University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI
INTELLECTUALS, AND THE NEED FOR THEM IN THE WORKING-CLASS PARTIES

IN the early days of the labour movement the bourgeois intellectuals who adhered to the cause of the workers were regarded by these with profound esteem; but as the movement matured the attitude of the proletariat became transformed into one of undue crticism. This antipathy on the part of the rank and file of the socialists is based upon false presuppositions, and proceeds from two antithetical points of view. Some, like the group of the “Neue Zeit” and the “Leipzige Volkszeitung” in Germany, with the support of the revolutionary-minded workers of Berlin, of the two Saxonies, and of Rhenish Westphalia, persisting in the maintenance of intransigent revolutionary conceptions, think themselves justified in accusing the intellectuals of a tendency to “take the edge off” the labour movement, to “water it down,” to give it “bourgeois” characteristics, to rob it of proletarian virility, and to inspire it with an opportunist spirit of compromise. The others, the reformists, the revisionists, who find inconvenient the continued reminder principiis obsta! with which they are assailed by the revolutionists, in their turn attack the intellectuals, regarding them as meddlesome intruders, fossilized professors, and so on, as persons who are utterly devoid of any sound ideas of the labour movement and of its necessities, disturbing its normal course with their ideas of the study. Thus while the first group of critics regard the intellectuals as being for the most part reformists, bourgeois-minded socialists of the extreme right, the other group of critics classes the intellectuals as ultrarevolutionary, as anarchizing socialists of the extreme left. In Italy, towards 1902, the intellectuals found themselves placed between two fires. On one side the reformists claimed to represent the healthy proletarian energy of the economic organizations of the peasants as against the circoletti ambiziosetti (“the self-seeking petty circles”—i.e., socialist groups in the towns), which were composed for the most part, so they affirmed, of bourgeois and petty bourgeois. On the other side, the revolutionists of the “Avanguardia Socialista” group entered the lists against the employees and the bourgeois leaders, in the name of the class-conscious proletariat of industrial workers. Thus by both factions alike the intellectuals were treated as scapegoats and made responsible for all the mistakes and sins of the party. But both sides are wrong. Above all it is hardly possible to imagine the reasons which would induce refugees from the bourgeoisie to adhere to the extreme right wing of the working-class party. It is rather the adverse thesis which might be sustained by psychological and historical arguments which are good but not decisive.

1. Let us first consider the psychological arguments, Kautsky, referring to a period when “even by educated persons socialism was stigmatized as criminal or insane” (a period which Kautsky wrongly imagines to have passed away), makes the judicious observation that the bourgeois who adheres to the socialist cause needs more firmness of character, stronger revolutionary passion, and greater force of conviction, than the proletarian who takes a similar step. [264] The violent internal and external struggles, the days full of bitterness and the nights without sleep during which his socialist faith has ripened, have combined to produce in the socialist of bourgeois origin, especially if he derived from the higher circles of the bourgeoisie, an ardor and a tenacity which are rarely encountered among proletarian socialists. He has broken completely with the bourgeois world, and henceforward confronts it as a mortal enemy, as one irreconcilable a priori. The consequence is that, in the struggle with the bourgeoisie, the socialist intellectual will incline towards the most revolutionary tendencies.

There is, however, another reason which leads the ex-bourgeois to make common cause with the intransigent socialists, and this is his knowledge of history and his intimate acquaintance with the nature of the bourgeoisie. To the proletarian socialist it is often difficult to form any precise idea of the power of his adversaries and to learn the nature of the means at their disposal for the struggle. Often, too, he is inspired with an ingenuous admiration for the benevolent attempts at social reform patronized by certain strata of the bourgeoisie. Faced by the more or less serious or more or less deceitful offer of panaceas, he is often in the position of the peasant at the fair who listens open-mouthed while the quack vaunts the miraculous virtue of his remedies. Conversely the socialist of bourgeois origin will interpret more precisely the efforts made by the bourgeoisie to put the labour movement to sleep. His experience as a bourgeois will enable him to penetrate more easily the real motives of the different proceedings of the enemy. That which to his proletarian comrade seems a chivalrous act and proof of a conciliatory spirit, he will recognize as an act of base flattery, performed for the purposes of corruption. That which a proletarian socialist considers a great step forward towards the end, will appear to the bourgeois socialist as an infinitesimal advance along the infinitely extended road of the class struggle.

