laws, State institutions, and intel69

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM lectual systems were adapted to a state of the productive forces which is either in process of disappearing or no longer exists. The social and intellectual superstructure is no longer adequate to the economic foundation. The productive forces and the conditions of production have come into conflict. This conflict between the new reality and the old form, this conflict between new causes and the obsolete effects of bygone causes, gradually begins to influence the thoughts of men. Men commence to feel that they are confronted with a new external world, and that a new era has been opened. Social divisions acquire a new significance : classes and sections which were formerly despised, gain in social and economic power ; classes which were formerly honoured decline. While this transformation of the social founda¬ tion is proceeding, the old religious, legal, philosophical and political systems cling to their inherited positions, and insist on remaining, although they are obsolete and can no longer satisfy intellectual needs. For human thought is conservative: it follows external events slowly, just as our eye perceives the sun at a point which the 70

KARL MARX sun has in reality already passed, as the rays require several minutes of time in order to strike our optic nerves. We may recall Hegel's fine metaphor: " The Owl of Minerva begins its flight only when twilight gathers.” However late, it does begin. Great thinkers gradually arise, who explain the new situation, and create new ideas and trains of thought which correspond to the new situation. Human consciousness gives birth to anxious doubts and questionings, and then new truths ; leading to differences of opinion, disputes, strifes, schisms, class struggles, and revolutions. 4.

The Class Struggle

One of the most important contributions of Marx to the understanding of historical processes is his conception of social classes and class struggles. A social group of men, who bear the mark of common economic characteristics, forms a class. Those groups of men, whose chief source of livelihood is wages, form the working class. Men whose most important source of livelihood is profit, interest, and rent, form the capitalist class. Between these two classes there exist profound 7i

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM unbridgeable antagonisms of an economic nature, relating to remuneration and the organization of society. Out of the original antagonism over wages and working hours, there develops in course of time, and with the growth in the intelligence of the proletariat a passionate contest between the two classes concerning the economic order : the capitalist class strives to maintain the existing order, the proletariat strives to reorganize economic and social life upon socialist lines. Great social class struggles inevitably become political struggles. The immediate object is the possession of the State power, with the assistance of which the capitalist class attempts to maintain its position, whilst the proletariat aims at the seizure of State power, in order to utilize it for the realization of its remoter aims. According to Marx, this struggle must sooner or later end with the victory of the working class, which during the period of transition from private property to the socialist order will form a dictatorial government and gradually transform society. Marx was the first to use the expression “ proletarian dictatorship ” (“ Class Struggles in France, 1848,” pp. 98 et seq.), written 72

KARL MARX in 1850 ; two years later (in a letter to Weydemeyer, New York), Marx acknow¬ ledged himself the author of the idea “ that the class struggle leads to a dictatorship of the proletariat; ” finally in the Criticism of the Gotha Programme (contained in a letter addressed by him in the year 1875 to the Executive Committee of the German Social Democracy) he regarded the dictatorship of the proletariat as the State power of the period of transition or the revolutionary period proper. 5.

The Essence of His Economics

The chief economic problem which Marx set himself to explain was : What is the driving force and the goal of capitalist economy, and what causes the enormous increase in wealth ? These problems were dealt with in his “ Capital ” (3 volumes, 1867—1894).

He answered: Wealth is the mass of useful goods which a nation produces. Normally capitalist economy creates more goods each year than during the preceding year. This surplus is accumulated, and creates another surplus, and so on ; in this way wealth increases. 73

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM But who creates this surplus ? Which group of men, which class is it that increases wealth ? In order to be able to answer this question, Marx investigates the nature of value. More¬ over, wealth is measured according to value. But what is value ? Marx does not speculate at large, but looks around the manufacturer's counting-house to discover how values are fixed there. And he perceives that the manufacturer makes the costs of production the basis of value. But what are the costs of production ? Costs of production are the expenditure for raw materials, the use of buildings, machines and tools, salaries and wages, and, finally, the usual profit which is added to the commodity. According to Marx only the living labour that is applied to the production and transport of raw materials is creative of value. The socially-necessary manual and brain labour applied to production and the transport of raw materials to the places of production is the source and the measure of value. The remuneration which this valuebegetting labour receives always falls below the magnitude of the values created, so that, generally speaking, productive labour creates

74

KARL MARX more value for the manufacturer than he assigns to it in the form of remuneration. This distinction is the source of surplus value, from which the manufacturer derives his profit, the banker his interest, the land¬ lord his rent, the middleman his commission, the shopkeeper his livelihood. For, the individual manufacturer does not receive the surplus-value created in his factory, as he is obliged to adapt his arrange¬ ments to the world market, to competition. If, for example, the surplus-value created in his factory amounts to fifty per cent., whereas the surplus-value of other manufacturers amounts to sixty, forty, thirty, etc. per cent., market prices will yield an average profit of about 45 per cent. If, therefore, productive labour forms the measure of value, it is clear that the less productive manual and brain labour that is embodied in an article, the smaller is its value. This is actually the case when human labour is supplanted by machinery: in normal times commodities become cheaper. The less human labour there is in an article, the less is the surplus-value, and the less the profit on each article. The rate of profit falls. To counteract this fall, the capitalist

75

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM resorts to mass production, which, however, involves large quantities of raw materials, bigger and finer machines, as well as additional accommodation. These requisites can only be provided by great capitalists and jointstock companies, while the small industrialists and handicraftsmen, who lack capital, are ruined. A process of concentration and centralization pervades the economic life, which widens and deepens the gulf between the classes and polarizes society into a handful of magnates and a great majority of property¬ less persons, multitudes of proletarians in the centres of industry, and in this way strengthens their organization, stimulates their class consciousness, and accentuates the class struggle until it reaches revolutionary boiling point. The last act of this drama is the expro¬ priation of the capitalists by the masses of the people, who place the means of production under the management and control of the entire nation and realize economic democracy. Only, as above stated, an intermediate stage must be interposed, during which the proletarian dictatorship consciously directs the process of transformation and removes all hindrances thereto.

76

KARL MARX 6. Evolution and Revolution. In Marx's mind there is no antagonism between revolution and evolution. Just as little as with Hegel. The Hegelian dialectic is as rounded off and as homo¬ geneous as the whole life's work of Marx. The Communist Manifesto is not less evolutionary than " Capital" or the “ Criticism of Political Economy," and con¬ trariwise : “ Capital " is not less revolutionary than the “ Communist Manifesto." What does this mean ? The Hegelian dialectic is evolution through struggle and the accentuation of contradictions by active reason. Not an automatic, peaceful, and quiet process of becoming, growth, adaptation, but a working out of the negation which transforms the positive in destroying it. The whole effect of negation is revolutionary to the point where the negation of the negation emerges. This is the essence of the Hegelian logic, the discovery of contradictions (antagonisms) in cosmic and social evolution, the struggle of these contradictions, in which the old positive is dissolved. The Hegelian dialectic is evolution with revolutionary instruments.

77

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM And so it is with Marx's socialist dialectic. The reader of a Marxian work must above all be clear as to the subject dealt with : whether an objective process, economic development, analysis of capitalist production and circulation—or whether the activity of the proletariat. The economic process is the evolutionary material, the activity of the proletariat and its leaders is the revolutionary re-shaping. In the “ Communist Manifesto ” or in the demands of the Communist League the proletariat is the subject that is handled. Consequently, the revolutionary factor is sharply emphasized. Marx appears in this aspect as the thinker of revolution. Capitalist economy is the subject-matter of “ Capital." Consequently, the evolutionary factor steps into the foreground. Marx appears in this aspect as an analyst of economic development. The role which Hegel, in his “ Logic ” ascribes to active reason, viz. : the accentua¬ tion of contradictions, this role Marx allots to the class-conscious, self-sacrificing van¬ guard—the latter must stimulate to the utmost the class struggle of the proletariat which arises from the conditions of production.

78

KARL MARX In the view of both Hegel and Marx, the clash of contradictions and the accentuation of antagonisms are the most effective means for the development of life and the thorough working out of all the universal forces. Evolution, with the assistance of revo¬ lutionary means : socio-economic perception and social-revolutionary action—such is the testament of Karl Marx (I). 7.

Friendship with Friedrich Engels

Marx’s adjutant was Engels—a man of great knowledge and ability, yet only a person of talent, like Hess, Griin, Liming, Proudhon, Blanc, etc. ; his eminent position in the history of socialism he owes to early attach¬ ment to Marx, whose genius he at once estimated at its full worth, whose work he furthered, both intellectually and materially, at the cost of great sacrifice during his long (L) The further life story of Marx is so well-known, that the following indications may suffice : Marx lived in Paris until 1845, was then expelled, settled in Brussels, where he lived until the 1st March, 1848. From the beginning of March until the end of May, die was in Paris, and in 1848—1849 in Cologne as editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, then for some months in Paris ; at the end of 1849, he sought refuge in London, where he remained until his death (14th March, 1883). Here he wrote his economic work “ Capital.”

79

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM life, and whose friendship he clung to with a jealousy that sprang from profound intel¬ lectual love. Engels was born in Barmen-Eberfeld in 1820 ; his father was a manufacturer and a pious evangelical Christian. He enjoyed a very good grammar school education, then entered business life, passed through a religious crisis, became a young Hegelian and an atheist, and then—through the influence of Moses Hess—a socialist. He began his journalistic career before he was twenty years old, and wrote upon Young German and patriotic lines. At the end of 1842 he was sent to his father’s factory at Manchester, whence he wrote about English conditions for the “ Rheinische Zeitung,” he became acquainted with the Chartist and Owenite leaders, and commenced to write for their organs ; at the same time he composed a criticism of political economy, from the standpoint of social ethics, which Marx published in the “ Franco-German Annuals ” “ Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbticher ” (1844), and which led to the life¬ long friendship of both. In 1845, he published a sociological work : “ The Condition of the Working Class in England,” and at the same

80

KARL MARX time was active on behalf of communism in Paris, Brussels, and in the Rhineland ; he supplied a few contributions to “ The Holy Family/' a settling of accounts by Marx with his Young Hegelian friends who had remained at the stage of liberalism. In 1847 he wrote the draft of a communist manifesto, and was one of the founders of the Communist League. Henceforth his intellectual life was bound up with that of Marx ; he was collaborator on the “ Neue Rheinische Zeitung ’’ (“ New Rhenish Gazette ”), (1848—49) ; took part in the Bavarian revolt (1849), worked on the “ Neue Rheinische Revue," (“ New Rhenish Review ”), (London, 1850) ; from 1850 to 1869 he was engaged in business in Manchester, in his father’s English factory, during which time he read chiefly books on military subjects and the natural sciences ; he supported Marx generously with money and English news¬ paper articles. From 1870 onwards he lived near Marx in London, wrote with Marx’s help the “ Anti-Diihring ’’ (1877). After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels edited the second and third volumes of “ Capital ’’ ; wrote a number of ethnological, philosophical and political treatises, and died in 1895. 81

F

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM 8.

Foundation and

Programme of The

Communist League

Since 1845, Marx and Engels had been spreading their newly hatched ideas among the members of the League of the Just. The novelty consisted in the fact that communism was no ready-made plan for a social order, which was to be established with the assist¬ ance of powerful philanthropists or by the foundation of colonies, but that communism signified the organization of the working class as an independent political party, which would use revolutionary means to seize the State power, for the purpose of re-organizing the social order on communist lines. These ideas took root sooner than elsewhere in London, where the Chartists were likewise striv¬ ing to realize social reforms through democracy. At the end of January, 1847, the Executive Committee of the League sent Josef Moll to Brussels, to invite Marx and Engels to join the League, and to discuss the situation with them. The League convened a confer¬ ence in London on the 1st June, 1847, in which Engels and Wilhelm Wolff (as the representative of Marx) took part. In September, the Executive Committee issued

82

KARL MARX the first number of the “ Communist Magazine/' under the editorship of Karl Schapper, which bore the motto : “ Prole¬ tarians of all countries unite." The League of the Just was transformed into the Communist League, and held its conference from the 30th November to the 8th December, 1847. Marx was present, and, in conjunction was Engels, was instructed to write the communist manifesto. The most important points of the programme then drawn up and accepted were : Article 1. The object of the League is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old middle-class society, based upon class rule, and the establishment of a new society without classes and without private property. Article 2. The conditions of membership are : (a) a mode of life and activity corre¬ sponding to this object; (b) revolutionary energy and enthusiasm in propaganda ; (c) avowal of communism ; (d) abstinence from participation in any anti-communist, political or national society ; (e) submission to the resolutions of the League; (/) silence concerning all League business ; (g) unanimous acceptance in the branch. 83

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Article 3. All members are equal and brothers, and as such owe assistance in every situation. Then come organization rules. Marx returned to Brussels, wrote the manifesto, sent the manuscript to London, where it was printed. It was scarcely out of the press when the revolution broke out in Paris, and soon found an echo in all the German States. 9.

Communist Reaction upon Germany : Stefan Born, Mentel

German workers, who had worked in Brussels, Paris, and London brought the new tidings home. Berlin, Cologne, and Breslau were the first German towns in which communist ideas found admission. Journey¬ men home from their travels became members of the artisans’ and journeymen’s unions, and were busy spreading the new ideas. We learn of this activity in Berlin from the trial of Mentel, which took place in 1846—47 in Berlin, and also from Born, who was active in the years 1848 and 1849 *n Berlin and Leipzig, partly on the lines laid down by Marx. Stefan Born was born of Jewish parents in Lissa in 1824. For a short time he attended 84

KARL MARX the grammar school, but, owing to his father's unfavourable material position, was obliged to enter a trade, and in 1840 joined a Berlin printing works as a compositor's apprentice. However, he utilized his spare time for the continuance of his studies, so that when he came out of his time in 1846 he was a good writer and a well-educated man generally. Stimulated by the new communist ideas, he repaired to Paris, then to Brussels, where he found employment in the office of the “ Deutsche Brusseler Zeitung." Here he became acquainted with Marx, whose doctrines he absorbed to some extent, while as a practical man he turned his attention to the ideas of productive co-operation (Louis Blanc). Born was tactful, moderate, inclined to “ revisionism," a good speaker and organizer, and a very courageous barricade fighter. In 1848 he was, as we shall soon see, the most important personality among the workers of Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden. After 1849 he withdrew from the movement, lived in Switzerland as a printer, co-operator, editor, and professor of French literature in Basle, and in the last years of his life published “1 Recollections of a Forty-Eighter " (1898).

85

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Born was first interested in communism in 1846 by the journeyman tailor, Christian Friedrich Mentel, a born Berliner, who was engaged in his trade in various towns of Western Europe between 1840 and 1845, returning in 1846 to his native town. Mentel soon joined the Artisans Union, and sought secretly for comrades to whom he could impart his new doctrines. Born gives the following account of Mentel’s activity in his “ Recollections of a Forty-Eighter ” : “ An emissary of this kind, named Mentel, cautiously sought to secure members for his secret association. ... I was initiated into his secrets by the shoemaker Haetzel, a restless individual, whose support he had gained. He did not belong to the tendency represented by the tailor Weitling who had appeared in Switzerland ; he talked rather about a secret Labour Union which had set itself the aim of achieving the emancipation of the proletariat from the chains of capitalism on the basis of the political free¬ dom which had first to be acquired. From Mentel’s somewhat confused exposition I gathered that he represented the opinion that the historical process of the imminent new age should always be kept in mind, that

86

KARL MARX it was not a question of a new State being hatched in the head of a journeyman tailor like Weitling, but of supporting the party which had arisen with historical necessity out of the existing conditions, and which regarded the familiar Liberalism as an inter¬ mediate stage to be passed, a stage which it had left far behind theoretically. This fully enlightened me.” The organization founded by Mentel was soon denounced and dissolved by the police at the end of 1846, the leaders being imprisoned and prosecuted. After suffering a long period of detention, Mentel, Haetzel, and their comrades were either sentenced to short terms of imprison¬ ment or acquitted by the Berlin Courts in June, 1847.

87

V GERMAN CONSERVATIVE SOCIAL REFORM i. Romantic Personalities

S

imultaneously

with

democratic

socialism and Marxian communism there arose a social reform movement, which, while adopting a critical attitude towards liberalism in politics and individualism in economics, aimed not at communism, but at a modernized mediaeval order or a social monarchy. The representatives of institutions based on authority, clergymen, nobles, guild masters, romantic thinkers and poets, could not accept ideas and demands and economic practices which were based on individual freedom of judgment and of action—without regard to the church, the State, and the community, and placed egoism and self-interest before subordination, commonalty, and social soli¬ darity. The modem era seemed to them to 88

GERMAN SOCIAL REFORM be built on quicksands, to be chaos, anarchy, or an utterly unmoral and godless outburst of intellectual and economic forces, which must inevitably lead to acute social antag¬ onisms, to extremes of wealth and poverty, and to an universal upheaval. In this frame of mind, the Middle Ages, with its firm order in church, economic and social life, its faith in God, its feudal tenures, its cloisters its autonomous associations and its guilds, appeared to these thinkers like a well-com¬ pacted building, a finely-knit organism, in which every Christian had his place, in which everybody was almost rooted and as a member of his association drew his susten¬ ance from the general soil. Or they regarded the State, the monarchy, as the fixed pole and the firm support in the flux of phenomena. Eagerly these thinkers and poets listened to the complaints of the proletariat, to the sharp critical tones of the socialists and communists, to the rebellious, revolutionary murmurs of the underworld. They interpreted these phenomena as symptoms of disintegration, as the inevitable consequences of the liberal, dissolvent influence in the body politic and the State, and as an appeal to all Christians, 89

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM ethical economists and monarchical politicians to oppose the liberal capiatlist world, to show the proletariat the remedy for poverty, and to re-organize society upon a Christian, ethicoreligious, communal and authoritarian founda¬ tion. To this social conservative tendency belonged a number of eminent writers, lawyers, and poets, but very few important economists. It did not produce any homo¬ geneous system of thought; some opposed Adam Smith and his doctrines of economic freedom; others opposed the absolute, centralizing State, which suppressed all autonomous associations ; others again ideal¬ ized the Middle Ages, the Germanic law, the Catholic Church, and conceived an un¬ conquerable aversion for Liberals and Jews (Anti-Semitism). Two men only made an attempt to create a system of social conser¬ vative economics: Karl Winkelblech (pseudonym: Mario) and Karl Rodbertus. Their influence upon practical politics was inconsiderable, but they were persons of ability, noble characters, and one of them —Mario—conducted a propaganda in 1848 among the artisans and journeymen’s con¬ gresses, whereas Rodbertus exerted some 90

GERMAN SOCIAL REFORM influence upon Ferdinand Lassalle and the Christian social movement. 2.

