FLASHLIGHTS - Socialist Labor Party

FLASHLIGHTSOF THE AMSTERDAM CONGRESS

By DANIEL DE LEON

Published Online bySocialist Labor Party of America

www.slp.org

November 2007

Flashlights of theAmsterdam Congress

By Daniel De Leon

PUBLISHING HISTORY

FIRST EDITION .................................................................................. 1904SECOND EDITION ............................................................................ 1906THIRD EDITION ................................................................................ 1929

ONLINE EDITION ...................................................... November 2007

(Transcribed and edited by Robert Bills for the official website of theSocialist Labor Party of America)

NEW YORK LABOR NEWSP.O. BOX 218

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA 94042-0218http://www.slp.org/nyln.htm

Socialist Labor Party 3 www.slp.org

INTRODUCTION

The articles in this volume are reprints of a series ofarticles that appeared in the Daily People in the courseof the months of August, September, October, Novemberand December, 1904, under the title “Flash-Lights of theAmsterdam Congress.” Collectively the articlesconstitute the report made to his organization by DanielDe Leon, the chairman of the delegation of the SocialistLabor Party of America at the Congress.

An addendum is suffixed in this volume containing allthe documents, together with several articles, referred toin the course of the report, and which will aid inunderstanding the report itself.

We publish the collection with the knowledge that it isthe best compendium in existence of the InternationalSocialist Movement. The student of events, that arecoming to a head in this and in other countries, will findthis volume a material aid in understanding what mightotherwise seem confused to him.

NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY.


PRELIMINARY REPORT.

Amsterdam, August 19.—The International Congresshas been in session, nominally since last Sunday, that issix days. In point of fact, what has been in sessionvirtually all this time was the committee onInternational Political Policy, that is, the committee torectify the blunder of the last International Congress of1900, when the Kautsky Resolution1 was adopted. Soimportant was the subject before this committeeconsidered to be that, if not the bulk, yet so large aportion of the convention crowded into the lobby of thecommittee’s room, that for one day and a half thesessions of the convention were wholly suspended, andfor another day and a half the convention was allowed tohold its sessions and transact trifles. Thus, while theHyndman Social Democratic Federation was“entertaining” the mutilated congress with the former’sbanale propositions and its Dabhahai Naoradji, Hindoomember of its delegation, the sober part of theconvention attended the debates of the committee. Theselasted from Monday afternoon, the 15th, to yesterday,Thursday, at noon, the 18th.

To sum up the situation in the committee, it was this:One-fourth of the committee was perfectly satisfied withthe Kautsky Resolution. This element was typified byJaures: he would have liked to see the KautskyResolution reaffirmed, if possible made more convenientto his Utopian bent of mind; the rest of that element,consisting of the Belgians, the Danes, the Swedes, the

1 See Addendum A.

FLASHLIGHTS OF THE AMSTERDAM CONGRESS


Norwegians, the Dutch, the Austrians, one Polish andone Swiss delegate, preferred on the whole the statusquo. The other three-fourths of the committee weredissatisfied with the Kautsky Resolution, and wanted toget rid of it somehow. Of these I held the extremeposition—extreme in the sense that I moved plump andplain its repeal. I did not typify this element; the bulk ofit, either out of consideration for Kautsky, or out ofconsideration for the German Social Democracy, or outof some other reasons, preferred to proceed with a tenderhand and in a round-about way.

The debate opened early on the afternoon of Monday,the 15th, with a short speech by Guesde. He wasanswered by Jaures; Jaures was answered by Kautsky;Kautsky was answered by myself. I said in substance:

“Both Kautsky and Jaures have agreed that anInternational Congress can do no more than establishcardinal general principles; and they both agree thatconcrete measures of policy must be left to therequirements of individual countries. So do I hold.Kautsky scored the point against Jaures that the latteris estopped from objecting to decrees by the congress onconcrete matters of policy, because Jaures voted in Parisfor the Kautsky Resolution. That argument also iscorrect, and being correct it scores a point againstKautsky himself, at the same time. His argument is anadmission that his resolution goes beyond the theoreticalsphere which, according to himself, it is the province ofan International Congress to legislate upon. It must beadmitted that the countries of the sisterhood of nationsare not all at the same grade of social development. Weknow that the bulk of them still are hampered by feudalconditions. The concrete tactics applicable andpermissible in them, are inapplicable and unpermissiblein a republic like the United States, for instance. But the

DANIEL DE LEON


sins of the Kautsky Resolution are more serious thaneven that. Kautsky just stated that his resolutioncontemplated only an extreme emergency—a war, forinstance, and that he never could or did contemplate thecase of a Socialist sitting in a cabinet alongside of aGallifet. He says so. We must believe him. But while hewas contemplating the distant, the imaginary possibilityof a war that was not in sight, everybody else at theParis Congress had in mind a thing that WAS in sight; athing that was palpitating and throbbing with a feverishpulse; aye, a spectacle under which the very opening ofthe Paris Congress was thrown into convulsions. Andwhat spectacle was that?—Why, it was the veryspectacle and fact of a Socialist sitting in a cabinet cheekby jowl, not merely with A, but with THE Gallifet.Whatever Kautsky may have been thinking of when hepresented his resolution and voted for it, we have hisown, officially recorded words that go to show that heknew what the minds of all others were filled with at thetime. I have here in my satchel the official report of theDresden convention. In his speech, therein recorded, hesays himself that Auer, the spokesman of the Germandelegation in favor of the Kautsky Resolution said whenspeaking for the resolution: ‘We, in Germany, have notyet a Millerand; we are not yet so far; but I hope we maysoon be so far’—that is what was in the minds ofall—Millerand, the associate of Gallifet.