The difference of intellectual level between those who advocate the same idea, dependent upon their respective derivation from a proletarian or a bourgeois environment, must necessarily reflect itself in the manner in which they represent this idea in the face of non-socialists, and in the tactics they employ towards adversaries and sympathizers. The psychological process which goes on in the socialists of these two categories rests upon a logical foundation. The proletarian adherent of the party who remains a simple member of the rank and file attentively follows the progress made in all fields by the idea on behalf of which he is an enthusiastic fighter; he notes the growth of the party, and experiences in his own person the increase in wages secured in the struggle with the employers; besides being a member of the party, he belongs to his trade union, and often to a cooperative society as well. His experience in these various organizations induces a feeling of comparative content. He regards social evolution in a rosy light, and easily comes to take an optimistic view of the distance which his class has to traverse in order to attain to the fulfilment of its historic mission. Ultimately social progress is regarded by him as a continuous rectilinear-movement. It appears incredible, even impossible, that the proletariat should suffer reverses and disasters; when they actually occur, they seem to him merely transient phenomena. This state of mind renders him generous and considerate even towards his adversaries, and he is far from disinclined to accept the idea of peace with the enemy and of class collabouration. It need hardly be said that this disposition is yet more accentuated among those proletarians who attain to positions of eminence in the party.

2. These considerations do not lack historical corroboration. Their truth is confirmed by a study of the activities of those socialists who were born as members of the aristocracy, or in the upper strata of the bourgeoisie, such as Bakunin and Kropotkin, both Russian nobles and both anarchists, Frederick Engels, Karl Marx. As a rule, in all the great questions with which the party has to deal the ex-bourgeois socialist is in actual fact one who gives the preference to the most radical and intransigent solutions, to those which accord most strictly with socialist principles. It is of course true, on the other hand, that the history of the working-class movement shows that many “reformist” currents have been strongly permeated by intellectual elements. It is indisputable that even if German reformism was not actually created by the little phalanx grouped round “Der Sozialistiche Student” of Berlin, the reformist tendency was, from the days of its first inception, vigourously and ostentatiously patronized by the members of this group. A closer examination, however, shows very clearly that the strongest impulse to the reformist tendency in Germany was given by the trade-union leaders, by persons therefore of proletarian origin. Moreover, it is the most exclusivist working-class movements which have everywhere and always been most definitely characterized by the reformist spirit. In illustration may be mentioned: the French group of the International Working-men's Association which assembled round Fribourg and Tolain; the English trade unionists; the “integralists” in France, whose origin was the “Revue Socialiste,” edited by the gentle ex-manual worker, Benoit Malon (the note of alarm against this form of socialism was sounded first by the medical student Paul Brousse, next by the intransigent Marxists under the leadership of Paul Lafargue, who had just secured his medical diploma in England, and finally by the man of letters Jules Guesde); the Independent Labor Party with the Labor Representation Committee; the socialists of Genoa, led by the varnisher Pietro Chiesa; the peasants of Reggio Emilia. This tendency has been manifest from the very outset of the modern labour movement. Bernstein says with good reason that, notwithstanding all assertions to the contrary, in the English Chartist movement the intellectuals were distinguished by their marked revolutionary inclinations. “In the disputes among the Chartists, the radical or revolutionary tendency was by no means characteristic of the proletarian elements, or the moderate tendency of the bourgeois elements. The most notable representatives of the revolutionary spirit were members of the bourgeoisie, men of letters, etc., whereas it was leaders of working-class origin who advocated moderate methods.” [265] To sum up, and putting aside the question whether the reformist movement has been a good or an evil for the working-class, it may be affirmed that generally speaking, the working-class leaders of proletarian origin have a special tendency to adopt the reformist attitude. In proof of this assertion it suffices to mention the names of Anseele in Belgium, Legien in Germany, and Rigola in Italy. The term possibilisme ouvrier is far from being a malicious invention.