Marlo Winkelblech

Whereas Marx was a Western European and pursued his social investigations in an evolutionary spirit, inasmuch as he conceived the past phases of human history as being justified at their time, and regarded capitalism and the free play of economic forces and unrestricted competition among individuals not as chaos, but as an advance upon the past, as the potent transformer of the present, and as the unfolding future—whereas Marx looked ahead for the emergence of the socialist stage of economy, Mario was pre¬ occupied with adapting medieval-Germanic law, or the society based upon the principle of a well-compacted community and voca¬ tional subordination, with all its privileges and evils swept away, to modern conditions. Instead of industrial freedom—a rigid order of industry ; instead of free competition— the guilds; instead of individuals invested with economic freedom—the organization of the whole of economic life, works and indus¬ tries in economic communities. What was 9*

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM required was neither Liberalism nor Communism, neither the bourgeoisie, eager and striving for State power and national wealth, nor the proletariat, which in its revolutionary fury would make everyone equal and would lay everything in ruins; neither the State, which centralizes everything, nor the bureaucracy, which reduces every¬ thing to a level of mediocrity and deadens all initiative, but creative, economically autonomous and living communities. Mario’s ideal was a modernized Middle Age : com¬ posed of the organization of the whole economic life in guilds and corporations, where masters and journeymen would stand on the footing of social equality, where prices and wages would be fixed jointly by committees of masters and journeymen, where chambers of industry would regulate the purchase and distribution of raw materials and orders, and where a social parliament, consisting of the chiefs of the guilds and corporations, would discuss all economic legislation and submit it to the political parliament for approval. Likewise a Labour Ministry would set to work all persons who are unemployed, as the right to work must be secured to everybody who is willing to 92

GERMAN SOCIAL REFORM work. Although private property in the means of production would continue to exist, it could not be abandoned absolutely and unconditionally to the owner, in the sense of Roman law, but would be bound up with obligations of service to the community in the sense of Christian-Germanic law. By way of distinction from the mediaeval order, democratic equality would henceforth prevail and all privileges would be abolished. The whole production of a country would be based upon the needs of the country. Mario called his system federal socialism, the separate productive associations were to administer their own affairs and remain in a federal relation with each other, instead of being managed by the State on centralized lines. Mario (Karl Winkelblech) was born in 1810 in Ensheim (Baden), studied chemistry in Marburgand Giessen (under Liebig), was lecturer on chemistry in Marburg from 1836 to 1839, and in 1839 was appointed professor of technological chemistry at the higher technical school of Kassel. He spent a few months in Paris in 1838 and 1839; in 1843 he travelled through Northern Europe for purposes of study, and also visited the then famous cobalt factory at Modum

93

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM (Norway), admiring the machinery as well as the landscape beauties of the neighbour¬ hood, until a German worker who had been employed there described to him the poverty of the factory proletariat. Mario relates : “ Like so many scientists, I had previously directed my attention in the workshops of industry only to the furnaces and machines, and not to the men ; only to the products of human industry and not to the producers. Consequently, I was entirely unaware of the great realm of poverty which forms the foundation of our painted civilization. The convincing words of the worker caused me to feel the whole futility of my scientific endeavours, and in a few moments the resolution was taken to investigate the causes of the sufferings of our generation and to remedy them.” He kept his resolution ; he took a special interest in the German artisans. Mario’s merit as a political economist consists in his analysis of various economic systems from ancient times up to 1850 He was not acquainted with the modern communism of Marx, and had he been familiar with it, he would doubtless have rejected it, as Mario took his stand upon

94

GERMAN SOCIAL REFORM

the community, and not upon political and economic class struggles. In his opinion, the workers ought to confine themselves to social problems. Mario’s social conception “ rejected all heathen principles, and based itself on Christian. It comprised all the moral institutions of the Middle Ages in a high state of perfection; it has all its enchantment without its dark sides; its romance without its barbarism. With its guilds, municipalities, business associations, and families, it forms a great co-operative commonwealth, in which the interest of all its members coincide with that of the community.” We shall meet Mario again later as the intellectual leader of the artisans and journeymen 1848-49. 3. Karl Johann Rodbertus

Rodbertus had intellectual affinities both with Mario and with Marx, albeit the differ¬ ences between them are very considerable. With Mario, Rodbertus shared opposition to_Roman Law, to capitalism, to the splitting up of society into economic individuals; both regarded the community as the life force of human society ; both separated the 95

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM social question from politics. Rodbertus held in common with Marx the labour theory of value and the conception of the concen¬ tration of capital. From Mario-Winkelblech Rodbertus differentiated himself by his abso¬ lute rejection of “ all attempts to galvanize the guilds into life,” as well as by his reverence for the State and centralization: by his assumption that the State was now invested with sufficient power to enforce the distri¬ bution of the product in the workers’ favour. Rodbertus was born in 1805 in Greifswald, where his father was a professor of Roman Law. After leaving the grammar school, he studied law at Gottingen and Berlin, then entered the State service, travelled, purchased the property of Jagetzow (Pommerania), devoted himself to his economic and historical studies, occupied various positions, and in 1839 commenced to write upon social reform subjects. In 1842 he published the first instalment of an ambitious work: "A Contribution to the Understanding of our Economic Condi¬ tions,” which, however, did not evoke much interest. In 1848 he became Minister for Education, but resigned the post after a few weeks. Later he became a supporter 96

GERMAN SOCIAL REFORM of Bismarck, published a large number of articles, wrote the four “ Social Letters to Kirchmann,” consorted in 1862-1864 with Ferdinand Lassalle, ten years later with Hasenclever, the leader of the Lassalleans ; after 1872 he adopted a critical attitude towards Bismarck, comdemned his home policy and predicted his eventual defeat upon the social question. In the last years of his life (1874-75) he thought of coming forward as a socialist candidate, he died, however, in December 1875. According to Rodbertus, the secular driving force of society does not consist in mind or even in will, but in life itself. What he means by this is that human society is not driven forward by conscious forces, but by irrational forces or the urge of life. The soul of this social life is the community. Language and science are based upon com¬ munity of mind; morality and law upon community of will; labour and economy upon community of the existing material forces. It is not the individual or private property or personal freedom, but the human community of spiritual and material goods that is the soul of society. Individual freedom or liberalism has only a negative

97

G

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM significance : freedom disintegrates and clears away the incomplete communistic forms, in order to make room for other, new, more complete communistic forms. Human society is progressing towards communal economy, from the tribal order to the State order, and finally to the unified organization of human society—to the society of the future. In our time the absolute economic freedom of the individual leads to antagonisms: to the growing wealth of a minority, and the growing impoverishment of the working classes. For economic life is dominated not by labour, but by ownership. Egoism becomes a virtue; competition leads not to fortune of the best, but to the gains of speculators. Capital is organized in societies, which forms a State within a State: it gains possession of the State power; it condemns the artisans and wage workers to impoverishment. The evil of pauperism is accompanied by the periodical economic crises, which have a devastating effect upon the less fortunate members of society, all the more so as, in consequence of the iron law of wages, the working classes receive as wages only the minimum of food necessary for their bare subsistence, while the whole

98

GERMAN SOCIAL REFORM gain of increasing productivity falls to capital. This is the organic defect of existing society. This is the proper “ social question ; ” an increasing mass of commodities by the side of a lesser and constant comsuming power of the home market. The superfluity of goods is exported ; whence the stimulus to open up overseas countries. This opening up of new markets postpones the social question for some time, as it temporarily relieves the congestion. Colonial policy has the same effect: the social question is post¬ poned, as Europe is able to breathe again for some time. But these postponements must at length cease, and then the alter¬ natives will be : solution of the social question or dissolution of society. What is the solution ? Although the whole outlook of Rodbertus pointed to communism as the solution, he considered that this object could only be realized in the remote future. If, according to him, the social question consisted in the disproportion between increasing economic productivity, and the stationariness or relative decline in the purchasing power of the working classes, manifestly the solution must consist in admitting the workers to

99

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM a share in the growing productivity. The State should take steps to effect this object, basing itself upon a plan which may be described somewhat as follows: Each article or commodity shall be measured by the number of normal working hours which it embodies. The normal work¬ ing hours shall determine the value of the goods produced, for labour is the source and the measure of value. The distribution of the product shall be effected on the follow¬ ing basis : thirty per cent, of the value to fall to the workers (wages), thirty to the capitalists (profit), thirty to the landlords (rent), ten per cent, to the State (taxes). If this ratio of distribution can be fixed, labour will receive its share in the growing productivity, and the whole of society will move upwards ; antagonisms will be avoided ; the social cleavages will be closed up. If we assume that in the year 1870 the total value of the goods produced in a particular country amounts to one hundred millions, the workers engaged in their production will receive thirty millions. If the produc¬ tivity of labour doubles in the course of thirty years, while the labour-time remains the same, the workers concerned will receive 100

GERMAN SOCIAL REFORM sixty millions. Instead of metallic money, which is the currency to-day, there will be labour-time notes ; labour-time will then be exchanged for labour-time. And it wdl be the State's business to see that this ratio of distribution of the product between labour, capital, and landownership is maintained. Rodbertus overlooked the fact that so long as the means of production remained in private hands, and, therefore, with the capitalists, distribution would inevitably be effected upon the lines of private capitalism. He also overlooked the fact that it is not the State that governs, but the strongest economic power—in our case, therefore, capital. No wonder that Rodbertus made no impression on the State, nor even among the workers, inasmuch as he enjoined them to leave capital and land ownership in existence,^) neither to found trade unions nor co-operative societies, nor to demand protective legislation ; he was even opposed to the independent politics of the proletariat. Only at the end of his life did he view with any sympathy a socialist policy for the workers. (x) Rodbertus says : ‘ ‘ The social-economic class division of labour, capital, land ownership, is to be maintained at all costs, and its disadvantages to be remedied solely in the division of the labour product.”

IOI

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Marx, Mario, and Rodbertus theoretically dominated all writers and movements which aimed at social reform upon their lines in Germany and Austria between i860 and 1920, as, for example: Lassalle, Kautsky, Bebel (social-democratic) ; Bishop Ketteler, Moufang, Vogelsang, Schings, Hitze (Catholicsocialist) ; Hermann Wagener, Schonberg, Schmoller (socialists of the chair) ; Pastor Todt, Court preacher Stocker (Protestantsocialist.

VI THE SECOND GERMAN REVOLUTION (1848—1849) i. Political Course

^T^HE first German Revolution (1516-1536) A was chiefly a peasant revolution, in which aspirations for German unity and com¬ munistic ideas mingled. Its result was an instalment of ecclesiastical reform, as well as the victory of the territorial princes and the landed nobility. The second German Revolu¬ tion, with which we are about to deal (18483:849), was in the main a middle-class, liberal, and national revolution, in which social reform ideas also played a part. The political course of the second German Revolution may be summarized as follows : both in Austria and in Prussia, that is in the two most important federal States, the middle-class had been increasingly engaged since 1830 in an endeavour to abolish abso¬ lutism, to introduce liberalism and German 103

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM unity. In the small federal States, especially in South Germany, these endeavours assumed a still more vigorous character. The finan¬ cial embarrassment of the governments came to the assistance of the middle-class, and enabled it to press its political demands on the princes with great insistence. Towards the end of 1847 public opinion was already strongly on the side of the opposition, and when the news of the Paris February Revolution (1848) reached Germany, the storm burst there: on the 13th March in Vienna; on the 18th March in Berlin; the smaller federal States had been affected by the agitation since the end of February. At first princes and nobles bowed to the storm ; they fled or took off their hats to the revolution in order to save their heads, whereupon the waves of middle-class revo¬ lution quickly subsided, partly owing to the innate conservatism of the German middleclass, partly owing to its fear of the proletariat, which, as we shall see in the next chapter, put forward social reform demands. In Berlin the middle-class Minister entered into negotiations with the Crown in order to agree upon a constitution, and to form a coalition government of the middle-class and 104

THE SECOND GERMAN REVOLUTION the nobility. In Vienna the middle-class wanted to have the Imperial Court back again, and to restore peace and order to the disturbed course of business. The German National Assembly, which had been elected on the basis of manhood suffrage and had met on the 18th March in St. Paul’s Church at Frankfort-on-Main, lost itself in endless debates and did nothing to establish and consolidate the sovereignty of the German people. Moreover, its attitude towards all ideas of social and political reform was hostile. Meanwhile, the princes recovered from their revolutionary fright, and when the defeat of the Paris proletariat at the end of June, 1848, became known, reaction again raised its head, and began to make arrangements for the restoration of the old state of affairs. In October Windischgratz marched against Vienna, and captured it on the 30th and 31st October and 1st Novem¬ ber. Vienna fell. Nine days later General Wrangel broke up the Prussian Assembly. By March, 1849, the old conditions had been restored in Austria. At the end of March the Frankfort National Assembly offered the German Crown to the King of Prussia, and a ready-made liberal constitution to 105

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the German people. The King of Prussia refused; the German people accepted the Frankfort Constitution, but the governments dissolved the popular chambers. The Frankfort Right left the National Assembly; the Left removed to Stuttgart as a Rump Parliament. The prohibition of the Imperial Constitution led to a revolt in Dresden in May, and to the Imperial Constitution campaign in Baden and the Bavarian Pfalz, which was terminated on the 23rd July, 1849, by the capitulation of Rastatt (south of Karlsruhe). Everywhere it was Prussian troops who suppressed the revolts. The second German Revolution was at an end. It, too, terminated with the victory of the local princes and the nobility, yet the victors were obliged to compromise with the vanquished, as the latter were in possession of the economic power. As a result of these compromises the princes and nobles became executors of the year 1848, although they were unfitted by their whole nature to carry out the work in the spirit of 1848. In spite of the enormous efforts put forth during the following five decades only a fragment came into existence, and this fell 106

THE SECOND GERMAN REVOLUTION to pieces in 1914-1918. The most vigorous efforts of heart and mind, even if made by persons of heroic proportions, may not distort and impede the development of classes and their struggles with impunity. A victorious German revolution in 1848 would have obviated the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870, and, perhaps, even 1914-1918. 2. Social Reform Tendencies, 1848-1849

The year of German revolution saw the rise of a number of periodicals which had a more or less social-democratic character. The expression “ Social Democracy ” occurs several times in this Press. Among these periodicals may be mentioned: “ Neue Rheinische Zeitung ” of Cologne, conducted by Marx, Engels, Wilhelm Wolff, Freiligrath; the Berlin Zeitungshalle of G. Julius ; Volksfreund, Berlin, of Schloffel (1) ; Das Volk, Berlin, of Born ; Die Verbriiderung, BerlinLeipzig, of Born and Schwenniger; Der Urwahler, of Weitling, Berlin; Fliegende Blatter, Breslau, of F. Behrend ; Die Homisse, Kassel. In addition Trade Union organs came into existence, such as Prometheus, Konkordia, in connection with the organi¬ zation of the Labour Brotherhood. 107

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM In the general confusion of the desires and demands expressed by the industrial sections of the population, two divergent tendencies may be clearly discerned. One was represented by Mario : the reorganization of economic life upon the basis of guilds ; the other by Born : recognition of the class antagonism between capital and labour, organization of the working class, productive co-operation with State aid. The old master-craftsmen and journeymen were found in Mario's camp, while the factory workers and other proletarians rallied round Born. The numerical strength of the two camps may be gathered to some extent from the following statistics : in 1846 there were in Prussia about four hundred and fifty-seven thousand master craftsmen, mechanical artificers, etc., who employed about three hundred and eighty-five thousand journeymen and apprentices. Then there were about seventy-nine thousand factory concerns with five hundred and fifty-one thousand workers. In the rest of Germany, including Austria, the numerical relation between the two camps must have been more favourable for the handicraft businesses. 108

THE SECOND GERMAN REVOLUTION The dominant ideas of the handicraftsmen were: dependence on the Guild system, opposition to industrial freedom, while recognizing that a re-organization of the Guild system was necessary, as a simple return to the Middle Ages had been made impossible by modern economic life. This tendency was espoused by Professor Mario, who as a delegate from the Kassel popular assembly took part in the Handicraftsmen's Conferences at Hamburg (first week of June, 1848), and at Frankfort-on-Main (15th July to 15th August), and exercised a strong influence over them. The Frankfort gathering was a regular conference, which was attended by one hundred and sixteen delegates and set itself the task of elaborating an industrial order and devising a plan for the solution of the social question. The journeymen also sent delegates, who, however, were not admitted ; not until protests were made did the Congress resolve to admit ten journeymen representa¬ tives, but only then in an advisory capacity ; the journeymen rejected this concession and convened their own conference at Frankfort, which sat simultaneously with that of the Masters. At Mario's instigation, the master handicraftsmen adopted the following social 109