“It is obvious that a resolution adopted under suchconditions—its own framer keeping his eyes on anemergency that was not above the horizon, while allothers kept their eyes upon the malodorous enormitythat was bumping against their noses and shocking theSocialist conscience of the world—it goes without sayingthat such a resolution, adopted under such conditions,should have thrown the Socialist world into theconvulsions of the discussions that we all know of duringthe last four years; it goes without saying that such aresolution would be interpreted in conflicting senses,



and that has happened to such an extent that theKautsky Resolution has come to be known as the‘Caoutchouc Resolution.’ (Uproarious laughter.)

“In view of this fact the first thing to do is to clear theroad of such an encumbrance. For that reason I move theadoption of the following resolution:

“ ‘Whereas, The struggle between the working classand the capitalist class is a continuous and irrepressibleconflict, a conflict that tends every day rather to beintensified than to be softened;

“ ‘Whereas, The existing governments are committeesof the ruling class, intended to safeguard the yoke ofcapitalist exploitation upon the neck of the workingclass;

“ ‘Whereas, At the last International Congress, held inParis, in 1900, a resolution generally known as theKautsky Resolution, was adopted, the closing clauses ofwhich contemplate the emergency of the working classaccepting office at the hand of such capitalistgovernments, and also and especially, PRESUPPOSESTHE POSSIBILITY OF IMPARTIALITY ON THE PARTOF THE RULING CLASS GOVERNMENTS IN THECONFLICTS BETWEEN THE WORKING CLASS ANDTHE CAPITALIST CLASS; and

“ ‘Wherea s , The sa id clauses—applicable, perhaps,in countries not yet wholly freed from feudalinstitutions—were adopted under conditions both inFrance and in the Paris Congress itself, that justifyerroneous conclusions on the nature of the classstruggle, the character of capitalist governments, andthe tactics that are imperative upon the proletariat inthe pursuit of its campaign to overthrow the capitalistsystem in countries, which, like the United States ofAmerica, have wholly wiped out feudal institutions;therefore, be it

“ ‘Resolved, First, That the said Kautsky Resolution beand the same is hereby repealed as a principle of generalSocialist tactics;

DANIEL DE LEON


“ ‘Second, That, in fully developed capitalist countrieslike America, the working class cannot, without betrayalof the cause of the proletariat, fill any political officeother than they conquer for and by themselves.“ ‘Offered by DANIEL DE LEON, Delegate of the

Socialist Labor Party of the United States of America,with Credentials from the Socialist Labor Parties ofAustralia and of Canada.’

“From New York to California the Socialist LaborParty, that I here represent, felt the shock of thatKautsky Resolution. The Evening Post quoted it as anillustration of the ‘sanity’ of the European Socialists asagainst us ‘insane’ Socialists of America. From the wayyou have received my proposition to repeal the mistake,I judge my proposition will not be accepted. So much theworse for you. But whether accepted or not, I shall beable to return to America, as our Socialist Labor Partydelegation did from Paris four years ago,—with myhands and the skirts of the Party clear from all blame,the real victors in the case.”

During the rest of that Monday afternoon, the wholeof the following Tuesday and Wednesday until 7 and 8p.m., and down to to-day, at noon, the debate raged. Therepresentatives of all the nations (there were two of eachon the committee) spoke. Where they stood is indicatedby my introductory remarks. The last speech but onewas a one and a half hour speech by Jaures. It was agrandiose effort of Utopian Socialism, which Guesdeimmediately ripped up with a twenty minute speech inanswer. That closed the debate.

The parliamentary practice here in vogue is unique.According thereto, besides mine, there were five otherresolutions. They each reflected a different shade ofopinion. One of them was positively humorous. It came



from the Swiss. Its purport was that no nation can learnby the experience of other nations; that the evils of whatthey called the policy of “the co-operation of theclasses”—meaning thereby the Jaures policy of theKautsky Resolution—must first be felt by all nationsbefore they would be wise enough to condemn and rejectit. The resolution allowed each nation to “go its owncake-walk,” as we would say in America. Anotherresolution, proposed by Adler of Austria jointly withVandervelde of Belgium, was the adoption of theDresden resolution with such amendments, suchsweetenings, as to be tantamount to pulling out all itsteeth.2 The British contingent of freaks on thecommittee was dead stuck on this. Another resolutionwas to adopt the Dresden Convention resolution.3 Theproposal was made by our friends of the so-called Guesdeparty, the Socialist Party of France. Around thisresolution was ranked the bulk of the committee for thereasons indicated above. The resolution emphaticallycondemned, and without qualification, the very wrongsthat the Kautsky Resolution approved of underqualifications. It condemned them so emphatically thatalthough, in order to let Kautsky and the GermanSocialists generally, down softly, the Dresden resolutionclaims that its condemnations are in line with theKautsky Resolution (!!) Jaures emphatically opposedthem. The ranking of the several resolutions made theDresden resolution the original motion; the Adler-Vandervelde proposition the first amendment; someother propositions amendments to the amendment; then