It is not easy to furnish statistical proof of the statement that the socialists of bourgeois origin are more often revolutionaries than reformists. On the other hand, the history of Italian socialism during recent years offers an interesting demonstration of the adverse thesis (the causes of this peculiarity will be subsequently discussed). The official socialist organization of Milan, the Federazione Milanese, suffering from a chronic impecuniosity due to the slackness with which the majority of the members paid their subscriptions, proposed in the year 1903 an expedient which is frequently adopted by the Italian socialists. Henceforward the monthly subscriptions were no longer to be equal for all the comrades, but those who were better off were invited to pay more in proportion to their means. This reform, which was inspired by a thoroughly socialist sentiment, led the Milanese reformists (who in consequence of their differences with the revolutionists had for a long time been on the lookout for an honorable excuse to leave the federation, in which the revolutionary current was predominant) to resign their membership, declaring that they regarded the new system of payment as altogether unjust. On this occasion it appeared that it was the well-to-do members who resigned, so that these, the bourgeois, manifested the reformist tendency. [266] It is also to be noted that during recent years (since 1901) the great majority of Italian socialist intellectuals have definitely declared themselves to be reformists by a more or less unconditional adhesion to the opportunism of Turati. The cases just quoted seem to conflict with the rule previously enunciated that the refugees from the bourgeoisie are adverse to opportunism. But the inconsistency is no more than apparent. It has several times been pointed out that the intransigence of the ex-bourgeois socialist depends upon the circumstance that on his way to join the class-conscious proletariat he has had to make his way through a thorny thicket, struggling violently and suffering many injuries, and his courageous progress proves him to be endowed with an exceptional capacity of sacrifice for the ideal and with the energy of the born fighter. As the years have passed, however, this primal source of revolutionary energy has to a large extent dried up, because the path of the bourgeois adherent to socialism has become so much easier. It is a general law that when we change the soil we change the quality of the fruit. This is what happened in Italy.

The recent history of socialism shows that the intellectuals are distributed in nearly equal proportions among the various tendencies. Confining ourselves to German examples, we find that it is a doctor of medicine, Raphael Friedeberg, who has inaugurated anarchizing socialism; a similar tendency is exhibited by the Tolstoian-Kantian Otto Buck, doctor of philosophy, and Ernest Thesing, doctor of medicine and at one time a cavalry lieutenant. If among the reformists we find the barrister Wolfgang Heine, the former theological student Richard Calwer, the former student of political science Max Schippel, the pastor of Gohre, the sometime gymnasium teacher Eduard David, the doctor of philosophy Heinrich Braun, and many other intellectuals—we find in the opposite camp, that of the revolutionaries, the doctor of philosophy Franz Mehring, the doctor of medicine Paul Lensch, Rosa Luxemburg, Israel Helphant (Parvus), the former student Max Grunwald, the ex-barrister Arthur Stadthagen, the barrister Karl Liebknecht, and Karl Kautsky, who escaped only by chance the disgrace of the doctor's title. We see, then, that in Germany the intellectuals cannot be classed exclusively as revolutionists or as reformists.

* * * * *

The struggle against the intellectuals within the socialist party is due to various causes. It originated as a struggle for leadership among the intellectuals themselves. Then there came a struggle between the representatives of different tendencies: strict logical adhesion to theory versus criticism, opportunism versus impossibilism, trade unionism after the English manner versus doctrinal Marxism as a philosophy of history, reformism versus syndicalism. From time to time these struggles assume the form of attacks made by the bulk of the party upon some small heterogeneous element which has invaded the labour movement. It is not always the genuine manual workers, or those who have been such, that are the first to raise the cry of alarm against the intellectuals. But it is true that the working class has ever been suspicious of those elements in the party who were derived from other social camps. Clara Zetkin writes very justly: “The bourgeois refugee is apt to find himself lonely and misunderstood among his comrades in the struggle. He is at once a stranger and a citizen in the valley of the possessing classes, with which he is associated by education and habits of life; at once, also, a stranger and a citizen upon the heights of the proletariat, to whom he is bound in a firm community by his convictions.” [267] The power of tradition presses with peculiar force upon persons of culture.