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM policy: instead of industrial freedom, a modernized Guild economic system, federa¬ tion of guilds, establishment of industrial councils and chambers of trades, the creation of a social parliament. The result of the discussions of the Frank¬ fort master handicraftsmen’s congress was summarized in a memorial to the Economic Committee of the National Assembly. The said committee, which was liberal like the National Assembly, rejected the mem¬ orial. The journeymen’s congress, likewise influenced by Mario, demanded a moderni¬ zation of the guild system, the introduction of a new Guild constitution, an organization of labour, wholly different from the former system, corresponding to our highly-developed industrial conditions, recognizing the equal footing of all producers, covering all social occupations ; the establishment of industrial councils and chambers of trades, and also of a Labour Ministry. In addition, it demanded manhood suffrage, compulsory education, industrial continuation schools, 12-hour working day (including intervals for meals), legal minimum wage, sickness insurance, progressive property and income no

the second german revolution tax, protective duty on wholly manufactured imports, the partition of the Crown lands and the leasing or alienating of them to land workers and small peasants, the estab¬ lishment of settlement colonies for the redundant population. There was at that time a widespread fear of over-population, which was shared by Mario, who advocated measures to counteract a rapid increase of population : marriage restrictions among impecunious persons. A different sentiment prevailed in the great urban centres of industrial activity. Within a few days of the outbreak of the March Revolution there were references to the class antagonism between capital and labour. On the 23rd March the “ Berliner Zeitungshalle ” wrote : “ The truth is that among us, as well as in France and England, the cleavage between the middle class and the working class is already effected/* The first number of the “ Volk ” (25th May, 1848) conducted by Stephan Born, stated : “ When we speak of the people, we generally include everybody, but this periodical will represent in the main only a definite class : the working class, which is oppressed, and lives hi

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM on wages.” The workers developed an ever more vigorous public activity; soon there arose labour organizations, and, under Born’s leadership, a general Labour League, the aim of which was to organize the German working class politically and co-operatively. The organ of the Labour League was the “ Verbriiderung,” (Brotherhood), which appeared in Leipzig in 1848-1849, and was at first conducted by Born. In its columns he expounded the idea that it was not a question of sketching remote Utopias and creating ideal States by means of philosophical hair-splitting, but of prosecuting the class struggle, whose aim it must be to introduce “ the common exploitation of the means of production.” (No. 10, 1848; Nos. 66, 67, 1849). All that is ready-made has a reactionary influence; only in movement, only in the development process is there life and progress. (No. 11). The most important manifestation of the Labour League was the Labour congress in Berlin, which was held in the last week of August, 1848 ; it consisted of 40 delegates, who represented the large German towns (Berlin, Breslau, Chemnitz, Dresden, Ham¬ burg, Konigsberg, Leipzig, Munich), and 112

THE SECOND GERMAN REVOLUTION delegates were also sent from the Frankfort Journeymen’s Congress. The chair was taken by the old Breslau professor, Nees von Esenbeck (1776-1858), the deputychairman was Stephan Born ; the secretary wasL. Bisky, a Berlin gold beater, who was then extremely popular. The resolutions of the Congress dealt with the political, trade union and co-operative organization of the German proletariat; the establishment of credit banks to aid the productive associations ; the right to work ; universal, equal suffrage in State and municipality; reduction of military service to one year; abolition of indirect taxation ; establishment of a ten-hour normal working day; restriction of the number of apprentices ; prohibition of the labour of children under fourteen ; general compulsory education ; compulsory continua¬ tion schools for apprentices; consultation of workers in the selection and appointment of foremen in factories and workshops. From the Labour League there arose the organization of the " Labour Brotherhood ” (whose journal was " Verbriiderung.”) The leaders were Born, the architect Schwenniger (of Essen), and the gold beater L. Bisky, They convened conferences and congresses, 113

H

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM conducted the agitation, (*) got into touch with Marx, Wolff, Schapper, etc., and were extremely active in all directions until the general defeat of the Revolution also cut the vital threads of the Brotherhood. 3. End of the Communist League

Immediately after the outbreak of the Revolution, most of the members of the League made for Germany, in order to take part in the struggle on communist lines. They distinguished themselves every¬ where by great courage, by talent for leader¬ ship in the press, at public meetings, and on the barricades. Yet nowhere did they directly champion the proletarian revolution as Marx held German conditions to be still unripe. Marx, Engels, Freiligrath, Wolff, Wereth were engaged on the “ Neue Rheinische Zeitung,” the leading revolutionary newspaper of Germany. Born was in Berlin and Leipzig; later he was at the head of the Dresden rebellion (May, 1849), where he commanded the barricade fights and (x) One of the most notable episodes of this agitation was the public debate between Born and Mario, which was held in Heidelberg at the end of January, 1849, in which the former won a complete victory.

114

THE SECOND GERMAN REVOLUTION conducted the retreat of the fighters in a masterly fashion to Freiburg. Engels, Willich, and Moll took part in the Baden campaign for the imperial constitution ; Schapper was active in Wiesbaden ; many others were the proper organizers of the struggle in the provinces. After the defeat of the revolution most of them again sought refuge in London, where the League was re-organized and became the centre of the international socialist-revolutionary move¬ ment : English Chartists, French Blanquists, social-revolutionary Poles, Hungarians, etc., joined it. Until the middle of 1850 most of the members set their hopes upon a fresh revolutionary outbreak, and made preparations for the expected events. But in the late summer of 1850 Marx and Engels became convinced that the hope they had hitherto cherished was delusive, and that the proletariat had still to pass through about half a century of education and organi¬ zation work before it would be capable of performing its social-revolutionary part. This opinion, however, was not shared by enthusiastic communists like Willi ch, (x) (*) He afterwards emigrated to U.S.A., where he fought in the Civil War (1861—1864), in the Northern Army as a General.

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Schapper, etc. Consequently matters came to a split and angry disagreements, where¬ upon Marx removed the headquarters of the League to Cologne, where the programme of the League was revised on the ist December, 1850. Henceforth the chief object of the League was “ to accomplish by all the methods of propaganda and of the political struggle the destruction of the old society, the intellectual, political, and economic emancipation of the proletariat, and the communist revolution. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the proletariat has to pass through, the League will always represent the interests of the movement as a whole, as it ever seeks to unite and organise in itself all the revolu¬ tionary forces of the proletariat; it will remain secret and indissoluble so long as the proletarian revolution has not achieved its object.” Propaganda in Germany was conducted from Cologne until the imprisonment of the Cologne emissary of the League, Nothjung (a journeyman tailor), on the 10th May, 1851, in Leipzig. The documents and addresses found on him led to the imprison¬ ment of several members of the League 116

THE SECOND GERMAN REVOLUTION and to the well-known Cologne communist trial in November, 1852, which brought about the end of the League. (*)

(*) See Marx, Enthullungen iiber den Kolner Kommunistenprozess, Mehring’s edition, Vorwarts-Verlag, 1914.

ii 7

VII ECONOMICS AND POLITICS (1850-1880) i. The Age of Liberalism

A

FTER the defeat of the popular rising of the year 1848-49, the counter-revolu¬

tion set in everywhere. In France, Napoleon III sat on the imperial throne and won the support of the bourgeoisie through his political enterprises abroad (Crimean War, Italian War, Mexico) and the repression of the proletariat; in Great Britain the working class turned away from proletarian ideas and became an appendage of the Liberal Party; in Prussia the three-class franchise was introduced in 1849, the press was muzzled, and social reform was diverted into authoritarian, monarchical-Christian channels by F. J. Stahl, a Jew converted to Christianity ; with the assistance of the Czar Nicholas I., Austria overthrew Hungary and restored the pre-March German Federa118

ECONOMICS AND POLITICS (1850

1881)

tion. Yet the counter-revolutionary inter¬ val only lasted about a decade (1849—1859). The powerful capitalist and national develop¬ ment which set in after 1850 swept away the barriers which the reactionary powers had erected. The gold discoveries in California and Australia, the silver discoveries in Mexico, the construction of railways, telegraphs and steam shipping, the boom in the mining industry, the factory system, the banks and stock exchanges, and lastly the victorious progress of the sciences: chemistry, physics (electricity) and biology (Charles Darwin) as well as the simultaneous revival of national aspirations in Italy, Germany, Poland and in the Balkan countries, accelerated the pulse of social and political life in Western and Central Europe; even in Russia there were distinct tendencies of a liberal and social reformist nature. Moreover, Russia was defeated in the Crimean War (1854—55), and Austria in the Italian War (1859). These powers were then the main props of the European reaction. The years i860 to 1870 marked the era of Liberalism. In Great Britain, John Stuart Mill and William E. Gladstone celebrated political triumphs; in the United States of 119

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM

America there raged a civil war (1861—1865) for national unity and slave emancipation, from which the liberal Lincoln emerged as the victor; in France the middle-classrepublican opposition raised its head and Napoleon's throne began to shake; in Prussia the liberal middle-class organized itself in the National Union as an opposition to Bismarck, who was eventually compelled by the exigencies of home politics as well as by his warlike policy towards Austria (1866) to pursue a liberal policy (manhood suffrage, 1867) ; in Russia the so-called emancipation of the peasants was begun in 1861, and inaugurated a protracted revolutionary period of alternating advances and setbacks; Japan emerged from her mediaeval seclusion and embarked upon an epoch of enlightenment and modern economic methods. This wondrous decade (1859—1869), which brought us so many things : Darwin's chief work, the cutting of the Suez Canal, the political emancipation of the negro slaves in North America, the beginning of the Russian transformation, the dissolution ol the German Confederation in consequence of the war of 1866, the removal of the ban 120

ECONOMICS AND POLITICS (1850—1881) on combination and manhood suffrage in Prussia (North Germany), the franchise conferred on the urban workers in Great Britain, the fateful beginnings of the national unity of Germany and Italy in addition to the awakening of Japan, also brought us the first national and international attempts of the Continental proletariat to organize as a class and to inaugurate the struggle for a new economic order. 2. Transition to Imperialism and Socialism The decade 1869—1879 saw the completion of the liberal epoch. The victory of Prussian Germany over France (1870—71) ; the massive foundations of businesses and enterprises in industry, trade, transport, and finance ; the depression in agriculture, partly in consequence of industrialization, partly in consequence of American competition; the relative over-production of manufactured goods soon led to a protracted period of political crisis, which was only interrupted by a few years of prosperity. It lasted right into the nineties, and was one of the chief causes of the emergence of the imperi-

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM alist epoch—of the race for overseas markets, for the partition of the non-capitalist coun¬ tries in Africa and Asia. It was also one of the chief causes of the revival of the socialist movement in Western and Central Europe. Towards the end of the seventies the brilliance of liberalism was dimmed. New needs and new ideas pressed into the foreground: State regulation, protection, colonial policy—in short, imperialism as the politics of the ruling classes, socialism as the ideal and programme of the working class. Europe was suddenly caught up in the rapids of a revolution which liberalism could not control. The following statistics, which are based partly on expert calculations, partly on official indications, may serve to exhibit the chief features of the trans¬ formation which was accomplished in the period 1850—1880. In steam power (railways, steamships, factories) there was employed (reckoned in horse-power) : England France Germany Russia Austria All Europ* America

1850 1,290,000 370,000 260,000 20,000 100,000 2,240,000 i,680,000 122

1880 7,600,000 3,070,000 5,120,000 1,740,000 1,560,000 22,000,000 14,400,000

ECONOMICS AND POLITICS (1850—1881) Production of Crude

Iron

(tons) 1850

England

2,250,000

1880 7,780,000

France

570,000

1,730,000

Germany

402,000

2,780,000

America

560,000

3,840,000

World Production 4,422,000

18,140,000

yearly average

(tons)

England

1850—60

1880—89

2,600,000

25,100,000

800,000

3,800,000

France Germany

1,300,000

12,000,000

America

700,000

21,000,000

Various Countries

700,000

6,100,000

6,100,000

68,000,000

Total

iduction (tons) 1850 England

49,000,000

147,000,000

440,000

19,400,000

France Germany

6,700,000

59,100,000

America

8,000,000

70,500,000

World Productions 1,400,000

Factory

products

(textiles,

metals, 1840

England France Germany America

Population of Europe 1480 46,700,000

(x)

1880

387 264 150 96

340,000,000 clothing,

drinks,

leather.

1888 830

485 583 M43

(estimated) : 1780 110,000,000

1880

3I5-000.

o

(x)

All the statistics are taken from Mulhall’s Dictionary of

Statistics,

1899.

The World Exhibitions in London, 1851, Paris, 1855, London, 1862, Paris, 1867, Philadelphia, 1873, bore testimony to the enormous progress of industry. 123

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM The increase in population is remarkable. At no time in the history of mankind was it so rapid as in the nineteenth century. It was the consequences of the better hygiene and easier conditions of life created by the progress of the sciences (mechanics, electri¬ city, chemistry), of the facilities of communi¬ cations, of the application of science to industry and agriculture. The increase of population chiefly benefited the towns. The unexampled concentration of people in the centres of industry and commerce facilitated the exchange of ideas, and all the people who were seized and tossed hither and thither by this capitalist-industrial develop¬ ment, pondered upon the new social life proceeding at an unheard-of rate, which raised many social sections to the top and plunged others into the abyss. Progress, development, movement and transformation became the battle cries of the masses. Hegel, Darwin, Marx became the standard-bearers of great intellectual and social movements. Human thought, which was religious in the Middle Ages and mathematical-mechan¬ ical in the Renaissance, turned in modern times more and more to biological and social problems. Religion, mechanism, organism, 124

ECONOMICS AND POLITICS (1850

1880)

or God, Nature, and human and social life are the headings of the main chapters in the annals of European humanity since the fourth century of our era.

125

VIII THE PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL i.

Lassalle

and

The

German

General

Labour Union

T

HE first impulses towards an independent Labour movement in Germany came from Leipzig, where the social ideas of 1848—49 throve most vigorously. In 1862 those Labour elements which were dis¬ satisfied with the liberal educational endeavours and pressed for an independent policy, formed a central committee in order to summon a general Labour conference. As they were acquainted with Lassalle, through his lecture delivered the same year before Berlin workers, on “ The special connexion of the present period of history with the idea of the labouring class,” they sought his advice, amongst that of others whereupon he sent them his “ Open Answer,” in which he prescribed for the 126

PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL workers the task of forming an independent Labour Party, of fighting for manhood suffrage, and establishing productive co-operative associations with State aid, as no help for the workers would come from the means proposed by the Liberals. So long as wage labour lasted, the workers could never escape from poverty ; the iron law of wages defeated all attempts at improve¬ ment. Ferdinand Lassalle (1825—1864), the founder of German Social Democracy, came of a Jewish merchant’s family in Breslau. He attended the grammar school, and then the Leipzig commercial school. He soon turned his back on a commercial career, and attended the Berlin University, where he devoted himself to philosophy and classical philology. Lassalle was distinguished by unusual intellectual and practical energy, a lively temperament, organizing capacity, and power of controlling men. He was without doubt a convinced socialist, but also inclined towards German national ideals. In England or France, Lassalle would have become a famous statesman—a Disraeli or a Gambetta ; in Prussia he had no choice but the career of a much persecuted socialist 127

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM agitator and intellectual adventurer. His speeches and doctrines are still powerful engines of agitation, although many parts of them may be obsolete to-day. Lassalle found it uncommonly easy to arouse admiration, but more difficult to win confidence. His character was not so uni¬ formly fresh as his intellect. He was born for rapid success, but not for a martyrdom. Although he remained in considerable intellectual dependence upon Marx, Lassalle was idealistic in his phil¬ osophy and a believer in the State. At bottom he remained an old Hegelian, and held that the material and historical phenomena were only expressions of the unfolding of God. He assiduously courted Marx’s intellectual affection, but matters never came to friendly relations between the two. He was more successful in his relations to Rodbertus, Alexander von Humboldt, Professor Boeckh, and other Prussian scholars. Even Bismarck esteemed him personally. From his connection with the Leipzig Central Committee, there arose in 1864 the General German Labour Union, whose president he was. At his death the Union numbered about 4,000 members. One of 128

PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL Lassalle’s most gifted successors was J. B, von Schweitzer, a lawyer and a shrewd politician, with whom, however, Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826—1900) and August Bebel (1840—1913, both of whom were inspired by Karl Marx, came into conflict; as he followed Lassalle in seeking to retain the Labour Union within the frame of the Prussian-German development, whereas Liebknecht and Bebel were anti-Prussian, and international in their outlook. Liebknecht and Bebel then embarked upon a several years’ struggle with the Lassalleans, and eventually founded, in 1869 at Eisenach, a separate party : the so-caled “ Eisenachers,” who were allied with the International Working Men’s Association, founded in London in 1864. At the outbreak of the Franco-German War (1870—71), the two parties adopted different attitudes. In the North-German Reichstag the representatives of the Lassalleans: Schweitzer, Fritzsche and Mende voted the war credits, while the Eisenachers: Liebknecht and Bebel, refrained from voting. Only after Sedan, with the inauguration of the Prussian-German annexation policy, did 129

1

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the representatives of both socialist parties vote against the credits. Bebel and Liebknecht were then prosecuted on account of their attitude to the war and their membership of the International, and sentenced to detention in a fortress, while the third prisoner, Adolf Hepner, was acquitted. 2.