2 See Addendum D.3 See Addendum B.

DANIEL DE LEON


my motion; and first of all the Swiss proposition. Thewhole set was to be voted on in the inverse order that Imentioned them here, and they were all voted down, myown receiving but my own vote, until the vote came onthe Dresden resolution. The real test was not reacheduntil the Adler-Vandervelde omelette was reached. Itwas defeated by twenty-four votes againstsixteen—myself voting with the majority. When the votewas reached on the Dresden resolution it was carried bytwenty-seven votes against three, with Belgium,Denmark, Norway, Sweden and one delegate of Polandand of Switzerland each abstaining from voting. Thethree votes against came, two from Argentina and one(Jaures’) from France. My own motion having beendefeated, and the Adler-Vandervelde, together with allthe other covert pro-Kautsky Resolution motions, havingalso been rejected, there was nothing for me to do but tovote for the Dresden resolution as the best thing thatcould be obtained under the circumstances. To voteagainst it would have been to rank the Socialist LaborParty of America alongside of Jaures; to abstain fromvoting would be a round-about way of doing the samething. In voting as I did I explained my position aswishing to give the greatest emphasis that thecircumstances allowed me to the condemnation of theJaures policy, and the Kautsky Resolution; and I statedthat I would so explain my position in the Congresswhen I would there present my own resolution again.

Upon the subject of the committee’s report to theCongress a spirited discussion, possible only under thisunique parliamentary practice, sprang up. Bebelexpressed his horror of the whole question being againthreshed over in the Congress. He hoped none of the



defeated propositions would be re-introduced on thefloor; and he proposed that Vandervelde, whose ownproposition had been defeated, be made the committee’sreporter, he to make, not a report for the majority, but acomprehensive report for the whole committee, each sidefurnishing him with a short statement to be embodied inhis general report. I furnished him with the followingstatement which he correctly wove into his report:

“The Socialist Labor Party of the United States ofAmerica voted at Paris in 1900 against the KautskyResolution, and continues to oppose it.

“It did and does so because the said resolutioncontains two clauses:

“First, it contemplates participation by the workingclass in capitalist governments by the grace of capitalistofficials;

“Second, it supposes impartiality possible on the partof bourgeois governments in the conflicts between theworking class and the capitalist class.

“I carry the express mandate to vote for the repeal ofthat resolution; and in obedience thereto I havepresented the following resolution. [The resolution abovegiven follows here]:

“The majority of the committee did not look at theKautsky Resolution as the Socialist Labor Party does.But it was obvious to me that the committee agrees withthe S.L.P. in that the Kautsky Resolution has led tonumerous misunderstandings, in view of which theyrallied around the Dresden resolution which corrects thedefects of the Kautsky Resolution.

“Therefore, my motion to repeal the KautskyResolution having been rejected, I joined the majority, infavor of the Dresden resolution, although it quotes theKautsky Resolution approvingly, because its wordingdoes in fact repeal the Kautsky Resolution, to which myParty is unalterably opposed.”

DANIEL DE LEON


To-day’s session was taken up with the matter, andexcepting Bebel and Jaures, most of the members of thecommittee abstained from speaking again before theCongress, so as to give the other delegates a chance totake the floor. The decision of the committee wasapproved by the Congress.

There is a good deal of grumbling in the Congress onthe score of the matter having been actually debated incommittee, while the Congress itself was given only thedregs. The grumbling is all the louder owing to the factthat this matter was the one and real subject of interest.But how do it otherwise? Here is a Babel of languages, ascore of nationalities, temperaments and habits—andlast, not least, barely six days to handle a question thatwould require as many months.

All I here wish to add to this report is acharacterization of the speeches made in the committee.These speeches were, with hardly an exception, full ofinformation, practical and valuable, and most of themreplete with theoretical principles. Ferri’s (Italy) speechwas essentially theoretical upon political methods.Adler’s (Austria) was well characterized by RosaLuxemburg’s (a Polish wing) as sausage or hash.Vandervelde’s (Belgium) was theatrical. Plechanoff’s(Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) satirical; hisstiletto digs made Adler and Vandervelde squirm; hecharacterized their attitude as one of “systematic doubt”;they in turn answered with the charge that it was easyfor him to have unity in his party, because whoeverdisagreed with him was kicked out. (Has not this afamiliar ring on American ears?) Bax’s and Macdonald’sspeeches (English S.D.F. and Labor RepresentationCommittee combination) were genuine products of



whence they came from. Bax, for instance, objected tothe word “civilization,” he preferred “socialization” andspoke lengthily on that; Macdonald claimed to represent“millions.” There was a general giggle at both. Nemec{Menke?} (Bohemia) stated that the present looseness ofthings had replaced Anarchy on its feet; even in Berlin ameeting 1,500 strong had been addressed by anAnarchist: he had charged the German SocialDemocracy with being a bourgeois affair with a Socialistcloak, and that not a single voice was raised in themeeting in denial. Hilquit (Socialist party of America)stated the Kautsky Resolution was accurate and goodand suited him. He denied that it had shocked the class-conscious workers of America. It may seem strange, butsuch, on me at least, was the effect: Bebel’s speech wasamong the weakest in point of substance. Its bulk wastaken up with an attack on Jaures for having given thepreference to the Republic of France above the Germanmonarchy. True enough, Bebel said he also would prefera republic, but his argument against that part of Jaures’utterances came perilously near sounding like Germannativism. For the rest he said many good things.