The coldness of his reception in the new environment seems to him doubly hard. The intellectuals, who have entered the party under the spur of idealism, soon feel humiliated and disillusioned. The masses, moreover, are little capable of appreciating the gravity of the sacrifices which the intellectual often accepts when he adheres to the party. When Paul Göhre related to the Dresden congress how for love of the cause he had renounced his profession and his income, his social position, and even his family, a number of socialist journals answered that all this was, to put it politely, maudlin sentimentality, and that the socialist intellectuals, when they made such “sacrifices,” were not thinking of the cause of the workers but of themselves. In a word, the comrades showed themselves utterly insensible of the greatness of the sacrifice which Gohre had made for love of them. The truth is that upon this point, as upon so many others, the intellectuals and the proletarians lack the capacity of mutual understanding.

In Germany, as in Italy, France, and in some of the Balkan states, the gravest accusations have been launched against the intellectuals. There have been times in the history of German socialism in which the educated members of the party have been exposed to universal contempt. It suffices to recall the Dresden congress (1903), during which the whole complicated question of tactics seemed to be reduced to “the problem of the intellectuals.” Even to-day they are often treated as suspects. There are still intellectuals who think it necessary to demonstrate to the masses that, notwithstanding the aggravating circumstance of their social origin and their superior education, they are nevertheless good socialists. It is surely far from heroic, this persistence with which the intellectuals are apt to deny their true social character and to pretend that their own hands are horny. But we need not be deceived. Merlino hits the bull's-eye when he ironically warns us that this state of affairs lasts only until the moment when the intellectuals succeed in getting control of the working-class movement. [268] They now feel themselves secure, and no longer need wear the mask, at least in their relations with the masses. If they continue, none the less, to assume the posture of the humble demagogue, this is done from a vague fear of being accused as tyrants by the bourgeois parties, but still more in order to ward off the criticism of their working-class competitors.

It is proper to recognize that mistrust of the intellectuals, although in large part an artificial product, has its good side. For this mistrust leads no small number of cranky and eccentric intellectuals, who incline to play a picturesque part in joining the socialists, to turn towards other pastures. Nothing would be more disastrous for the workers than to tolerate the exclusive rule of the intellectuals. University study is not possible to those choice individuals alone who are endowed with exceptional natural gifts; it is merely a class privilege of persons whose position is economically advantageous. Consequently the student has no right to be proud of his ability and his knowledge. He need not glory in being able to write Dr. before his name or M.A. after it. Every proletarian of average intelligence, given the necessary means, could acquire a university degree with the same facility as does the average bourgeois. Besides, and above all, it cannot be denied, that for the. healthy progress of the proletarian movement it would be incomparably better that the mistrust of the workers towards the bourgeois refugees should be a hundred times greater than necessary, rather than that the proletariat should be deceived even once by overconfidence in its leaders. But unfortunately, as we learn from the history of the modern labour movement, even the total exclusion of intellectuals would not save the working class from numerous deceptions.

From the ethical point of view the contempt felt by the non-intellectuals for the intellectuals is utterly without justification. It is a positive fact that even to-day, in many countries, the bourgeois refugee who makes his adhesion to the party of the revolutionary workers, the party of “social subversion,” or, as William II expresses it, “the unpatriotic rout of those who are unworthy to bear the name of Germans,” suffers serious economic and social damage. On the other hand, the proletarian commonly derives advantage in these respects from joining the party of his own class, and is thus impelled to take this step from motives of class-egoism. Unquestionably the working class, struggling on the political field, needs recruits from its own ranks who can rise to the position of officers in the proletarian army. It is natural, too, that these leaders should be furnished with adequate means, and that they should be firmly secured in their positions. But it ill becomes the working men who have thus risen in the social scale to look down upon their ex-bourgeois associates, who have descended in the social scale, and have thereby become voluntary déclassés for love of the party.

It results from all that has been said that the campaign against intellectuals in the Socialist Party, however justified it may be in individual cases, is as a whole utterly unjust, and often inopportune and absurd. Even the German labour movement, despite the high degree of technical organization to which it has attained, could not dispense with intellectuals. Although, as we have seen, its general character is decisively proletarian, and although it has as authoritative leaders such men of proletarian origin as August Bebel, Ignaz Auer, Johannes Timm, Martin Segitz, Adolph von Elm, Otto Hué, etc., it may be affirmed that German socialism would lose much of its prestige if it were to eliminate the intellectuals.