Foundation

and

Career

of

The

First International

As in Germany, a revival of the Labour Movement was perceptible in France and England in the years 1861 to 1864. The visit of a French workmen’s deputation to the London Exhibition, 1862, which brought it into contact with the English Labour leaders; the common sympathies of the English and French proletariat for the Polish insurrection of 1863 ; the entry of the English workers into a franchise struggle—all these events led to the establishment of the International Working Men’s Association in the last week in September, 1864. The public meeting, which was to celebrate and confirm this foundation, took place in the evening of the 28th September, and was 130

PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL attended by representatives of the English, French, Italian, and German Labour organi¬ zations. From the German side there also appeared Karl Marx, to whom the intellectual leadership fell. He wrote its manifesto, the “ Inaugural Address,” and its statutes. The basic ideas of this document are : the organization of the proletariat as an independent political party, the extension of labour protection and factory legislation, the establishment of co-operative societies, tireless opposition to the intriguing, nationexasperating diplomacy, federation of the proletarians of all countries, destruction of class domination, economic emancipation of the working class. The International had its headquarters in London, and was conducted by a General Council, which was chiefly composed of English Labour leaders and Marx. It never became a mass movement; it attracted only the most impulsive Labour leaders and Labour groups ; it was rather a kind of seminary for inculcating a certain uniform conception of the tactics and aims of the Labour Movement. This task it did not then accomplish. Marx had to combat the followers of Proudhon and Bakunin.

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM The International held five general congresses, at which important questions, labour protection, co-operation, trade unionism, war, land reform, were discussed. The congresses were held in Geneva (1866), Lausanne (1867), Brussels (1868), Basle (1869). Until 1867, the Proudhonist influence pre¬ dominated ; in 1867—1869 the Marxian ; resolutions were passed in favour of the socialization of land and the means of transport. In 1868, the Russian revolutionary, Michael Bakunin (1814—1876), joined the International, and the struggle against Marx soon began. Bakunin founded within the International, a secret organization: the “ Alliance Internationale/' which was not recognized by the International. The dis¬ sension eventually led to a split in the I. W. A. at the Hague Congress (1872). The headquartesr of the I.W.A. was transferred to New York, and the organization was dissolved in 1876. The I.W.A. contributed a great deal to the spread of trade union principles, and prepared the way for the victory of Marxism. The struggle between the Marxian and the Bakunist-Proudhonian elements was frequently misunderstood by both parties, and the discussions carried on were too often 132

PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL marred by personal reproaches, to be able to throw any light on the points of dispute. At bottom both tendencies were communistic, for Proudhonism was a spent force, all that remained of it being hostility towards the State, while the Marxist tendency desired trade union and parliamentary action, and the intervention of the State power, as a means to the communist objective. On the other hand, the Bakunists and the elements influ¬ enced by Proudhon, thought the best tactics to be anti-parliamentary and anti-militarist syn¬ dicalism . The latter tendency, led by Bakunin, Guillaume and Hins, originated from the liberal doctrine, which regarded the individual as the sovereign ruler, and perceived nothing but evil in the State, and all authoritarian and centralized direction; they deviated from this doctrine only in so far as they set up communal economy or the mutuality of autonomous industrial groups in place of private property. The Marxist tendency, on the contrary, saw that man was conditioned by the phase of social development in which he happened to be born, and could thus only operate within the existing State and the existing economic form. The Bakunists and Proudhonian elements emphasized the freedom

133

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM of the individual: the free industrial activities of comrades within the autonomous groups ; Marx, on the other hand, emphasized the organization of the working-class for the class struggle in parties and trade unions, the inter¬ vention of the State power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the transition to communism, in realizing which the State would die out and be replaced by the democratic administration of the co-operatively organized society. Marx no more than Bakunin and Proudhon, was a believer in, and upholder of, the State ; all of them regarded the State as a coercive organization for the maintenance of private property, as against the propertyless. Only Marx believed that the State, as a product of private property, could only fall to the ground after private property had been abolished; while Proudhon and Bakunin saw in the State an independent evil which impeded all attempts at a social trans¬ formation, and must, therefore, be abolished as quickly as possible. Bakunin believed that the best means to this end lay in secret conspiracy and revolutionary insurrection. The most important event in the history of the First International was the struggle of the Paris Commune (1871).

134

PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL 3.

The Paris Commune

The origin of the Paris Commune may be traced to three chief causes : 1. The FrancoGerman War, which sprang from the traditional French policy of preventing the unity of the German races ; 2. The traditions of the Great French Revolution, in which the Paris Municipality played a considerable part; 3. The spread of the International in Paris and the large provincial towns, as well as social reform ideas generally. The military successes of Prussia (1864, 1866), the establishment of the North-German Confederation (1867), and the rapprochement to South Germany (1868), cost French diplomacy many anxious hours. When, there¬ fore, the Spanish Crown was offered to, and accepted by, a prince of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1870), France felt herself threatened and fell into the trap prepared by Bismarckian diplomacy, for Prussia was completely equipped for war, both in the military and the diplomatic sense, and awaited an opportunity which would impel the French Government to declare war on Prussia. This declaration of war took place on the 19th July, 1870.

135

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM At the beginning of August the series of encounters and battles began, which soon turned out unfavourably for France. At the beginning of September, France was defeated. On the 4th September, 1870, Paris rose, overthrew the Empire, declared France a Republic, appointed a provisional govern¬ ment for national defence, in which only Gambetta properly understood his duty, and as far as possible carried it out, while General Trochu (President and Governor of Paris), played an ambiguous part from the outset, as he hated and feared the internal enemy (the Paris proletariat and the Republican elements) more than the external enemy (the Prussians). On the 31st October, Blanqui, who was then still in Paris, made an attempt to set up a more efficient government, but the events on the battlefields did not allow of an internal re-organization. For the armies recruited by Gambetta were also gradually defeated, and it became necessary to start negotiations for an armistice at the end of January, 1871. On the 8th February, a general election to the National Assembly was held ; it yielded a reactionary majority and a reactionary government with Thiers at the head. The Assembly met first at Bordeaux, and then 136

PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL at Versailles, whence the struggle against the Paris proletariat was conducted. On the 26th February, the peace pre¬ liminaries were announced, which, owing to the surrender of Alsace-Lorraine, were regarded by the whole of France as an unheard-of humiliation, and raised feeling to a pitch of feverish excitement. Particularly was this the case in Paris. The Paris National Guard, which was created for the maintenance of public order, and consisted of many radical and prole¬ tarian elements, and possessed its own artillery, formed at the end of February, a central committee, which, after the Versailles Government, under Thiers, had made an unsuccessful attack on the Paris artillery on Montmartre, adopted an attitude of hostility towards the Versaillese, and on the 18th March, 1871, proclaimed Paris to be an autonomous commune. The central committee transformed itself into a provisional government, that is, into a dictatorship, but only eight days later (26th March), it appealed to the general suffrages of Paris, that is, it returned its power to the hands of the sovereign people of Paris, which gave itself a democratic administration.

137

SOCIALS TRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM As a democratic municipal administration the Paris Commune lasted from the 26th March until its final defeat at the end of May. It was, therefore, no dictatorship, for it proceeded from a proper democratic franchise and formed a coalition administration, com¬ posed of members of the International, Blanquists, Proudhonians, middle-class Re¬ publicans, and disillusioned patriots. The Commune would have remained a dictator¬ ship, if the executive committee appointed by the National Guard had retained its power until the end, and had not appealed to the general suffrage. This fact is important for the recognition of historical truth. The Commune was a coalition administration, and consequently was unable to achieve unanimity with regard to objects and policy. Very considerate, but clear enough, is Marx’s reproach of the Executive Committee on account of its democratic conscientiousness and its appeal to the electors : “ The Central Committee made them¬ selves guilty of a decisive mistake in not at once marching upon Versailles, then completely helpless. Instead of this, the Party of Order was again allowed to try 138

PERIOD OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL its strength at the ballot box on the 26th March, the day of the election of the Commune. Then in the mairies of Paris they exchanged bland words of conciliation with their too generous conquerors, mutter¬ ing in their hearts solemn vows to exter¬ minate them in due time/’ (“ Civil War in France.”) And to his friend Kugelmann (Hanover), Marx then wrote that the Executive Committee had made two mistakes which might lead to a defeat. The first mistake was that, after the unsuccessful attack of the Versailles troops on Montmartre, the Executive Committee had not directed the Paris National Guard to march against Versailles, in order to seize the members of the Government. “ The second mistake : the Executive Committee surrendered its power too soon to make room for the Commune. Again out of excessive conscientiousness.” (“ Neue Zeit.,” Vol. 20. 1, p. 709). These are mistakes which the French proletariat made in 1848, and the German proletariat in 1918—19. In both cases the victorious revolution surrendered its dicta¬ torial power, and appealed to the democratic

139

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM suffrage far too quickly. And in both cases socialism was eventually defeated. The thoughts of bloody revenge which the Party of Order cherished in their hearts on the 26th March, 1871, in executing the democratic franchise conferred on them by the victors were realized in the most horrible fashion at the end of May. The defeat of the Commune was followed by the merciless slaughter of the Communards and the banish¬ ment of all suspected elements. The French bourgeoisie banned the socialist spectre for about a decade. Not until the eighties could socialism again be revived in France. In 1889, the Second International was founded in Paris.

140

IX THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM (1880—1914)

i. The Economic Roots of Imperialism

U

PON the war period between 1854 and 1879, during which the German and the Italian people as well as the United States of America in the main won their national unity, and during which the South and West Slav peoples entered the national liberation struggle, there followed an indus¬ trial-imperialist epoch, which tended to draw all the nations and kingdoms of the earth into its orbit. Africa was explored, parti¬ tioned and spanned with rails and telegraph wires; the whole of Asia was awakened by the shrill voice of the locomotive and steam engine from its mediaeval, mystical dreams and trances ; railways traversed the prairies of North America, leading to the migration of peoples to its virgin West, and facilitating the exploitation of its agri141

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM cultural soil, its coal, metal, and petroleum mines. It seemed as if humanity's sole task was creating wealth, accumulating material goods. A glance at the statistical development of coal and iron production, the most important prime materials of modern industry,, shows this sufficiently. Coal Output (in tons) : 18S0 147,000,000

1913 292,000,000

France

19,400,000

41,000,000

Germany

59,000,000

277,000,000

U.S.A.

70,500,000

517,000,000

England

Crude Iron

(in tons) 1880

England

7,780,000

1913 10,400,000

France

3,070,000

5,300,000

Germany

5,120,000

19,400,000

U.S.A.

3,840,000

31,500,000

Population : 1880 Europe U.S.A.

315,000,000 51,000,000

(?)

1913 419,000,000 105,000,000

(?)

The revolutionary role of steam and mechanics was gradually usurped by electri¬ city and chemistry. The economically pre¬ eminent role of England, which had been almost undisputed until about 1880, gradually passed to Germany and North America. Meanwhile, the inherent tendencies of capitalist life manifested themselves in drastic fashion in the industrial countries: 142

THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM (1880—1914) 1. The rapidly growing productivity of labour in conjunction with the unregulated and uncontrolled manner of creating goods and the proletarization of the masses, created a big disproportion between supply and demand, which from time to time led to industrial crises. Business stagnation, unem¬ ployment, depreciation of the value of goods showed everybody that the brilliant triumphs of capitalism had their dark sides. Hence the impulse to extend the export markets. 2. The increasing employment of mechani cal power and machinery diminished the amount of living labour, and, therefore, the quantity of value in every commodity ; this tendency expressed itself in the fall in prices of industrial commodities; the less value there is embodied in a commodity, the smaller is the surplus value or the profit which it yields to the capitalist. Whence arises the tendency to a falling rate of profit, which manifests itself in normal times in all industrial countries and presents a very difficult problem to the employers. The solution of the problem consists in the extension of the undertaking, the transition to large-scale production in an ever-expanding measure, so as to increase the total amount

*43

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM of profits through mass production and mass exports. This transition can only be effected by employers possessed of ample capital. Those employers who lack these resources either go under or transform themselves into joint-stock companies. Mass production necessitates enormous quantities of raw materials, which, so far as Europe and Japan are concerned, are only to be had from oversea countries, from the sub-tropics and tropics. This explains the scramble for overseas possessions: colonial policy, naval and military armaments, extension of the national power to foreign territory, diplomatic tensions, and wars. 3. The extension of the scale of production, which is the consequence of the fall in the rate of profit, leads to the triumph of the large-scale production and to the accumu¬ lation of enormous profits in a few hands. The capital which could find no employment, or no profitable employment in its country of origin, is invested in non-capitalist or immature capitalist countries, where the rate of profit is still high and the Labour movement still weak. In order to protect the capital there invested, the capitalist States extend their rule to non-capitalist 144

THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM (1880—1914) or industrially backward States, partly by direct conquest, partly by marking out the territory into spheres of influence, partly by " peaceful penetration ” and " mandates.” This extension likewise necessitates the building of fleets and military armaments, for the protection and defence of the capital invested and the new economic interests against the natives as well as against rivals. These processes were the chief causes of modern imperialist policy and of the world war. Imperialism represents the attempt of the capitalist classes and their spiritual allies, the nationalist and militarist sections, to maintain intact the existing order of things. 2. The Spread of Socialism—Karl Kautsky

This transformation of political and econ¬ omic conditions was also the chief cause of the progress of the socialist movement. Between the years 1880—1914 it experienced an unparalleled expansion. Hardly any civilized country was without its represent¬ atives and organizations. It numbered its followers by the million, and everywhere 145

K

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM it was Marxian principles which formed its theoretical basis. Just as Germany played the leading part in the old world in technology and industry, in the application of scientific principles and methods to economic processes, so upon the German socialist proletariat devolved the leading part in socialist theory and practice. From Germany came the impulse which revived the French labour move¬ ment. The socialist successes in Germany encouraged the handful of English socialists to found a social-democratic organization in London; the Slav countries began to regard German Social Democracy as their model. And at international socialist and labour congresses the German delegation was particularly esteemed. In short, during the four decades from 1875 to 1914 the German Social Democracy stood at the head of the modern labour movement of the world. Its leaders: August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht enjoyed an international reputation. The theorist of German Social Democracy during the greater part of this period was Karl Kautsky. Prior to his appearance as a Marxist, that is up to 1882, and even

146

THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM (1880—1914) for some years thereafter, there was little trace of Marxism in Germany. Only Joseph Dietzgen (1887) propagated Marxism, but his writings lacked the easy and popular style and failed, therefore, to win the masses. On the whole the movement drew its doctrines, ideas and sentiments from Lassalle's writings, from the recollections of 1848, from the French literature : many socialists had imbibed the doctrines of Rodbertus or Eugen Diihring ; others were at the most acquainted with the publications of the International Working Men's Association, or they based their demands on appeals to ethics and humanity. It was only gradually that Kautsky succeeded in spreading Marxian ideas. Kautsky, a rationalist thinker, possessed of considerable scientific, historical, and economic knowledge, a crystal-clear style, and untiring industry, was born in 1854 at Prague. His father came of a CzechPolish family and was a painter by profession. His mother was of German-Italian origin and a novelist. While still a schoolboy he came to Vienna, where he attended the grammar school. His first deep impressions were of a nationalist character : his Czech origin brought him into conflict with his 147

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM German school-fellows. Attracted to social problems by the news of the Paris Commune, he read the English economists and sociolo¬ gists : Mill, Malthus, and Spencer, as well as the French socialists. In 1875 he joined the Socialist Labour Movement, attached himself to the Left Wing, read Marx, and in 1880 published his first book “ The Influence of the Increase of Population/’ which ex¬ hibited what was for that time considerable knowledge of „ Marxian economics. A few years later—after he had collaborated on the Zurich “ Social Democrat/’ he became a Marxist, founded the “ Neue Zeit,” the first organ for the propagation of Marxism. From 1884 to 1887 he lived in London, as collaborator with Friedrich Engels. 1887 —1910 were his best and most fruitful years ; during these two decades he published: Thomas More, Marx's Economic Doctrines, the Erfurt Programme and numerous other pamphlets and articles, which influenced the German and the international socialist movement. After 1910, his essentially ration¬ alist, anti-revolutionary, non-militant dis¬ position, became more and more pronounced and gradually led him to revisionism. 148

X THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889-1914) i.