With the vote on this subject by the convention theCongress may be said to have adjourned de facto.

DANIEL DE LEON.


FLASHLIGHTS OF THEAMSTERDAM CONGRESS.

I.

JEAN JAURES.

I take up Jaures first, not because I consider him tobe, or to have been, least of all because I am of opinionthat he will henceforth be the or a leading figure in theSocialist Movement of Europe. On the contrary, I believehe is done for in the Socialist camp. Just for this reason,coupled with this other that around him the war hasbeen raging for the last four years and was climaxed atAmsterdam, I wish to treat of him first.

Jaures, our readers may greatly wonder thereat, is noorator—and that to his credit. Two minutes on his feetand speaking settle the point. He lacks two of what isestablished as essential characteristics of the orator. Inthe inventory of these essentials, enumerated by Plato ofold in his Gorgias, and closely followed by our ownEmerson of our own days, tallness or stateliness offigure and a melodious voice are given first rank. Jauresis short and stocky; and as to his voice, it sounds like thebray of a trumpet, rather harsh, unpleasant upon theear. Neither the eye nor the ear is taken in.

The external appearance of the “orator,” backed by hisvoice, must be captivating. Since the days of theAthenian market-place, down to those of our ownmodern public platforms, these external features have



been found usually to go together with an ability of aspecial kind, the ability of the sophist, of the intellectualtight-rope dancer, of the juggler with thought, of thevenal character, the superficial insincere man. Theorator must be able to “take in” his audience—not toeducate, instruct or drill it. Fascinated by hisappearance, lulled by the melody of his voice, theorator’s audience is expected by him to be humbugged.Here in America, where—if the platform speakers of theold parties are critically watched—it will be noticed thatthe “Committees on Speakers” instinctively follow theclassic rules laid down by Plato, we have a living typeand exponent of the orator. He is Bourke Cockran. Withan imposing appearance and a voice like an auditoriumorgan, he fills the air with sweet sound and glitteringphrases, which he non-partisanly sells one day to thegold standard, another to the silver standard, one day toTammany, another to the Republican party of New YorkCity, one day to militarism, another day to anti-expansion—always intent upon “taking in,” a man of noconvictions. That is the orator; Jaures is none such.

I know that in my estimate of Jaures’ intellectualintegrity I probably differ from many a comrade of theadmirable Parti Socialiste de France. But men in ahand-to-hand struggle with another can not always dohim exact justice. It is impossible to have our pound offlesh without the corresponding drops of blood. Jaureshas been an unqualified nuisance in the SocialistMovement of the world at large, of France in particular.He must be removed—with all the tenderness that ispossible, but with all the harshness that may benecessary. Yet he is a man of convictions and of noblepurpose.

DANIEL DE LEON


When Guesde closed the debate in the Committee onInternational Political Attitude, ripping up Jaures witha brilliant little speech, he turned to Jaures at a certainpoint and said: “I shall not call that your crime, but theconsequence of YOUR conception of Socialism.” Jaures isthe best, the most favorable, type I know of what iscalled the “intellectual” or “utopian” Socialist. A man ofvast reading, his overtopping ideology, has preventedhim from a systematic acquisition of the knowledge ofSocialism. Socialist maxims are quickly transformed inhis mind into hollow phrases; unsteadied by thestrictness of Socialist logic, they fly off the handle,aimlessly. Many a sentence of his great speech soundedon the domain of Socialism, as if on the domain ofgeology one were to claim that the Post-Tertiary perioddid not need the previous development of the Palaeozoic;or on the domain of botany that the oak can evolutedirect from the moss; or on the domain of palæontologythat the eohippus is not a necessary precursor of man; oron the domain of mechanics that the Marconi wirelesstelegraphy need not be predicated upon the previouslyacquired telegraphic appliances. The man knows nothingof the geology, so to speak, of Socialist science. But thenonsense Jaures utters is uttered with a conviction bornof earnest, though impatient purpose, and nourished andgiven wings to by high scholastic training. That, utteredin choicest diction, produces an ensemble that iswonderful and by its very wonderfulness must serve as awarning to all serious laborers on the field of Socialism.

What has falsely given Jaures the unenviable name of“orator” is his diction, the brilliancy and fluency thereof,his quickness at pithy repartee. A few instances of thelatter will convey an idea of what I mean.



During the debate, Adler, having the floor, wasattacking Plechanoff whom he designated as adangerous “physician” who might injure the “patient.”The subject being about himself, Jaures interjected:“And I am the disease.”

Again. Just before him on the list of speakers wasRosa Luxemburg, who also acted on the committee asthe translator from French into German. She let flyagainst him a scathing Philippic, during which hefrequently writhed under her lash, the burden of herargument being that the so-called “co-operation of theclasses” was productive of evil only. It was Jaures’ turnnext. He rose, and as soon as the applause on RosaLuxemburg’s speech ceased, he opened his great speech(and great it was, in its way) with these words: “And yet,within a few minutes, you will see the citizen RosaLuxemburg translating me into German; you will thussee how there CAN be useful co-operation despiteconflict.”