According to Mehring, the use of the intellectuals to the proletariat is not so much to serve as fellow-combatants in the struggle, as to play the part of theorists who illuminate the road. He writes: “If they wish to be practical fighters and not theorists, they become altogether insignificant as adherents to the labour movement; for what could be the import of the adhesion of a few hundred intellectuals to the working-class millions, seeing that the latter are already much better equipped than the former for the rough and tumble of practical life?” On the other hand, he says, the intellectuals are of great value to the proletariat in the elabouration of the theory of class-struggle; they display the historical nexus between the labour movement and the world-process as a whole; they take care that the workers shall not lose sight of the purposive relationship of individual branches of their movement with the process of world-transformation which it must be their aim to effect with all possible speed. Thus the task of the intellectuals consists in “maintaining the freshness and vigour of the workers in their movement towards their great goal, and in elucidating for them the social relationships which make the approaching victory of the proletariat a certainty.” [269]

It is not necessary here to undertake a defense of the intelligence of the proletariat against those who, seeing that intellectuals are historically necessary to the socialist party, wish on this account to impugn the political capacity of the manual workers. Any one who has attentively followed the history of the international working-class movement will know how much goodwill and capacity are to be found in that proletarian party which, permeated with class-consciousness, has conceived the design of fighting for its own emancipation; he knows how much intelligence, devotion to duty, calm and indefatigable energy, have been displayed in this cause by the workers of every country. As managers of cooperative societies, employees of trade unions, editors of socialist newspapers, the proletarians have from the technical point of view displayed themselves as models whom the bourgeois who undertake similar activities would do well to imitate. If, notwithstanding all this, we commonly find in the international working-class parties that the bourgeois refugees are usually assigned the task of dealing with theoretical problems and in many cases, the supreme guidance in matters of practical politics (although in the latter sphere the proletarians always retain great influence); this phenomenon, far from being a testimonium paupertatis intellectualis on the part of the fighting proletariat, finds a perfectly natural explanation in the economic organization of contemporary production. This organization (while it permits the wage-earner, when conditions are favorable, to cultivate his intelligence), since it monopolizes the supreme advantages of civilization ad usum Delphinorum, makes it impossible for the intelligent worker to become an intellectual. Unquestionably modern production needs intelligent workers, such as are found among the modern proletariat. But it has need also of intellectuals, that is to say of persons whose natural mental abilities have received suitable training. Now a sufficient supply of these intellectuals is furnished by the master class, from among whose relatives they are recruited. Consequently it is not in the interest of private industry to open for the proletariat all the sluices of instruction. Moreover, as far as agriculture is concerned, many landowners cynically declare that the more ignorant the worker the better does he serve their turn. The consequence of all this is that the socialist of bourgeois origin has enjoyed that which the modern proletarian still necessarily lacks. The former has had time and means to complete his political education; he has had the physical freedom of moving from place to place, and the material independence without which political activity in the true sense of the word is inconceivable. It is therefore not astonishing that the proletariat should still be to some extent dependent upon bourgeois refugees.

In 1894, at the Frankfort congress of the German Socialist Party, a committee was appointed for the study of the agrarian question, and of the fifteen members of which it was composed no less than nine were intellectuals. This is a manifest disproportion, especially when we remember that among the leaders of the German Socialist Party there is an exceptional numerical preponderance of working-class elements. But the committee in question had to deal with scientific problems, and these could be solved by those alone who had received a scientific education. The same thing happens whenever legal, economic, or philosophical problems have to be treated with technical competence—in a word, whenever the questions under discussion are not fully comprehensible except by those who have made prolonged and profound preliminary studies. Cases in which the self-taught man is incompetent, present themselves daily. The increasing democratization of state institutions and the progressive socialization of the collective life, together with the securing of better conditions of labour for the workers, may perhaps gradually render the help of the intellectuals less essential. But this is a question for the remote future. Meanwhile, such a movement as that of the modern proletariat cannot afford to await that degree of maturity which would enable it to replace the ex-bourgeois among its leaders by men of proletarian origin.

The bourgeois elements in the socialist working-class party cannot be forcibly eradicated, nor excluded by any resolutions of party congresses; they are integral constituents of the movement for whose existence it is needless to offer any apologies. A political labour movement without deserters from the bourgeoisie is historically as inconceivable as would be such a movement without a class-conscious proletariat. This consideration applies, above all, to the early days of the labour movement; but it is still applicable to the movement in the form in which we know it to-day.