Successes and Failures

D

URING the time between the dis¬ solution of the First and the foundation of the Second International, several socialist and trade union congresses were held, but they lacked a uniform character and were not directed by a common purpose. Only in 1889, on the occasion of the Paris Universal Exhibition, were two socialist Labour congresses held, one being convened by the Possibilists (Reformists), and the other by the Marxists, the result of which was the foundation of the Second International. At this foundation congress the festival of May Day was also fixed. The Second International held eight con¬ gresses : Brussels (1891), Zurich (1893), 149

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM London (1896), Paris (1900), Amsterdam (1904), Stuttgart (1907), Copenhagen (1910), Basle (1912). From 1900 onwards, the head¬ quarters of the Second International was Brussels ; its chairman was E. Vandervelde, and its secretary was C. Huysmans ; every affiliated nation sent two delegates to the bureau, which met from time to time, in order to pass resolutions upon important questions, and to prepare for congresses. The history of the Second International, on the lines of its most important decisions, falls into three parts : 1, up to, and including, 1896, it was concerned with drawing a clear line of demarcation between socialism and anarchism, and excluding anarchists from the congresses. 2, up to, and including, 1904, the discussions centred around the establishment of the principles of the political class struggle. 3, the last phase was characterized by its efforts to arouse the nations to the growing danger of imperialist wars, and also to determine the attitude of the International to these catastrophic events. The Second International was only success¬ ful in excluding the anarchists. The results of the discussions at the Zurich and London congresses were formulated in *5°

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) Paris in 1900 : organizations were only to be admitted which recognized the principles of socialism, and of the political class struggle. In the second phase (1900-1904), the International laid it down that socialists were not permitted to enter non-socialist governments, except under “ extraordinary circumstances/' It was thought that this decision settled the question of Ministerialism, which arose in France in 1898, when Millerand entered the Waldeck-Rousseau-Gallifet Minis¬ try, as a consequence of the Dreyfus affair. In accordance with this resolution, Millerand (lately President of the French Republic), was expelled from the Party in 1904. The same fate befell Viviani and Briand in 1906, both of whom subsequently became prime ministers of France. But the admission of “ extraordinary circumstances" again opened the door to Ministerialism during the war, and post-war years : Labour and Socialist parties formed coalition govern¬ ments with the capitalist parties. The labours of the International with respect to the danger of world war were utterly futile. In spite of all the debates, no binding resolutions for coping with the danger of war were adopted.

I51

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM 2.

The Second International and The War

The Second Labour International, which came into existence in the year 1889, discussed the question of war at each of its congresses. As these congresses assumed an increasingly social-democratic character, their resolutions about war were social-democratic. As from 1900, imperialist and colonial ambitions were designated as the causes of war, instead of national conflicts and arbitrary despotism. Only twice did matters come to a clash between the social-democratic and the syndicalist anti-State tendencies ; at Brussels in 1891, the latter tendency was represented by Domela Nieuwenhuis, in Stuttgart in 1907 by Herve. On both occasions the socialdemocratic opinion carried the day. The decisive resolution was that passed at the Stuttgart congress. The French socialists placed the question of war on the agenda as a result of the Morocco crisis which broke out in the year 1905, and which lit up in a flash the world-war that was preparing. Three tendencies made them¬ selves manifest within the French delegation at the Stuttgart congress : the anti-militarist,

152

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) (now the nationalist) Gustave Herve advocated the general strike, the proletarian insurrection, as the only answer to an outbreak of war; Edouard Vaillant and Jean Jaur£s defended Herve’s proposal as a last resort; Jules Guesde considered any agitation against war to be Utopian, as war was an inevitable consequence of capitalism ; the best anti¬ war propaganda was socialist education. For the Belgians there spoke Vandervelde, who sympathized with the attitude of Vaillant and Jaures, for “ even the smallest nation has an interest in the maintenance of peace. Our neutrality may not perhaps weigh very much, and our country may serve as a transit country.” For the German delegation, Bebel and Vollmar spoke ; both opposed the opinions and proposals of Herve as impracticable in every respect; they pointed to the cultural significance of the national idea; Bebel further emphasized that the excitement produced by the outbreak of war seizes large sections of the population, and puts the opposition to the organization of national defence in an extremely difficult position. The overwhelming majority of the congress declared for national defence, and for the class

153

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM struggle. “ Treachery neither to the fatherland nor to socialism,” were the words in which Jaures summed up the result of the Stuttgart congress at a Paris meeting. (Rappoport, Jean Jaures' Biographie, Paris, 1915)-

This was no doubt the fundamental idea of the great majority, but it does not resolve the contradiction which arises from the fact that, so long as private property, capitalism, and competition prevail, the interests of the various fatherlands do not coincide with the interests of international socialism. The congress anticipated that this contra¬ diction could only be removed by the victory of the working class of the most important countries. The congress eventually adopted a resolution, which mainly originated from August Bebel, with the exception of the two last paragraphs, which were proposed by Lenin, Luxemburg, and Martoff. The resolution read : “ The Congress confirms the resolutions against militarism and imperialism, passed by previous international congresses, and reaffirms that the struggle against militarism cannot be separated from the socialist class 154

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) struggle as a whole. Wars between capitalist States are, as a rule, the consequence of their competitive struggle in the world market, for it is the aim of every State, not only to secure for itself its markets, but also to conquer new markets, in which process the subjugation of foreign nations and land robbery play a leading part. These wars further arise out of the ceaseless armaments competition of militarism, which is a chief tool wielded by bourgeois class domination in the economic and political subjugation of the working class. Wars are' favoured by the prejudices of one nation against another, which are systematically fostered by the civilized nations in the interest of the ruling classes, in order to divert the mass of the people from their own class problems, as well as from the obligations of international class solidarity. “ Wars are therefore inherent in capitalism ; they will not cease until the capitalist order has been abolished, or until the nations are driven to the abolition of this system by the indignation aroused by the sacrifices in men and money necessitated by the development of military technique and the competition in armaments. In particular, the working 155

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM class, which provides most of the soldiers, and has chiefly to bear the material sacrifices, is the natural opponent of wars, because they are in contradiction to the Labour ideal: the creation of an economic order upon a socialist foundation which realizes the solidarity of nations. Consequently the Congress regards it as the duty of the working classes, and particularly of their represent¬ atives in the parliaments, to oppose the causes of armaments by land and sea, and to refuse to supply the means therefor, as well as to aim at educating the youth of the working class in the spirit of the brotherhood of nations and of socialism, and inspiring it with class-consciousness. The Congress sees in the democratic organization of a militia, or citizen army in place of standing armies, an essential guarantee against the possibility of wars of aggression, and a potent factor in the removal of national antagonisms. The International is not in a position to prescribe in a rigid form the action to be taken by the working class against militarism, as this must vary with time and place, and differ from country to country. But it is its duty to strengthen to the utmost, and to co-ordinate the efforts of the working class against 156

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) militarism and war . . The action of the working class will be all the more successful, in the degree that public opinion is prepared by a ceaseless agitation, and the Labour Parties of the various countries are stimulated by the International. The Congress is con¬ vinced, that, under pressure from the prole¬ tariat, a serious attempt can be made to replace the lamentable arrangements of governments by arbitration, and to assure to the nations the benefits of disarmament, which will render it possible to employ for the cause of civilization, the enormous outlays in money and energy which are dissipated in military armaments and wars.” (x) " If war threatens to break out, the working classes, and their parliamentary represent¬ atives in the countries concerned, pledge themselves, supported by the comprehensive activity of the International Socialist Bureau, to use their utmost exertions to prevent the outbreak of war by using the means which seem most effective to them, which would naturally vary according to the acuteness of the class struggle and the general political situation. " If, however, war should break out, they (*) Essential part of Bebel’s resolution.

157

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM pledge themselves to work for its speedy termination, and to exploit with all their strength the economic and political crisis induced by the war to arouse the people, and thereby hasten the abolition of the class domination of capitalism.” (1). The resolutions of the International Con¬ gresses of Copenhagen (1910), and Basle (1912), were on the lines of the Stuttgart resolution, the two last clauses being textually embodied. The war psychosis, which infected the leaders and the masses at the end of July and beginning of August, 1914, proved stronger than the congress resolutions. Only a small section of the socialist Labour move¬ ment began gradually to apply the principles of the class struggle. They were adopted thoroughly and vigorously only by the Bolshevists in Russia. The World War (1914 —1918), broke the Second International. Or to put it more correctly : the latter foundered on the still unsolved contradiction between nationalist instinct and socialist¬ revolutionary reason. Let us now proceed to sketch the history of the various socialist parties. (l) Lenin-Luxemburg-Martoff addendum.

158

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) 3.

Germany

Nowhere did the socialist spark ignite so successfully as in Germany. The German working class—until 1871, the Austrian workers co-operated as an organic part of the united German proletariat—showed itself to an increasing degree prepared to fight for socialism. In the elections to the first German Reichstag (1871), Eisenachers and Lassalleans together received about 102,000 votes, and in 1874, 352,000 votes, the number of socialist deputies increasing from two to ten. The split between the two camps had lasted until the latter date, but their followers pressed for unity, which was brought about in 1875, at a congress of both parties held in Gotha, where the Gotha programme, a mixture of democratic demands, social reforms, and pacifism, was drawn up and accepted. Two years later the Reichstag elections were held ; the united Socialist Party polled nearly half a million votes for its candidates, and won thirteen seats in the Reichstag. The numerical successes, however, were accom¬ panied by growing persecutions of the party leaders, editors and agitators, and eventually

159

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM —after two attempts upon the life of the Emperor William I.—the Party was placed under the ban of an exceptional law, recommended by Prince Bismarck in 1878. This legislation brought great confusion upon the socialist organization in the first years, but it could not destroy it. The Party re-organized itself on a secret basis, and gained further support. In the 1887 elections, in spite of the dangers of a Franco-German war, it received 763,200 votes; in 1890, 1,427,128 votes and thirty-four seats. The exceptional law was repealed, and soon afterwards Prince Bismarck was dismissed. In 1891, the Party assembled in conference at Erfurt, subscribed to the Erfurt programme drawn up by Kautsky, which supplanted the Gotha programme which had hitherto been in force. The Erfurt programme, to which Kautsky wrote a commentary of extreme importance, is Marxian in its theoretical part, and democratic and social-reformist in its practical part; the measures which socialists would have to adopt during the revolutionary period are wholly lacking. The idea of the revolution, which was sharply emphasized in Marx’s criticism of 160

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) the Gotha programme, was missing. In fact the Party emerged from the period of the exceptional law as a democratic and social reform party. The opposition of the " Young Men ” (1890—91), was provoked by this situation ; was really revolutionary so far as concerned the proletarians who took an active part in it. The opposition was, however, soon crushed by the authority of Engels, Bebel and Liebknecht, and by the cold, but extremely effective eloquence of Ignaz Auer. The revisionist era was slowly dawning, although retarded by the long economic crisis of the first half of the nineties. The revisionist epoch was publicly inaugu¬ rated by Georg von Vollmar soon after the repeal of the socialist law ; it terminated at the end of the century with Eduard Bernstein. It was promoted by the boom in German industry, which favoured optimism, and was accompanied by a boom in trade unionism. The membership of the free trade unions increased from 238,000 in the year 1890 to well over two millions in the year 1914, (*) its leaders, Karl Legien, Robert (l) There was also a considerable increase in the membershio of the Christian Trade Unions : from 5,000 in 1890 to 2i8,oop in 1914.

161

t

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Schmidt, Paul Umbreit, were essentially revisionist. Karl Kautsky, Franz Mehring, and Rosa Luxemburg took up the fight against revisionism with great energy, but without any practical success. A great con¬ tradiction, of which the party comrades were not always aware, yawned between theory and practice. In the fixed articles of faith and at the conferences—especially the notable Dresden conference of 1903—the proletarian¬ revolutionary tendency triumphed, but from the standpoint of the daily labours of the Party, the whole idea of German Social Democracy consisted in the introduction of a parliamentary method of government and in the furtherance of social legislation. Revisionism, together with nationalist sentiment, was victorious along the whole line, and filled the working class with mistrust of revolutionary possibilities, as well as with a “ practical ” sense for the demands of the present. The brilliant party organization, which owed so much to Paul Singer’s great administrative talent and capacity for sacrifice, veiled the inner spiritual weakness of the Party. The astonishing boom in German industry and foreign trade, as well as the rapid and almost continuous numerical 162

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) growth of the Party, and of the votes cast for its candidates, favoured revisionism. In the Reichstag elections of 1912, the Party polled over 4,250,000 votes (or 34.8 per cent of the total votes cast), and captured one hundred and ten seats in the Reichstag—a sham parliament, which was without any executive power, and only served the purpose of giving the German races national unity, in addition to voting taxes. And this purpose it fulfilled. When the World War broke out at the beginning of August, 1914, the overwhelming majority of the German Social Democratic Party felt itself to be an organic part of the nation, and no longer the representatives of a class with interests and ideals diametrically opposed to those of the capitalist order. 4.

Austria-Hungary

The Austrian social-democratic movement moved on parallel lines to those of the German movement, except that from its inception in 1867 it suffered far more than the German movement from the persecution of the authorities. Up to 1871 it formed an organic part of the German movement. In 163

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM 1869—70 its leaders, Andreas Scheu, Johann Most and Pabst, were arrested in Vienna, in consequence of a large Labour demon¬ stration, and condemned to five years' hard labour, but after a few months they were released. After 1871—after the separation of Germany from Austria—the Austrian movement became weaker, and was further affected by the financial and economic crisis which had been raging since 1873, and which impoverished the workers still more. The movement split into a radical and a moderate section, and failed to regain unity until 1888, although the German example of the unity of the Lassalleans, and the Eisenachers at Gotha in 1875, ought to have favoured the establishment of a united party in Austria, and although the Austrian Government fol¬ lowed the German example, and in 1877—78 placed the socialists under an exceptional law. The disunion was rendered worse by the appearance of anarchists who pursued terrorist tactics and won support among the embittered workers. It was only the influence of Victor Adler (died 1918), which brought the workers together in 1886, and two years later unity was achieved at the Hainfeld conference. 164

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) Since then the Party has made consider¬ able progress, although there has been no lack of friction between the various nationalities. The Party laboured systematically to educate the masses : demonstrations, meetings, the Press, and educational classes, made the Austrian proletariat, composed as it was of various national elements (Germans, Czechs, Poles, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs), one of the best-disciplined sections of the Second Inter¬ national. The Vienna working class was the only working class which celebrated the festival of May Day, according to the Paris Resolution of 1889, by ceasing work. It was the Party also which, by ceaseless agitation, compelled the Austrian Govern¬ ment to grant manhood suffrage in 1907. At the elections which were held on the basis of this achievement, the Party polled 1,042,000 votes, and sent eighty-seven deputies to the Parliament. The Party was also relatively rich in intellectuals, among whom were Otto Bauer, Rudolf Hilferding, Gustav Eckstein, Karl Renner, Max Adler. With respect to tactics, the Party was hardly distinguishable from its German brother party, except that revisionism was not so pronounced, as the constitutional conditions 165

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM in Austria were even less calculated to facilitate a peaceful proletarian victory, and as the position of the Austrian working class was less favourable than that of the Germans. Owing to the impotence of the Imperial Council (Parliament) in foreign affairs, the Austrain Social Democracy was unable to exercise any constitutional pressure upon Austrian diplomacy in favour of a reasonable policy towards Serbia and in favour of the maintenance of peace. In Hungary the movement was very much the same as in Austria, except that the anarchist-terrorist elements were lacking there. The Labour movement originated in 1867, but progress was gravely hindered by its illegal position. In spite of all struggles and sacrifices, however, neither a popular franchise nor the legalization of trade unions could be obtained in the pre-war period. The Hungarian proletariat had no cause to shed tears when the old order disappeared. 5.