Again. As Jaures faced the committee during hisspeech he stood opposite to Pablo Iglesias, one of therepresentatives of Spain, who sat in the first row ofseats. In the measure that he warmed up, Jaurescrowded, unknown to himself, more and more uponIglesias. Iglesias leaned, tipping his chair more andmore back. But a moment came, when Jaures in a flightof eloquence dashed forward, that Iglesias lost hisbalance and nearly fell over backward. Jaures steppedback, and remarked to Iglesias: “There were no Pyreneesbetween us!”—alluding to the high mountain range thatseparates France from Spain.

I can not conceive of Jaures working in the harnessrequisite for the Socialist infantry of the Revolutionary

DANIEL DE LEON


army any more than I can conceive of a warblingnightingale in a cage. The action of the AmsterdamCongress will, I believe, have for its effect thedismemberment of his party. Its radical wing, will in allprobability pull away and join the Parti Socialiste deFrance (Guesdist). But neither do I believe that suchdismemberment of Jaures’ party will be its or his finish.In all probability Jaures will organize a large radicalbourgeois party, of radically subversive policy andpropaganda. As the leader of such a body, outside of theSocialist camp, his labors to Socialism will beinvaluable—as invaluable as they are harmful withinthe Socialist camp.

As I have more than once said with regard to our ownAmerican affairs, that if there were no so-calledSocialist, alias Social Democratic party here, theSocialist Labor Party should itself set up such a concern.I believe our comrades of the Parti Socialiste de Francewill find their account in promoting the setting up ofsuch a Jaures radical party in France. A fighting,militant party of Socialism must be free from the“intellectual,” “utopian” and not always honest elementsthat would otherwise crowd into its ranks and bother it,if there is no such “intellectual,” “utopian” and “broadly”tolerant ditch to attract and drain them into.


II.

AUGUST BEBEL.

By all odds, the most conspicuous—though not, as willappear in the course of this serial, the most important orpregnant—figure in the European movement of to-day isBebel. The three million and odd votes polled by theGerman Social Democracy, of which Bebel is theunquestioned head, furnish no mean a pedestal for thestatue that tops it. Even a small statue will tower uphigh when standing upon a tall enough basis. Muchmore so Bebel, who is no manikin, but a characterfulman, a man of earnest purpose, exalted aims and greatability.

In “The Review of the Dresden Convention,”4

published in these columns in January of this year, I hadoccasion to take the parallax of this distinguished manon his own, the German firmament, in juxtapositionwith other luminaries of his own party. At theAmsterdam International Congress occasion was offeredfor observation of the man upon the broader firmamentof the whole European movement.

Those who have read “The Review of the DresdenConvention” will understand me readily; those who havenot are referred to the said article, into the details ofwhich I cannot here enter. The former I remind of thelocal situation of Germany. The Social Democraticmovement of Germany is, as Lafargue, usingcontinental-parliamentary idiom, recently termed it atLille, a “party of opposition.” Seeing that that which itopposes, or confronts, is, not capitalism in its purity, but

4 See Addendum L.

DANIEL DE LEON


feudalism soused with capitalism—as surviving feudalinstitutions are bound to be at this late date—the partyof Bebel has by the force of circumstances beenconstrained to take the leadership and become theembodiment of radical bourgeois reforms. The taskwhich circumstances thus rolled upon its shoulders is ofpresent first magnitude. It is of first magnitude toGermany; and, seeing that Germany therein embodiesthe radical aspirations of the bulk of the semi-feudalcontinent, the German Social Democracy is actuallypivotal for the whole European continent—Franceexcepted, who is ahead of them all. None better realizesthe huge responsibility of the German Social Democracythan Bebel, and, consequently, the tremendous weightupon his own shoulders, as the party’s head. The resultof this manifests itself in Bebel in two ways—one a vice,the other a virtue.

The vice, quite a pardonable one under thecircumstances, is the superstition that Germanconditions should set the pace for the whole world. Such,oddly enough, is man’s human, infirm make-up that, inthe end, we contract a kind of latent, unconsciousaffection for that which we have long struggled against.The close grappling with a foe seems to impart to ussome kindred feeling for him. It seems that the physicalproximity of heart to heart in the wrestle establishessome degree of community between the two. TheLacedemonian maxim not to carry the pursuit of a foebeyond certain bounds may be the fruit of deepphilosophic insight into this human failing. As certain aseffect follows cause, the vice of excessive or nativisticlove leads, first, to indifference to proper informationregarding other countries, and ultimately to a cultivated



ignorance regarding them,—a serious draw-back in aSocialist leader. Those who have read my translation ofthe recent thirty-third edition of Bebel’s Woman UnderSocialism will remember a number of foot-notes that Ifelt constrained to insert in correction of bizarremisstatements of fact on America. True enough, themisstatements of fact are irrelevant to the mainquestion—Woman. On that question the work is atactical effort of genius, an unerring shot at bourgeoissociety. Nevertheless, such errors of neglectedinformation reveal serious weakness. Man studies theanatomy of even the dog in order the better tounderstand his own. Can the Socialist leader of acountry, so far behind America as is Germany in bothpolitical and economic capitalist development, neglect toinform himself accurately on the political and economicanatomy of America without eventual injury to his owneffectiveness at home? Manifestations of Bebel’s vicecropped out here and there at the Amsterdam Congress.

The virtue that Bebel’s deep sense of responsibilityhas developed in the man is his marked impatience withwhat, at the risk of seeming trivial, I can best express as“tomfoolery.” Every line in the man’s face meansWORK—work to the point, no use for filigree, ortwaddle. I recall two instances thereof. Of course, theyoccurred during the protracted sessions of the greatcommittee on International Political Policy.

The first took place at the afternoon sessions of thesecond and third days. The committee had gone intosession on the afternoon of Monday, that is of the secondday of the Congress, and the Congress had beenadjourned that morning to the next day, Tuesday,afternoon. This and the other committees were to do

DANIEL DE LEON


their work in the interval. This particular committee,however, had hardly begun its sessions when it becameprobable that its work could not be done in so short atime. The fact became obvious at the committee’s sessionof Tuesday forenoon. It was thereupon decided torecommend to the Congress in the afternoon that itadjourn for the day. This was done. At the committee’ssession of Tuesday afternoon the turn of affairs clearlyindicated that there were several days’ work before it.What to do? Again ask the Congress to adjourn? Orshould the Congress be allowed to go into session whilethis committee was absent? Objections were raised tothe latter proposition; the objectors wanted thecommittee to adjourn. While this committee was insession, their argument ran, it drew to its lobby a largeportion of the Congress; the meetings of the Congresswould be slimly attended; and then there wereimportant matters that would otherwise be left to arump; there was, for instance, the “ImmigrationResolution,” the “India Resolution”—Bebel’s patiencegave way. “Nonsense!” he broke in with, “Trifles! Alltrifles! A rump can attend to all that! This here is thereal issue!” and so forth. Bebel was certainly right.Those who sided with him prevailed. Wednesday andThursday the rump Congress held its sessions andrevelled in trifles. But the bother with the triflers andlovers of tomfoolery was not yet over. In the course of thecommittee’s Wednesday afternoon’s session, Mr. MorrisHilquit, the delegate of the Socialist, alias SocialDemocratic party of America, came in with a washed-outdejected countenance. He had been appointed by theBureau one of the Congress chairmen for that day. Butthere had been no glory in the office. The opportunity for



stage-strutting was nil at a session from which the bulkof the members were absent—the serious ones in thelobby of the committee, the light-headed “doing” thetown—and only the straggling few, who were listlessenough not to know what to do with themselves,attended the session of the Congress. He came in withthe suggestion that if that sort of thing continued itwould have a very bad effect upon the galleries. Bebelcould not contain himself in his seat; he finally blurtedout: “Ach was!” (what of it!) “We continue insession!”—and we did.

The second cheering instance of Bebel’s impatiencewith tomfoolery was on the Thursday afternoon andclosing hours of the committee’s sessions. The procedurewas being discussed for the next day when thecommittee would make its report to the Congress.Troelstra, of the Holland delegation, and chairman of thecommittee, favored a series of displayful speeches afterthe committee’s report in the Congress, and he wentsentimentally on to say: “When the heart is full—.” Hegot no further, at least the rest of the sentence was notaudible. Bebel had broken in with: “Comedy! Comedy!Comedy! Comedy!” four times, each time louder.

In my preliminary report from Amsterdam, summingup the speeches made on the resolution on politicaltactics I referred to Bebel’s as weak. I shall here take uponly that passage of his speech upon which the wholewas poised, limiting myself here simply to pointing outits weakness or defect. Later, when I shall come to theresolution itself, together with its significant setting, thesignificance of Bebel’s weakness will become moreobvious.

The burden of Jaures’ song was that his policy had

DANIEL DE LEON


saved the republic, whereas a clerical-military monarchywould have set back the hour-hand on the dial of history;and turning upon Bebel he added: “You simply seek toconceal behind revolutionary declarations the fact ofyour political or parliamentary impotence. I anxiouslyawait the day when I shall watch your doings in case youhave a parliament that is a parliament—a parliamentwhose vote directly affects government.” Bebel made agreat pretence, by means of vehemence and of length ofspeech to meet the two points. He missed both.

As to the latter, his answer was that in Germany theyneeded, not a simple minority, as in France, nor even abare majority, but an overwhelming majority toaccomplish anything,—which was simply stating thereasons for exactly what Jaures had said, reasons thatJaures did not enumerate, justly considering the actsuperfluous. It is the feature of a real parliamentarygovernment that it CAN control the Executive’s hand; insuch bodies, accordingly, a minority HAS opportunitiesfor effective parliamentary manoeuvres. In such bodies,and in such bodies only, can the sincerity of therevolutionary declarations of a minority be tested.—Whydid Bebel shrink from the admission? Why did he affectto assail that part of Jaures’ position, when, in fact, hewas but bearing out Jaures?

Even weaker was Bebel in his handling of the firstpart of Jaures’ claim, the claim that his policy had savedthe republic. Guesde denied point-blank that therepublic had been in danger. Bebel did not. He took adifferent tack. His tack was a long enumeration of high-handed acts of brutality committed upon workingmen bythe republican government of France. Bebelsupplemented his list with the recent Colorado outrages.



“Feudal-monarchic Germany,” said he, “could notfurnish so black a record”—very true, but what has thatto do with the case?—“While we would prefer arepublic,” he went on to say, “we care not to break ourheads for such a republic.”