Great Britain

After the collapse of Chartism in 1855, the English working class applied itself with great determination to the organization of the trade 166

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) unions and co-operative societies. The part it played in the First International was only sporadic and formed merely an episode. Not until the year 1882 did a socialist movement become perceptible. Its pioneer was Henry Mayers Hyndman, a well-to-do, educated, but nationally prejudiced Englishman (1842— 1921), who sought out Marx in 1880, after having read the French translation of “ Capital/' In 1882 he founded the Democratic Federation, which at first had a social reform programme, but later adopted the name of Social Democratic Federation (S.D.F.) and a socialist programme. The organization carried on much agitation, spread Marxian doctrines, led unemployed demon¬ strations, but in spite of all did not succeed in gaining any influence and support in Labour circles. With Hyndman there worked Belfort Bax, William Morris, and Eleanor Marx, a daughter of Karl Marx, who in fact left the S.D.F. after a few years and founded their own organization, “ The Socialist League/' but returned to the S.D.F. after the League had fallen into the hands of the Anarchists. Besides the S.D.F. the Fabian Society was established in 1884, and conducted a social reform propaganda. 167

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Its most important representatives were Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, and G. Bernard Shaw. The Fabian theory is revisionist: Socialism is no remote objective, but a progressive series of measures of reform to be carried out and applied by parliament¬ ary and constitutional means. In democratic countries recognition of the necessity of these measures is to be secured by influencing public opinion, especially the educated classes, by means of written and oral propaganda. The Fabian Society was not clear about the necessity of a Labour Party. Its principles did not imply such a necessity. In the best case, the Fabians regarded the existence of an independent Labour Party as a bogey with which to frighten refractory politicians opposed to social reform. The Fabians, however, have greatly contributed to the spread of critical and constructive social ideas, and their influence has always been friendly to Labour. Meanwhile a decade had passed away since the foundation of the S.D.F. without its leaders having succeeded in creating a socialist Labour Movement and making the trade unions class-conscious organizations. This failure of the S.D.F. caused Scottish 168

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) and Northern Labour and Socialist leaders to create a new organization, with the object of impregnating the trade unions with the socialist spirit and detaching the workers from the bourgeois parties. The man who represented this idea was the miner, James Keir Hardie (1856—1915). He and his friends succeeded in 1893 in founding the Independent Labour Party (I.L.P.), and bringing it into close contact with many trade union leaders. Keir Hardie’s projects were furthered by the legal actions against the trade unions, whose existence was threatened. In this danger the workers were to an increasing extent inclined to resort to independent political action. In 1900 the Labour Party came into existence, and quickly became a party with millions of members, as all the great English trade unions gradually became affiliated to it. The Labour Party is a great trade union and social reform party, which has already absorbed the idea of independent policy, and is now assimilating socialist ideas to an ever-increasing extent. In addition to most of the trade unions, the S.D.F., the Fabians, and the I.L.P., are also affiliated to the Labour Party, which since Keir Hardie's death has been led by J. Ramsay MacDonald, 169

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM

a skilful writer and orator, a moderate socialist, but strongly tinged with liberalism. The party membership grew from 376,000 in the year 1900 to 1,612,000 in the year 1914, and was represented in Parliament by seventy members. Since then the pace of growth of the Party has become rapid, of which more later. At the outbreak of war a large part of the S.D.F., almost the whole of the Fabian Society, and the Labour Party, placed themselves at the disposal of the war government. Only the I.L.P. held aloof from the war tumult. 6. France The first signs of the resurrection of the French Labour Movement, after the Commune defeat, were already perceptible in 1876, when the workers organized in trade unions met for a conference at Paris. At the same time, Jules Guesde (1846— 1920), started contributing socialist articles to the newspaper “ Droits de Phomme.” He continued his activity as chief editor of “ Egalite,” entered into relations with the German Social Democracy, and eventually with Marx and Engels. His efforts were 170

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) seconded by Paul Lafargue (1840—1913), a son-in-law of Marx. The return of the Communards from exile and the release of the old Blanqui from prison (1879), while contributing to the revival of the socialist movement, also led to a dissipation of energy over several organizations. In 1880—1881 there arose the Parti Ouvrier Fran£ais (French Labour Party), the programme of which was drawn up by Guesde and Lafargue, with the assistance of Marx. In 1882 the reformist elements, led by Paul Brousse and Benoit Malon (1841—1893), came out of the P.O.F. and founded a special organization ; their members were called “ Possibilists,” because they held that it was possible to effect the emancipation of the workers through reforms, that is, without revolution. The Possibilist Party lasted until 1899, and other socialist organizations, under the leadership of Jean Allemane, and then the Blanquists, under the leadership of Edouard Vaillant (1840— 1917), also came into existence. Moreover, since 1893 there had been an organization of independent socialists (Millerand, Viviani, Briand, Augagneur, Jaures). In national and municipal elections the various socialist candidates opposed each other as rivals, and 171

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM split the socialist electorate. Socialist dis¬ union, in conjunction with the old Proudhonian and anarchist traditions, stimulated the anti-parliamentary tendency among the revolutionary workers, so that at the beginning of the twentieth century the French socialist movement presented a sorry picture, all the more so as the confusion engendered by the Dreyfus case had exercised a disintegrating effect upon the movement, in which only Jaures loomed large as a centripetal force. It was not until after the Amsterdam Inter¬ national Congress (1904), at which the Dresden class struggle resolution was adopted as a standard, that these groups were united into a homogeneous party, which was held together by the great oratorical talent of Jean Jaures (1859—I9I4)> and attained to a certain amount of importance in France. The consequence of this unity was the expulsion of Millerand, Viviani and Briand from the Party, as they refused to repudiate ministerialism (the entry of socialists into capitalist governments), which the Amsterdam-Dresden resolution aimed to make impossible. The United Socialist Party then made considerable headway. At the national elections of 1906 it polled 877,800 votes, 172

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) and elected fifty-four deputies; in 1910, about 1,100,000 votes and seventy-six deputies; in 1914, about 1,400,000 votes and one hundred and ten deputies. (*). Then came the war : on the 31st July, 1914, Jaures was treacherously murdered by a nationalist. The socialist leaders, Guesde and Sembat, entered the Government; Vaillant agitated for the entrance of Italy into the war on the side of the Entente. The Party showed itself strongly nationalist. In the period 1892—1908 the French trade union movement, which was known by the name of “ syndicalism/' was of greater theoretical importance than the Socialist Party. According to French law, trade unions were illegal organizations before 1884. Not until 1884 were they made legal, and afforded the opportunity of develop¬ ment. In 1886 the National Association of Trade Unions was founded, which pursued political as well as trade union and social¬ revolutionary aims. Aristide Briand played a great part at the congresses of the Association, where he advocated the general strike as the means for the emancipation of (*) In the 1919 elections the Party polled about 1,730,000 votes (including those of Alsace-Lorraine).

173

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the proletariat (1892). As those workers who were inclined to anarchist-communism con¬ sidered that the Association paid too much attention to politics, a rival organization, called the Association of Labour Exchanges, and led by Ferdinand Pelloutier, an intellectual anarchist-communist, came into existence in 1892. Pelloutier was the real founder of syndicalism. In 1895, friendly relations were established between the two organizations, from which arose the Confederation generate du travail (C. G. F. General Confederation of Labour), in which both Associations were eventually (1902) absorbed. Under the influence of Pelloutier, Hubert Lagardelle and Georg Sorel, the latter being a scholar of note, the theory of syndicalism arose, which united the idea of the class struggle and the Marxian conception of history with the philosophy of Bergson and the anti-State doctrines of Proudhon : abolition of the wage system, development of the class struggle, expro¬ priation of the capitalist class by revolutionary struggles, and the general strike, the taking over of production by the trade unions, in order to dispense with and render superfluous the State, which, together with democracy,

174

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) militarism, patriotism, is only a means of deception, enabling the bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat in material and mental subjection. The doctrines and actions of syndicalism had many opponents in the C.G.T. so that it was impossible to reach unanimity there. Moreover, the membership of the C.G.T. before the war was never stronger than about half a million. But it had great enthusiasm and energy, and agitated in favour of anti-militarism ; in the course of its struggles, it met with the severest per¬ secutions at the hands of the prime ministers, Clemenceau and Briand, its erstwhile professor of the general strike. After 1909, the syndicalist agitation and influence began to decline, and at the outbreak of war the great majority of the C.G.T. were for the Union sacree (civil peace) ; their organ “ Bataille,” which originally propagated the class struggle, became an organ of the war of French imperialism with German imperialism. The struggle of the Bakunists with Marx in the First International, and the expulsion of the anarchists from the Second International, served the " Bataille ” to fan the war flames against Germany: the last 175

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Bakunist, Professor Guillaume, published in the “ Bataille ” during the first months of the war, and shortly before his death, a series of articles entitled : “ Karl Marx, the PanGerman/' whereas the Dutch anarchist, Cornelissen, who had been compelled to leave the Second International in consequence of the resolution of the London International Congress (1896), wrote for the “ Bataille ” anti-German and war-inciting articles which would have been worthy of the “ Action Fran£aise.” 7.

Italy

The modern Italian Labour Movement arose in 1867, under the influence of the International Working Men's Association, Sections were founded in Milan, Florence, Naples, Catania, but on the occasion of the split in the International, they made common cause, under the leadership of Andrea Costa and Carlo Caffiero, with the Bakunist tendency. From the outset they were exposed to bitter persecutions from the authorities, and they made great sacrifices for their convictions. Gradually the move¬ ment overcame anarchism ; the Marxian doctrines penetrated ; firmer Labour organi176

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914)

zations came into existence, which eventually fused into a homogeneous Labour party at the Genoa congress of 1892, and at the following congress at Reggio Emilia in 1893 adopted the name of Italian Socialist Party. Even Costa joined it. The most eminent leaders were Filippo Turati and Enrico Ferri. The development of the party, its press, and its literature, then went rapidly ahead. In 1892, the Party was able to register consider¬ able success at the parliamentary elections ; it polled 26,000 votes and elected six deputies ; in 1897, 135,000 votes and sixteen deputies ; 1904, 175,000 votes and thirty-two deputies ; 1913, 883,000 votes and fifty-two deputies. But the Party, exposed both to German and to French influences, had to suffer from revisionism as well as from anarchistsyndicalism, all the more so as the Italian Party counted in its ranks a relatively large number of intellectuals, and was, therefore, accessible to all theoretical controversies and tactical tendencies. Bissolati, Bonomi, Canepa, formed the extreme right; Arturo Labriola (son of the Marxist and Professor Antonio Labriola), Leone, and Orano, represented anarchist-syndicalism, Turati, Treves, Mussolini and Ferri formed the centre, 177

M

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM in the order from right to left. The war with Tripoli—part of the prologue to the World War—was the turning point in the history of the Party : a violent imperialist wave surged through many comrades. Neverthe¬ less at the Modena Congress of 1911, the war enthusiasm was quenched, and a year later the war supporters—among them Bissolati and Bonomi—were expelled from the Party. These incidents stood the Party in good stead at the outbreak of the World War. The Party declared for neutrality, and excluded the interventionists—among them, Benito Musso¬ lini, who succumbed entirely to the war psychosis, and became a fanatical nationalist and the creator of fascism. 8.

Russia .and Poland

The modern Socialist Labour Movement of Russia started at the beginning of the eighties, but it was not the first revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire. The struggle against Czarist absolutism became perceptible soon after the Napoleonic wars, although at first in a sporadic fashion. The most important attempt in the course of this struggle was that of the so-called Decembrists 178

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) (1826), (x) among whom Pestel and Ryleeff distinguished themselves, partly by their republicanism, partly by their agrarian reform proposals. Both were executed. Then came the period in which Saint-Simonian and Fourierist ideas found admission into Russian literature (1830—1850). The most eminent social-revolutionary writer of this time was Alexander Herzen, who was originally active in Moscow, and perceived that the struggle against Czarism ought to coincide with that for socialism; his standpoint, however, was that of a vague socialistic land reformer. His principal achievement consisted in publishing " Kolokol ” (The Bell), which was started in 1857 in London and was smuggied into Russia, where it exercised a political revolutionary influence. He was succeeded as editor by Bakunin (after 1869). Both had lived and agitated abroad since the forties. Interest in social questions was also cultivated in St. Petersburg in 1849 by a number of intellectuals, among whom was (») The Decembrists consisted of members of the higher nobility and officers, who planned a revolt for December, 1825, but were betrayed, their leaders being executed on the ^-5^^ July, 1826. A large number of Decembrists were banished to Siberia.

179

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Dostoievski. They were betrayed, arrested, and condemned to death or to long terms of penal servitude in Siberia. At the end of the fifties, the economist Tschernyschevsky (1829—1889) and the eminent literary critic Dobroljubov were writing on democratic and social reform lines in the periodical " Sovremjennik ” (The Contemporary). The former was arrested, and after awaiting trial for two years, during which he composed his famous novel “ What’s to be done ? ” was condemned to seven years’ penal servitude. In this atmosphere, which was further intensified by the problems of the emanci¬ pation of the peasants in 1861, there arose secret societies, which were to win freedom and the land for the people by fighting. This was followed by the period of enlightenment of natural scientific positivism and the socalled political nihilism. The influence of the First International also made itself felt among the Russian students through Bakunin’s secret “ Alliance.” In 1873 Marx’s “ Capital ” was translated into Russian by Lopatin. In the seventies the influence of modern socialism was gaining ground; its most 180

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) eminent spokesman at that time was Lavrov (1823—1898). Meanwhile industry was developing ; in 1870 strikes broke out in St. Petersburg. The socialist intelligentsia, which had hitherto directed its attention to winning the peasants, gradually turned towards the proletariat, which it goes without saying did not come to pass without profound controversies about the significance of the Russian village commune (Mir) and the domestic and handicraft co-operative associations (Artels). Many socialists championed the view that it would not be necessary for Russia to pass through the stage of industrialization and proletarian struggles in order to reach socialism, which could be grafted on to the present co-operative associations, whilst others argued that the Mir was doomed to disappear, and that Russia, like Western Europe, would have to develop an industry and create a proletariat before she could carry out the process of socialization. The former were, therefore, agrarian socialists, with a firm belief in the socialist soul of the Russian peasants; the modern socialists, on the other hand, turned more and more to the nascent proletariat, in order to imbue 181

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM it with class-consciousness and give it organized strength. The propaganda in the villages remained practically futile, while secret fighting organi¬ zations arose among the workers, which in 1882 assumed a social-democratic character, under the leadership of Plechanoff (died 1919), P. B. Axelrod and Vera Sassulitsch. By the side of these agrarian and proletarian-socialist tendencies, terrorist organizations, led by students and intel¬ lectuals, arose in the seventies, which aimed at intimidating and eventually disorganizing the Government by means of outrages. The terrible persecutions to which all freedom associations were exposed had filled many fighters with the conviction, that, without the destruction of absolutism and its cruel instruments, Russia would never be able to attain to any freedom. In 1876, there arose the revolutionary association “ Land and Freedom/' then the powerful “ Narodnaja Wolja ” (popular freedom), which was carried on with extreme determination, and the executive of which consisted of Scheljaboff, Michailoff and Sophia Perofskaya. Several high dignitaries were removed as a result of successful attempts by members 182

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) of this organization, and finally Czar Alexander II. was slain by Hrynewjezki, on the ist (13th) March, 1881. The activity of the Narodnaja Wolja (1879—1881) had actually exercised a demoralizing influence upon the State machinery ; but the Executive Committee had committed the blunder of not having taken such an eventuality into consideration and had prepared no con¬ structive measures. After the successful bomb attempt on Alexander II. such was the confusion in Government circles, that, if it had made cautious preparation, the Executive Committee would have probably been able to take over the Government and to complete the political revolution, for the liberal elements in Russia were sympathetic towards the activity of the Narodnaya Volya. This sin of omission heavily revenged itself: the members of the Executive Committee were tried and executed; Alexander II. was followed by Alexander III., a brutal despot, intellectually dominated by the arch-reactionary Pobyedonostzeff. The reign of Alexander III. (1881—1894), is, at the same time, the turning point in the socialist history of Russia. The intel¬ lectuals as representatives of the social183

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM revolutionary movement fall into the back¬ ground—the anarchist-communist, Peter Krapotkin (1842—1920), survived from this period into our own time—the proletariat, on the other hand, took over the mission of transforming the Russian Empire. At the foundation congress of the Second Inter¬ national in Paris in 1899, Plechanoff and Lavrov represented the Russian Labour move¬ ment, and they were able to summarize their report in the words : “ The revolutionary intelligentsia of Russia could accomplish nothing against Czarism, as they were separated from the mass of the people. The Russian revolutionary movement will only triumph as a Labour movement/' In the following decade the industrialization of Russia proceeded without interruption, stimulated by foreign capital investments and by military armaments. At the end of the century, great strikes broke out in St. Petersburg. In 1898 the Russian Social-Democratic Party was formed out of the various Labour organi¬ zations, but two tendencies soon became manifest in the new party, which since the 1903 congress were known as Bolsheviki and Mensheviki. At the congress held in Geneva, the section 184

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) led by Lenin, captured the majority, which means in Russian bolschinstwo, while the section represented by Martov and Axelrod, remained in the minority (menschinstwo). This was the origin of the names by which the Russian socialist parties have been known ever since. During the first Russian Revolution of 1905, which broke out in con¬ sequence of the Russian defeat suffered in the war against Japan, the two sections came together, but this union did not last long. The Menshevists are on the whole evolutionists and regard the revolution only as the final term to a long process of capitalist develop¬ ment ; the Bolshevists, on the other hand, regard the revolution as a lever for the acceleration of evolution. In the Imperial Duma, the sole result of the 1905 revolution, there was also a Labour party, in which the Menshevists had the majority. In the Labour organizations, however, the Bolshevist influence predominated. The Party also maintained schools abroad, where the most gifted Russian workers were sent for revolutionary education. One of the most energetic sections of the Russian Social Democracy was the Jewish League, which came into existence about 185

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the middle of the nineties, and consisted of Jewish male and female workers of Lithuania and part of Poland. In addition to the Social-Democratic Party of Russia, a Social-Revolutionary Party of Russia (S.R.R.), which supported agrarian socialism and propaganda by deed, had been in existence since 1901. It was never a mass movement, but a remnant of an old revolutionary formation, and was saturated with nationalist Russian sentiments and theories. At the outbreak of war the S.R.R., together with Krapotkin, Plechanoff, as well as their personal supporters, adopted the patriotic attitude, while the Bolshevists and most of the Menshevists preserved the international standpoint. Prior to the eighties the socialist move¬ ment of Poland was closely bound up, both intellectually and organically, with that of Russia, In Poland, too, there was a Utopian brand of socialism, and an agrariansocialist and a terrorist period. Among the leading members of the St. Petersburg organizations, " Land and Freedom ” and “ Narodnaya Yolya,” were a number of extremely energetic Polish students ; the 186

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914) Poles also regarded Hrynewjezki as one of themselves. In 1878 the Polish organi¬ zation, “ Proletariat/’ was founded, in which Kunitzki (a former executive member of the “ Narodnaja Wblja”), distinguished himself by great conspiratorial talent, and Ludwig Warynski, S. Mendelsohn, and S. Dickstein, by their knowledge of socialism. Most of the pioneers of the first period died a martyr’s death, suffered long terms of imprisonment or succumbed in exile. Gradually the inter¬ national standpoint was lost sight of, and the movement became nationalist; in 1892 the Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partya Socyalistycna—P.P.S.) was founded, which to an increasing extent associated the idea of the resurrection of Poland with social reform. In course of time the P.P.S. became the champion of the nationalist idea among the masses, and fell into opposition towards Russian and German socialists. It perceived in the War a means for the liberation, first of Russia, then of Germany and Austria. Out of its ranks came Dashinski and Pilsudzki, who formed the Polish legion and advocated the continuation of the war to the bitter end. The P.P.S. was actively opposed by Rosa Luxemburg, who started an opposition 187

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM organization, the Social Democracy of Russian Poland (1893), in order to combat the social patriots/' as Rosa Luxemburg soon described the P.P.S. She did not succeed in detaching the Left Wing of the P.P.S. until 1906, which then constituted itself as an independent party. Not until the war did it join the Social Democracy, and soon afterwards both sections espoused communism. 9.