Every Socialist is aware that Capitalism brings in itswake outrages unheard of in previous systems. Butevery Socialist also knows that progress in the socialevolutionary scale is not to be gauged by the volume ofLabor’s trials. The determining factor of social progressis the POSSIBILITY that a social stage offers for redressand for emancipation. Fred Douglass, no less anauthority than he, admitted deliberately, shortly beforedying, that “the present condition of the Negro istangibly worse than when he was a chattel slave.”Whatever the reason therefor, the law of social evolutionis from the paternally both kind and cruel feudal systemto the freedom of the Socialist Republic VIA THEVALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH OFCAPITALISM. Whether he and we wanted it or no, theNegro HAD “to break his head” for his present “tangiblyworse” position. It is progress because the presentcondition, the wage slave status, is the necessaryprecursor and key with which to open the gates of theSocialist Republic. Bebel’s answer implied a denial of allthis, and brought him perilously near false sociologicalprinciple through nativistic absurdity. If he cared not todeny, as Guesde did, the allegation that the republic wasin danger, the only answer that the supreme occasioncalled for was the plump and plain retort that thepossibilities for progress contained in the bourgeoisrepublic, a valuable, if not a necessary, stepping stone tothe Socialist Republic, can be really endangered only in

DANIEL DE LEON


the measure that its existence is prolonged after it haswaxed rotten-ripe to make room for the SocialistRepublic—and that Socialism, as a contingent in abourgeois parliamentary “bloc,” could only tend toscuttle such possibilities for progress.—Why did Bebelfail here, too?

August Bebel is recognized as a leading debater ofEurope—the very foremost of Germany. Nor can hisunderstanding of Socialism be questioned. With athorough knowledge of Socialism, inspired with a seriouspurpose and zeal for the Social Revolution, and withalgifted with extraordinary powers for debate,—with allthat, how came he to be so weak at that critical momentin Amsterdam? The answer will be given when I reachthe Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution. I may so far hereanticipate the subject by saying :—Bebel stood in, and hewas manoeuvred into a false position at Amsterdam.


III.

JULES GUESDE.

The “Parti Socialiste de France” (Socialist Party ofFrance) is frequently referred to as the Guesdist party. Ihave frequently done so myself in these reports. Theterm is wrong. It is accountable only by the circumstancethat, of the four organizations, among which is Vaillant’sor the Blanquists and which now constitute the P.S. deF., Guesde’s was the first to rise against the Jaures-Millerand combine. Vaillant’s and the other threeorganizations also protested. But at the start they seemto have been of the opinion that there still was help inthe Jaures organization, and met with it at theconvention of Lyons—the first convention after that ofWagram Hall, which, taking place immediately after theInternational Congress of Paris of 1900, where thefateful Kautsky Resolution was adopted, established thefirst schism between the then united factions. Guesde’sorganization, the Parti Ouvrier Socialiste (SocialistLabor Party) bolted outright. Vaillant’s and the others ina measure remained. Added to that came anothercircumstance. The great Lille debate took placeimmediately after the Wagram Hall rupture, and thereit was Guesde who crossed swords with Jaures, andwounded Jauresism in its vitals, just when it boastedthat it would mop the earth with its foes, and, by thenoise that it made, seemed in a fair way to do so. It is tothis sequence of events that the error of calling thepresent P.S. de F. the “Guesdist party” is due. The erroris natural. But still an error. Vaillant—as all who knowhim intimately agree in saying—is a sage and a man of

DANIEL DE LEON


action combined. If without Guesde the P.S. de F. wouldnot and could not be the nervy organization that it is,neither could it be that without Vaillant. In fact, fromwatching the present P.S. de F. at its recent nationalconvention, just before the International Congress, andnoticing the large number of talented men that itembraces, the conclusion forced itself upon me that evensuch a designation as the Guesde-Vaillant party wouldbe a misnomer. I single out Guesde in this serial becausehis activity in Amsterdam was the most conspicuous.

Whosoever has derived pleasure and profit from acareful observation of heads—especially if he has hadoccasion to notice the sawed-off back of the head ofAlexander Jonas of the New Yorker Volkszeitung, and totake cognizance of the gentleman’s characteristics—willappreciate the warning to be cautious lest he fall into anerror by a hasty glance at Guesde’s head. Thecharacteristics of the head, sawed off at the back andgiving it a sugar-loaf appearance, are absence of moralfibre—a weak morale and flimsy intellectuality, in short,the worm-characteristics. At first glance Guesde’s headlooks sawed-off in the back. It is an optical illusion. Sohigh is the dome of Guesde’s head that the robustness ofhis back-head is at first glance concealed. Intimateacquaintances and admirers of Guesde’s, Lafargue forinstance, tell me that Guesde is of such frail health thathis robust physical and mental activity is solely theresult of stupendous moral energy. In no mannerdetracting from Guesde’s moral vigor, I hold hisacquaintances to be in error. Frail as Guesde’s health is,the man has the physical vigor of a bull. Planted uponsuch ground, Guesde’s sterling intellectuality, backed bythe solidity of the back of his head, gives promise of



phenomenal results. Some one at Amsterdam said to meGuesde was too good looking a man to be a revolutionist.Guesde’s conduct at the great Committee onInternational Political Policy told a different tale. Hedisplayed the true revolutionist’s tactfulness, alertness,vigor, aggressiveness, and, withal, the surprisingintellectual powers that culminated in his short speechtearing Jauresism to pieces, and that was crowned withthe adoption of the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution—noslight victory, essentially the fruit of his labors at theCongress, and, long before the meeting of the Congress,labored for by the P.S. de F. But, again, I must notanticipate. Leaving the role played by the P.S. de F. inbringing about the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution forwhen I reach that subject, I shall limit myself under thisweek’s head to the conduct of Guesde at the Congress orcommittee itself.