United States of America

In this chapter we are not concerned with the communist colonies founded by heretics, sectaries, and humanitarians in North America. Some of them were dealt with in Part III. of this work (“ Social Struggles and Socialist Forerunners ”). There remains to be mentioned Brook Farm (at Boston), which was maintained from 1841 to 1847 by American Fourierists, chiefly scholars and writers: Dr. Channing, Hawthorne, Ripley, Dana, etc. Brook Farm also belongs to a period that is past in the history of socialism. Here we are concerned with the modern socialist movement, whose pillar is the proletariat. It arose in America in the third quarter of 188

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914)

the nineteenth century ; its founders were German communists who had left their native land after 1848 in order to create a new home, a new sphere of activity in America. Apart from Wilhelm Weitling, who occupied a position midway between Utopian socialism and proletarian socialism, based on the class struggle, those who performed the pioneer work for socialism were friends and disciples of Karl Marx. We may mention Josef Weydemeyer, Hermann Meyer, F. A. Sorge, Josef Dietzgen. The representatives of communist thought were at first the German Gymnastic Club. The formation of an American section of the First International likewise contributed to the spread of socialism. In 1877 the “New Yorker Volkszeitung ” was founded, and in the same year the Socialist Labour Party. This movement was reinforced by German immigration, which was caused by the German Socialist Law (1878), but which also brought anarchist and Lassallean elements to America. The tireless Johann Most, who had been an active revolutionist in Austria, Germany, and England since the end of the sixties, also came to America, where he spread anarchist-terrorist ideas. 189

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM In 1886 a demonstration in connection with a strike was held in Chicago, when a bomb was thrown at the police, which led to the arrest and prosecution of the communists August Spies, A. R. Parsons, Louis Lingg, Georg Engel, Samuel Fielden, Adolf Fischer, Oskar Neebe and Michael Schwab. Spies, Parsons, Fischer and Engel were executed on the nth November, 1887, Lingg having ended his life the previous day. 1886 and 1887 were also remarkable for the land agitation of Henry George in New York and the publication of Edward Bellamy’s “ Looking Backward from the year 2000.” George’s agitation, which was inaugurated in 1879 by his book “ Progress and Poverty,” met with a considerable response in Great Britain. Bellamy’s book, which was trans¬ lated into all civilized languages, promoted the spread of socialist ideas everywhere ; it exhibited the miracles of modern technology in the service of a socialized community. In the eighties the S.L.P. was joined by American elements, among whom was Daniel de Leon, a New York university lecturer, and the journalist Lucien Sanial, both strict Marxists and tireless propagandists, who opposed any sort of compromise. 190

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL (1889—1914)

De Leon, however, made the mistake of trying to create a proper socialist trade union movement, instead of aiming at the permeation of the general trade union move¬ ment by socialist ideas. In opposition to the General Federation of Labour, he founded the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the object of which was to impart a socialist direction to the trade union movement, and to replace craft unions by the organization of industrial unions. The American trade union leaders seized the agitation of De Leon as a pretext for telling the workers that the socialists were opposed to trade unionism. Moreover, most of the German elements of the S.L.P. were opposed to De Leon’s tactics and conducted their opposition in the “ New Yorker Volkszeitung,” while De Leon propagated his own opinions in the weekly “ People.” The opposition came out of the S.L.P. and in 1901 founded the Socialist Party of America, which made good progress until 1920, whereas the S.L.P. declined. The votes cast for the two parties at the Presidential Elections were: Year 1904 1908" 1912

S.L.P. 3i>249 13,824 29.259

S.P.A. 402-2^3 420,713 897,011

1920

31,175

9I5»412

191

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM

In the years 1903—1905 a syndicalist trend of thought was to be observed in the United States. Remarkably enough it arose there among the German trade union of brewery workers. In 1905, De Leon and his friends founded the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), a trade union fighting organization, which placed economic action in the forefront, while not rejecting parlia¬ mentary action. It soon split, as a section of the I.W.W. held all parliamentary action to be reactionary ; the other section, which remained true to De Leon’s programme, called itself the Workers’ International Industrial Union. During the war members of the I.W.W. made great sacrifices for their convictions. In September, 1917, ninety-five of their leading members were arrested and condemned to long terms of imprisonment.

192

XI REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS (1914-1920) i. Breakdown of the Second International

T

HE contradictions and antagonisms which are constantly renewed and progressively accentuated in the bosom of the capitalist order, enkindled in their elemental collisions a world conflagration which the most fantastic imagination of the great myth-creating epoch would have lacked the power to foreshadow or to symbolize. In July 1842, Heinrich Heine prophesied about world war and world revolution to the second generation coming after him in the following words: “We are menaced with wild and gloomy times, and the prophet who would write a new apocalypse must invent entirely new beasts, which must be so terrifying that by their side the old Johannine N

193

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM

animal symbols would be sucking doves. . The storm raged throughout the world. The struggle between the Entente (England —France—Russia) and the Dual Alliance (Germany—Austria) begun in August, 1914, became a life and death grapple of the human race. And in this collapse of a civilization the masses were driven hither and thither with¬ out rudder and without anchor, for the Second International, opportunist and without principles, crumbled in the first storm. At the outbreak of the world war the war-making nations divided themselves not into capitalists and proletarians, but into Allies and Dual Alliance. Inside the war¬ making countries there prevailed at first the industrial truce; industrial conflicts were avoided ; outwardly groups of nations confronted each other as diplomacy had formed them for decades past. The line of demarcation was, therefore, not drawn by the socialist proletarian class struggle, but by capitalist imperialism. The Second International proved unequal to its mission : nationalism and revisionism allied themselves with the existing order and joined the war dance. 194

REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS As a part of Belgium was occupied by German troops in August, 1914, the Inter¬ nationalist Socialist Bureau could not remain in Brussels. The secretary, Huysmans, retired to the Hague, and, in conjunction with the Dutch leaders, formed the bureau, while Vandervelde entered the Belgian Govern¬ ment. Huysmans tried in vain to bring about an international conference ; only the neutrals met at Copenhagen in 1917—18, and summoned the socialists of the war¬ making countries to bring the war to an end. The “ allied ” socialists held a confer¬ ence in London on the 17th February and advocated the continuation of the war; only the Bolshevists and Menshevists refusing to take part in the conference. On the 12th and 13th April the German and Austrian socialists were assembled at a conference in Vienna. Gradually it became clear to many socialists that they had gone astray, and had broken faith with their old con¬ victions, and they endeavoured to return to the international standpoint. The first international signs of the split were the minority conferences at Zimmerwald and Kienthal: in September, 1915, there assembled at Zimmerwald (Switzerland) 195

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM revolutionary and independent socialists from Russia (Lenin, Zinoviev, Radek), Germany (Ledebour, Hoffmann, etc.), France (Blanc, Brizon, Loriot, etc.) as well as from a few neutral countries, who recommended the application of the principle of the class struggle. A similar conference was held in April, 1916, at Kienthal (Switzerland). At neither conference were English delegates present, as the British Government refused to grant them passports. After the out¬ break of the Russian Revolution (March, 1917), Huysmans invited the Second Inter¬ national to a conference at Stockholm, but as the French and British Governments refused passports to the delegates, the conference could not be held. Meanwhile the opposition tendencies were gaining ground in the various war-making countries. In Germany Karl Liebknecht was the first who opposed the industrial and political truce (December, 1914). He was assisted by Rosa Luxemburg, Leo Jogiches and Franz Mehring, who founded the periodical “ International ” in 1915, and somewhat later the Spartacus League, from time to time circulating ‘ Spartacus ” letters. A year later a split

196

REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS occurred in the Social Democratic Party: eighteen members of Parliament, led by Haase, formed the Socialist Labour Union, which in April, 1917, constituted itself the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. The old S.D.P. was then known as the majority party, the Independents as the minority party. The latter, together with the Spartacus League, aimed at the revolutionizing of minds. In France an oppo¬ sition tendency likewise became manifest in the party executives, and its leader was Jean Longuet; for a long time victory remained in the balance, until finally the minority became the majority; but the French opposition was much less revolutionary than the German Independents, not to mention the Spartacus League. The opposi¬ tion led by Longuet, however, was not the only one ; on its left a communist tendency was arising. In England a section broke away from the British Socialist Party, championed the international standpoint, and later merged in communism. In the United States of America the majority of the Socialist Party was opposed to the entry of America into the war. Within the ranks of the majority a communist 197

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM tendency became manifest after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, leading to splits and schisms. 2. The Russian Revolution Up to the beginning of 1917 the Russian armies had great successes and defeats to register, the eventual result of which was an incurable weakening of Russia’s power to continue the struggle. Blockaded in the Baltic and in the Dardenelles by German and Turkish sea power, Russia could not receive any effective assistance from her allies. There was a collapse in the military, transport, and economic organization, upon which strikes, unrest, insubordination, and finally, revolutionary movements broke out, which led in the middle of March, 1917, to the abdication of the Czar and the setting up of a provisional coalition government. A large part of the army and of the peasants demanded an immediate peace, but the Allies, supported by socialist propagandists from France and Belgium, pressed for the continuation of the war. Kerensky, the head of the Provisional Government, prepared an offensive against the Austrian—German

REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS —Turkish front in Galicia, which after some initial successes terminated with the total disorganization of the Russian army. In the meantime the Bolshevist tendency was growing within the Russian labour and socialist organizations, and on the 7th November, 1917, the Bolshevists triumphed all along the line. Within a few weeks a political and agrarian revolution was then consummated in Russia, which few Europeans thought could be lasting. The Bolshevist Government offered the German Imperial Government an immediate peace without annexations, which the latter appeared to accept, but which by cunning, diplomatic subterfuge, and military invasion it sought to transform into a victor’s peace. Soviet Russia submitted to the peace of Brest— Litowsk (1. 3. 1918), but the mass strikes of the German workers at the end of January, 1918, as protests against the oppression of the Russians, were ominous for the fate of Germany. Lenin and Trotsky emerged from the Brest—-Litowsk negotiations appar¬ ently defeated, but the German General Staff and the Imperial Government drove in many piles at Brest—Litowsk for the building of the Versailles Peace Treaty. 199

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM Out of a heap of economic and political ruins, which the Russian Empire presented at the beginning of 1918, Lenin and Trotsky and their collaborators created the Soviet Republic, which has seen Kiihlmann, Czernin, Hoffmann disappear into oblivion, which emerged from all the civil wars in the Russian Empire financed and instigated by the Allies: the Czecho-Slovaks, Kornilov, Yudenitsch, Koltshak, Denikin, the Poles, Wrangel and their British and French supporters in the background. Soviet Russia created a firm fulcrum for the international proletariat and a Red army; it placed itself as vanguard in the revolutionary service of the Central and Western European pro¬ letariat ; it supported every revolutionary movement of emancipation in Europe and Asia, but, in view of the failure and passivity of the Central and Western European pro¬ letariat on the one hand, and the class¬ conscious activity of international capital on the other, it was obliged to curtail the process of socialization that was going on in Russia, and to fall back on State socialism and an invitation to foreign capital. In order to prepare and discipline the international proletariat for the world revo200

REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS lution, for which task the Second International proved inadequate, the Bolshevists founded the Third International in March, 1919, which was intended to stimulate the pro¬ letarian organizations to conduct an uncom¬ promising struggle for their immediate daily interests, as well as for the final emancipation through proletarian dictatorship 3. The Third German Revolution, 1918—19

In August, 1914, the German people entered the World War, and it was not until August, 1918, that it became aware that it no longer had the strength to resist a world of enemies. It succumbed to the crushing superiority of the divergent forces of international capital and the Russian revolution. The German Government and General Staff had succeeded in creating enemies in all camps, and in uniting them against themselves at a given moment. At the end of September, 1918, the military and imperial rule was played out: head¬ quarters pressed for the initiation of armistice negotiations; Count Hertling, the last Imperial Chancellor of old Germany, 201

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM retired; Prince Max of Baden, supported by the Social Democrats Scheidemann and Bauer, took over the government of a new fermenting Germany, which entered the stage of acute revolution on the 30th October, 1918. The old authorities received their first shock in Kiel, then in Stuttgart, Munich, and on the 9th November in Berlin. The fleet and the army went over to the revolu¬ tion. Prince Max handed over the imperial chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert, the representative of the S.D.P. The Kaiser abdicated and fled from Headquarters to Holland ; Scheidemann proclaimed the Ger¬ man Republic ; the vacation of the imperial throne involved the overthrow of the remain¬ ing German dynasties and autocrats. The revolution triumphed bloodlessly throughout the German Empire, just as it had triumphed in Austria a few days before. The victory of the revolution was merely the fruit of the military collapse. It then became imperative to consolidate the revolution. Then the dire consequences of the neglect of socialist education in the pre-war period became manifest. During the days of revolution, workers and soldiers councils, upon the Russian model, were 202

REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS everywhere formed, but what was lacking in Germany was unity and a collective purpose. The leaders of the S.D.P. who had not wanted any revolution at all, and would have been satisfied with parliamentary government, held the achievement of the democratic republic to be the greatest of all attainable objects, and desired elections to take place for the summoning of a national assembly; a socialization of any of the means of production, the realization of socialism, did not enter into their calculations. The Spartacus League, with Rosa Luxemburg at its head, demanded a proletarian dictatorship, and, therefore, constituted the sharpest opposition to the S.D.P. The leaders of the Independents wavered between democracy and dictatorship, but desired a postponement of the appeal to the electorate. For the rest, the S.D.P. and the Independent Socialists co-operated at the outset (from the 9th November to the 29th December, 1918), and three representatives from each party — Ebert, Landsberg, Scheidemann, Barth, Dittmann, and Haase—formed the provisional government or the Council of People's Commissioners. The lack of unity and of a common purpose eventually favoured 203

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the S.D.P., which, with its democratic phrases gained the support of many workers and socialists and of a multitude of lower middle class voters. Many members of the bour¬ geoisie also rallied round the Social Democracy in which they instinctively perceived a bulwark against the social revolution, all the more so as the Provisional Government —after the defection of the three Independent Socialist members—was reinforced by two Right socialists: Noske and Wissell, and embarked on a struggle with the revolutionary Left, aided by the monarchical officers corps. The three most eminent socialist leaders of the revolution : Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Kurt Eisner, were murdered, and with them thousands of the best socialist fighters. The French tragedy of 1848 and I793 was repeated in Germany in the winter and spring months of 1918 and 1919, when moderate social and constitutional reformers led a campaign of extermination against the most energetic elements of the revolution and prepared the way for Hindenburg. The Provisional Government fixed the elections for the 19th January, 1919, when the S.D P. polled over eleven and a half millions and the Independents over 2.3 millions of votes, 204

REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS whereas the Spartacus people abstained from voting. The votes polled by the socialist parties formed about forty-seven per cent, of the total votes cast, and they won one hundred and eighty-five seats in an assembly of four hundred and twenty-one members. As the socialists remained in the minority, they could not, according to parliamentary principles, form a government, and they were forbidden by socialist principles to form a coalition with middle class parties. The socialists would, therefore, have acted logically if they had refused to form a govern¬ ment. But under the circumstances then existing, the middle class parties would not have ventured to steer the ship of State, as the revolutionary waves were still mounting high. The S.D.P., which divided the nation not into classes, but into parties friendly to reform and anti-democratic parties, took over the government together with the Centrists and the middle class Democrats, and assumed great responsibilities without possessing or desiring the power to enforce the measures of socialization demanded by the masses. The S.D.P. ruled, but militarists, the bureaucracy, and Capital governed. The sole fruit of the Revolution is the 205

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM democratic constitution which was adopted on the nth August, 1919. This policy of the S.D.P., in conjunction with the continuous pressure exercised by the Entente by virtue of the Versailles Peace Treaty, rendered impossible the re-construction of Germany on a socialist basis. Many disillusioned socialists turned to the Communist Party (the former Spartacus League), which was still further strengthened by the split in the ranks of the Independents which took place in 1920 : a section then went over to the Communists, while the other section joined the S.D.P. in 1922. 4. Social Agitation in France and Great Britain, 1917 to 1920

Even for the victorious countries the years 1917 to 1920 were a period of internal agitation, which, had the German Revolution been carried on with vigour, would have led to a transformation in Western Europe. At the French Trade Union Congress held in Clermont-Ferrand (December, 1917), the revolutionary elements gained the upper hand, and held their own congress in March, 1918, at St. Etienne. Great strikes took place 206

REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF NATIONS in France in the early part of 1918 ; one of the demands of the strikers was an immediate armistice and the abstention of France from any military intervention in Russia. After 1917 the opposition element became stronger also in the Socialist Party, and in 1919 there arose a communist tendency, which carried the affiliation of the Party to the Third International by three thousand two hundred and fifty-two votes to one thousand four hundred and fifty votes at the Tours Congress in December, 1920. The Party then split. From 1917 onwards strikes broke out in Great Britain, and to some extent assumed a social-revolutionary character. At the Trade Union Congresses the right of the workers to share in the control of production was regularly advocated. The centre of the struggle was the nationalization of the mines, which would have led to a general strike in 1920, if the leaders of the Railwaymen and the Transport Workers had not shirked the struggle at the last minute, fearing that a general strike would actually have signified the inauguration of the social revolution. The ebb of economic action since 1920 had, on the other hand, a strength207

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM ening of parliamentary action as its conse¬ quence, which brought the British Labour Party considerable successes at the elections of 1922, 1923 and 1924, and even to a short term of governmental office (January— October, 1924).

208

XII THE SMALLER PARTIES, (1870-1920). i. In Europe

D

ENMARK has one of the relatively strongest movements of the Second International, although the country is still predominantly agricultural. The first at¬ tempts at political organization (1871) were suppressed by the police, whereupon the workers founded vocational associa¬ tions, in which they discussed socialist ideas, albeit Utopian ones. In 1878 the movement was strong enough to establish a party under the name of “ Social Democratic Union/' As early as 1884 the Danish Social Democracy was able to register successes at the Folkething, but as this had been effected with Liberal assistance, an opposition section arose in the Party, which aimed at preserving the purely proletarian character of the movement. With the exception of the year 1919, however, 209

o

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM the Left socialist opposition in Denmark has never attained to any importance. The Party is, in fact, a trade union and social reform party, like the German SocialDemocratic Party or the British Labour Party. The Press, co-operative movement, and educational institutions of the Danish Social Democracy are organized on model lines. In October, 1916 the Conference resolved to support the Liberal Government in the sale of the West Indian islands to the United States of America. Stauning, the leader of the Danish Social Democracy, was a member of the Government until its fall in March, 1920. At the elections in September, 1920, the Party elected forty-eight members to the Folkething (Chamber of Deputies) and twenty-two members to the Landesthing (Upper House). The Norwegian Labour Movement was in the beginning under the intellectual influence of the Danish. There, too, the movement became perceptible about 1871 ; yet it was not until 1887 that there was founded a Norwegian Labour Party, which soon exhibited a Right and a Left wing. The rapid industrialization of Norway which set in after 1905 also revolutionized the 210

THE SMALLER PARTIES (1870—1920) proletariat, In 1912 the Left Wing organized itself as a special group ; in 1918 it captured the party and the trade unions. The Right wing left the party and in 1920 formed the Norwegian Social-Democratic Labour Party. In contrast to the Danish movement, which has a trade union and practical character, the Norwegian Labour Movement is dominated by theoretical interests, and has produced a relatively numerous intelligentsia, which is in touch with the entire socialist thought of Western and Eastern Europe. Sweden received the socialist gospel in 1881 from the tailor August Palm, who had worked in Northern Germany and there became acquainted with socialism. Palm was a genuine apostle; he traversed the country on foot and everywhere spread the new doctrine. In his footsteps followed the former student Hjalmar Bran ting (1924), who served the Party as an active journalist since 1885, and in 1886 established the “ Social Democrat/' which has been published daily since 1890. In 1889 the Swedish Social-Democratic Party was created. Ten years later it embarked upon a struggle for electoral 211

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM reform, which it eventually extorted by means of the general strike. The Party was able to record great parliamentary successes, but it developed in a revisionist direction, whereupon a revolutionary opposi¬ tion arose. In 1917 Branting joined the Coalition Government, which lasted until 1920, when it gave way to a purely Socialist Government (with Branting as Prime Minister), which, however, only lived for a few months. The reinforcement of the revisionist tendency in the socialist thought of the Swedish Party led to a sharper attitude on the part of the opposition, and eventually to its breaking away from the Party. In 1917 the Opposition constituted itself as the Left Social-Democratic Party, which, like all Left parties of the northern countries, inclined to communism and is more or less in touch with the Moscow International. Finland possessed the best organized Labour movement in the world. It arose in 1899, and in 1903 founded the Social-Democratic Party; in the 1907 elections it captured eighty seats (in a parliament composed of two hundred men and women deputies). In 1916 it had the majority, and formed a Socialist-Liberal Coalition Government under 212

THE SMALLER PARTIES (1870—1920) its member Tokoi. The Russian Revolution and the subsequent Russo-German War inflicted immense suffering upon the Finnish socialists. The Finnish capitalists, supported by the “ victorious ” German Army, wreaked a terrible revenge on the revolutionary proletariat; thousands of Finnish socialists suffered martyrdom. In Holland the socialist movement, which had been in evidence since the sixties, suffered from infantile diseases until the early nineties. First of all it fell under the leadership of Domela Nieuwenhuis, a former Lutheran pastor, who was disillusioned by parliamentary action and became an anarchist communist. He was followed by a section of the Labour organizations of the time. The Dutch Social-Democratic Labour Party was not formed until 1893, under the leadership of Troelstra and Van der Goes. Simultaneously the trade unions were developing, and in 1903, in consequence of a railway strike, they declared a general strike, which involved great sacrifices, but finally failed. The movement was a long time recovering from this defeat. Under the leadership of Troelstra and Vliegen, it became revisionist 213

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM and lost the intellectuals: Mrs. RolandHolst, Herman Gorter, etc., who formed a Left Wing Social-Democratic Party in 1909, and after the Russian Revolution went over to communism. Belgium was for long the paradise of capitalists: parliamentary methods of govern¬ ment, free play of economic forces, a politically apathetic, disfranchised, and clericalized proletariat. An active Labour movement did not arise until 1875. In 1877 the Flemish and the Brabant Socialist Parties were started, and in 1879 they united to form the Belgian Socialist Party. In addition, there were various Labour bodies and co¬ operative societies. In 1885 they all com¬ bined to form the Belgian Labour Party. A year later Labour revolts broke out: elemental explosions which were continued in the attempts of the miners to organize a general strike. The revolts were brutally suppressed. The chief struggle of the Belgian Party centred around the attain¬ ment of general suffrage. It resorted to general strikes (1893, 1902, 1913) without being able to achieve its object. Eventually the workers were granted only a restricted franchise, which, however, enabled them to 214

THE SMALLER PARTIES (1870—1920) be represented in Parliament. But it was only the revolutionary wave of 1918 and 1919, proceeding from Russia and everywhere inspiring the possessing classes with fear, that brought general suffrage to the Belgian proletariat in 1919. At the outbreak of the war, the Party placed itself in the service of the war; its leader, Emile Vandervelde, president of the Second International, entered the Government. After the term¬ ination of the war, Anseele, Destree, and Wauters also entered the Coalition Govern¬ ment, which met with the approval of the Party congress. In 1920 the opposition elements combined to form a communist party. In the Griitli union, which originated in 1838, Switzerland possessed the nucleus of a modem Labour movement. The Griitlians adopted socialist principles in 1878, but remained strong supporters of Swiss nationalism and social reform. It was only gradually that a Swiss Socialist Party accepting Marxian principles came into being. It numbers about forty thousand members, but is divided into Right and Left Wings. Besides, Switzerland has a Communist Party with five thousand to six thousand 215

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM members. Both parties exercise a certain influence on the internal politics of the Swiss Confederation. The beginnings of the modern Labour movement of Spain were similar to those of the Italian movement: the movement originated in the time of the First Inter¬ national and came under the anarchistcommunist influence of Bakunin, only a small group, led by Pablo Iglesias, remaining social-democratic. Only in 1910 was Iglesias elected to the Cortes (Parliament). At the outbreak of war this group placed itself on the side of the Entente. The economic Labour movement is for the greater part syndicalist. In Portugal the conditions are similar. The social-democratic movement is insignifi¬ cant. The economic Labour movement is syndicalist. In Bulgaria the Social-Democratic Party arose in the year 1894; in 1903 it split into two groups: the “ Broads ” and the “ Narrows/' or into reformist and revo¬ lutionary. In 1913 the whole party was strong enough to send thirty-seven deputies to the Sobranje. When Bulgaria entered the war, the reformers sided with their fatherland ; 216

THE SMALLER PARTIES (1870—1920) the “ Narrows” remained international, voted against the war credits and suffered many persecutions. After the close of the war the “ Narrows ” were considerably reinforced, and in 1919 transformed themselves into the Communist Party. Trade unions and co-operative societies are relatively strong. The Social-Democratic Party of Serbia was founded in 1903 ; in 1912 it had two deputies in the Skupschtina ; it was from the outset Marxist and revolutionary, and voted against the war credits at the outbreak of the war. After the end of the war the revolutionary socialists of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and of the other former Austrian provinces which were absorbed in the Jugo¬ slav State, united and formed the Socialist Labour Party of Jugo Slavia—since 1920 known as the Communist Party—on the basis of the Third International. The Party is exposed to great persecution. Besides there is a minority party of reformist socialists. In Rumania there have been various socialist groups since the eighties. But the very backward constitutional and administrative conditions precluded the formation of a socialist party until the trade union movement—through the boom 217

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM in the petroleum industry—was strong enough to render possible the existence of Labour organizations. After the first Russian Revolution of 1905 and the peasant insurrec¬ tion of 1907, the socialist groups again came to the front under the leadership of Rakovski, and, together with the trade unions, formed the Social-Democratic Party in the year 1911. The Party was opposed to Rumania's entry into the war. In 1918 a general strike broke out, which led to the ruthless persecution of socialists and trade unionists. On the 13th December, 1918, the Government mobilized a machine gun company against a peaceful, unarmed Labour demonstration in Bukarest; over one hundred workers were shot down by the machine guns. The annexation of the Bukovina, Transylvania, and the Banat to Rumania strengthened the moderate social-democratic elements, which together formed the “ Socialist Party of Rumania," whereas the revolutionary socialist organization is known as the Communist Party. 2. In Australia, South Africa, South America, Asia

The Labour Party arose in Australia in 1892 in consequence of unsuccessful strikes 218

THE SMALLER PARTIES (1870—1920) in 1889—1891. The workers turned with greater energy to political energy, but only formulated a social reform programme for the improvement of the position of the wage workers. The Labour Party became very strong and gained parliamentary victories; in 1910 it had the majority in the Federal Parliament (forty-two members against thirty-three middle-class members), and formed a Labour Government. It also had the majority almost everywhere in the individual States, but the war with its confusions broke up the unity of the Party, which was considerably weakened as a consequence. It appears now to have re¬ covered from these weaknesses and is gaining ground. In New Zealand the political evo¬ lution of the workers has followed the same lines as in Australia, except that the Labour Party is more socialistic ; compulsory arbi¬ tration in industrial conflicts was operative between 1894 and 1905 : during this time there were no strikes in New Zealand. Since then the position has considerably altered. The powerful economic development that has been proceeding has given rise to acute class struggles, which cannot be cured by arbitration methods. 219

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM

The South African Labour Party was founded in 1909, and won four seats at the 1910 parliamentary elections. The party became particularly strong in the Transvaal, where it gained the majority in 1913. There, too, the war exercised a disintegrating effect on the Party : the majority supported the war, the minority seceded and founded the International Socialist League—a revolution¬ ary organization which, among other things, advocates the fraternal co-operation of the white and coloured workers. So far as it is class conscious, the Labour Movement in South Africa has a hard struggle with the Diamond capitalists. The South-American Republics : Argentine, Brasil, Peru, Uruguay are countries of the future: economically they are nascent countries. The Labour Parties and their sections are only a partial extension of European organizations, and at the most the nuclei of future socialist bodies. The Labour Movement in the Argentine is relatively the strongest. The Argentine Socialist Party arose in 1896. At the 1914 elections it received forty thousand votes and elected nine deputies. Here, too, a split was brought about by the war: in 220

THE SMALLER PARTIES (1870—1920) 1917 the opposition formed the International Socialist Party, which—like the South African International League—is communist. As regards Asia the Far East comes into consideration. China finds itself in the throes of the industrial revolution ; Labour is awakening and joining the international Labour movement. Capitalism is fulfilling its revolutionary mission, preparing even in the Far East the soil for the seed of socialism. In its chase for profits it revo¬ lutionizes its own foundations. The socialist labour movement of Japan likewise merits our attention. Within the last decades Japan has become a modern industrial country. Signs of the awakening of the working class were manifest in the last decade of the nineteenth century, as in 1900 the Japanese Parliament passed an anti-strike law. In 1901 the Japanese Social-Democratic Party was founded by Kotoku and Sen Katajama, but was soon persecuted and suppressed by the authorities. Its place was taken in 1903 by the League of Plebians, a Marxist group, which was revolutionary and, therefore, anti-imperialist: its influence was cast against the RussoJapanese war (1904). It also suffered the 221

SOCIAL STRUGGLES & MODERN SOCIALISM fate of its predecessors ; in 1910 a number of socialist leaders, including Kotoku, were condemned to death and executed, after being charged with conspiring against the life of the Mikado. The development of Japanese industry during the World War, together with the Russian Revolution (1917), revived the Japanese socialist and trade union movement, which may look forward to a prosperous future. The social question is also studied with great assiduity in middle class intellectual circles. The East and the West are joining hands in the great move¬ ment which is transforming the world.

222

INDEX Australian Labour, 218 Austria, growth of Socialism in, 163 et seq. Bebel, A., 129 Beck, K., 45 Belgium, Socialism in, 214 Bolshevists, origin of, 185 Born, S., 84 Branting, H., 211 Brest-Litowsk, peace of, 199 Brook Farm, 188 Bulgaria, Socialism in, 216 Chicago Martyrs, 190 China, awakening of, 221 Class Struggle, 71 Communist League, 40, 82, 83, decline of, 115 et seq. Communist Manifesto, 41 Decembrists, 179 de Leon, D., 190 Denmark, Socialism in, 209 Economic expansion of Europe, 122, 123 Economic Tendencies of Capitalism, 143 Emancipation League (Weitling), 34 England, growth of Socialism in, 167 Engels, Friedrich, 53, 79 et seq. Erfurt Programme, 160 Evolution and revolution, 77 et seq.

German Labour Conferences, 109 et seq. German Labour in 1846, 108 German Labour Union, 128 German Independent Socialists, 197 German Philosophy, 15 German Refugees, 26 German Revolution (1848), 103 et seq. German Revolution (1918), 201 et seq. German Social Criticism, 22 et seq. German Socialism, 146 German Socialism in 1842, 20 German Socialism, recent vicissitudes of, 204 et seq. German Socialist Journals, 107 German Social Reform Move¬ ments, 88 et seq, German Unity Movement, 10 German War of Liberation, 11 Germany after the Napoleonic Wars, 12 et seq. Germany and the French Revolution, 9 Germany, growth of Socialism in, 159 Gottschall, R. v., 43 Great Britain, Labour successes in, 208; labour unrest in, 207 Grim, K., 44, 54 Guesde, J., 170

Fabian Doctrine, 168 Fabian Society, 167 Feuerbach, L., 16 Finland, Socialism in, 212 France, growth of Socialism in, 170 et seq. Franco-German War, 135 et seq. French Socialists and World War, 197 French Socialist parties, 171 French United Socialist Party, 172 Friedrich Wilhelm IV., 42 Gall, L„ 22 223

Hardie, J. K., 169 Hegelian Dialectic, 60 et seq. Heine, H., 45, 48, 193 Herzen, A., 179 Hess, M., 50 et seq. Holland, Socialism in, 213 Hungary, Socialism in, :66 Hyndman, H. M., 167 Idealism and Materialism, 15, 16 Imperialist Epoch, 141 Imperialism, rise of, 122 Inaugural Address of I.W.A., 131

Independent Labour Party, 169 Industrial Expansion, 142

INDEX—continued International Congresses, 132 International Workingmen’s Association (I.W.A.), 130, 192 Italian Labour Movement, 176 et seq.

Russian Socialism, growth of, 178 Russian Socialist tendencies, 181 Russian S.R. Party, 186 Rumania, Socialism in, 217

Japan, Socialism in, 221

Sallet, F. v., 44 Schapper, Iv., 29 Schuster, Dr. T.. 27 Second International, 149, and war, 152 Serbia, Socialism in, 217 Social Democratic Federation, 167 Social Epochs, character of, 124 Socialist expansion, 145 Socialist Labour Party, 189 Socialist refugees in London, 39 Socialist resolution on war, 154 South African Labour, 220 South American Labour, 220 Soviet Republic, 200 Spain, Socialism in, 216 Spartacus League, 196 Speculation in religion and politics, 18 Stein, Dr. L. v., 46 Stirner, Max., 19 Sweden, Socialism in, 211 Switzerland, Socialism in, 215 Syndicalism, French, 173

Kautsky, K., 146 Labour Party (British), 169 Lange, F. A., 14 Lamennais, H. F. R., 28 Large-scale production, 144 Lassalle, F., 127 et seq. “ League of the Banished,” 29 “ League of the Just,” 28 Lenin, N., 185 Liberal Era, 118 et seq. Liebknecht, W., 129 Luxemburg, R., 187 MacDonald, J. R., 169 Marx, K., 56 et seq. Marx and Bakunin, 133 et seq. Marx on Paris Commune, 138 Marxian Economics, 73 et seq. Marxian Socialism, 56 et seq. Materialist Conception of History, 67 et seq. Mentel, F., 86 et seq. Ministerialism, 151 Mosen, J., n Meissner, A., 47 New Zealand, Labour in, 219 Nieuwenhuis, D., 213 Norway, Socialism in, 210 Paris Commune, 135 et seq. Poland, Socialism in, 186 Portugal, Socialism in, 216 Proletarian dictatorship, 72 Revisionism, 161 Revolutionary Dictatorship, 35 Rodbertus, Iv. J., 95 et seq. Russia, collapse of, 198 Russian Revolution (March 1917), 198 Russian Revoluti(«fij^cC2fer, 1917). 199, et S901 < Russian Secret SocUr§ieSy