Strictly speaking, and as I originally reported, Guesdeopened the debate. In point of fact what he then saidcould hardly be called the opening of the debate. Hemerely explained some of the terms of the resolutionadopted by the P.S. de F., and pointed out some of theerrors that had crept into the slovenly version of theresolution as published by the International Bureau. Healso stated that the P.S. de F. disclaimed any purpose of“seeking international aid for itself in the internal strifesof the movement at home”—another subject to which Ishall have occasion to revert when I reach the subject ofthe Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution. Altogether, Guesdedid not then speak five minutes. Jaures started the ballrolling. From early that Monday afternoon till late in theafternoon session of Wednesday the debate proceeded.No member of the P.S. de F. took part. Its two delegates,

DANIEL DE LEON


Guesde and Vaillant, on the committee sat silentlywatchful, and watchfully silent. Equally self-restrainedwere the party’s numerous delegates to the Congress inthe committee’s lobby. Finally Jaures rose to speak, thelast one on the list. Many an obviously cruel thrust didhe make at the P.S. de F., and many more and venomedthrusts was I informed he made, only not perceptibleexcept to those intimately acquainted with Frenchaffairs. Throughout all that, Vaillant and Guesde satimpassible. Finally Jaures made allusion to the declineof the P.S. de F.’s vote in Lille. Whether that thrust wasreally more aggravating than any, or whether it wasthat Jaures’ speech was drawing to the end and theopportunity had to be promptly seized for preconceivedplans,—whatever it was, at Jaures’ thrust in the matterof the Lille vote, Guesde jumped up and demanded thathe be given time to reply to that statement. This actionon the part of Guesde furnished an all around fit wind-up to the committee.

Upon Guesde’s interruption violent applause brokeout, also a good deal of disorder. But both subsidedspeedily. Jaures proceeded with his remarkable speech,and brought it to a close amidst thunderous plaudits.The Jauresists were well represented in the lobby, andtheir sympathizers on the committee were not a few.Soon as the applause subsided, Guesde rushed forwardto address the committee. Tumult ensued. There wereviolent protests against his taking the floor; more violentprotests against the protesters. Members of thedelegation of the P.S. de F. exchanged compliments withtheir adversaries of the Jaures party. Lucien Roland, thepoet-songster of the P.S. de F., with some of whosebeautiful poetic effusions The People’s readers will be



made acquainted, a man of set, impressive andexpressive features, mounted a chair, and in resonantvoice shouted to his party’s adversaries: “You have heardus insulted! WE HAVE NOT HAD THE FLOOR INTHIS COMMITTEE! Will you refuse to hear us!?!” Inbetween these cross-ejaculations Guesde shot off a wordor two. Troelstra, as a member of the Hollanddelegation, the country in which the Congress was held,was the chairman of the committee. He, for that matter,all the Holland delegates whom I had opportunity tospeak to or observe, is a through-paced Jauresist. I sawnot one who would not break a leg to be minister.Troelstra, accordingly, looked for support from thecommittee, from the audience, from the air to refuseGuesde the floor. The demands for Guesde increased involume and determination. I was doing my share.Presently Guesde was heard saying: “I shall not takelong! I need but a few minutes!” Troelstra seemed to seea way out of his dilemma. “Very well,” said he, “if it’sonly a few minutes you want, I now give you the floor.”These words were a serious slip; nor was Guesde slow inprofiting by it. Raising himself to his full six-feet {six-foot?} height, he looked at Troelstra with indignation.“Not for that reason!” he exclaimed; “Not for that reason!I demand the floor as an absolute right! I have the rightto be heard at the International Congress of Socialists!”The ringing, thunderous applause, accompanied withcries of “Guesde!” “Guesde!” drowned all contrarydemonstration, if there was any. Troelstra surrenderedcleverly; he himself joined the applause. Guesde got thefloor as a matter of right.

Jaures’ speech was reared on three posts. First, thathis policy had saved the republic;—Guesde denied point

DANIEL DE LEON


blank that the republic was in danger, and showed uponSocialist ground why not. Secondly, that his organizationwas larger as shown by its large vote and many moredeputies;—Guesde denied that; he showed that whatJaures claimed as “his” vote and “his” deputies was avote cast for candidates nominated by the prefecture,and he challenged him to name one exception. DePressense, in the audience, here broke in: “I, for one; Iwas not nominated by the prefecture.” “I am glad to hearthat you, De Pressense, are an exception! It is theexception which proves the rule! Name another! I dareyou! I challenge you!” he cried out to Jaures. “You cannot name another! That makes only one! None of ours isa nominee of the prefecture!” Thirdly, Jaures hadcharged the P.S. de F. with also supporting theministry;—Guesde illustrated the difference between anincidental vote cast for a bourgeois ministry in danger offalling under parliamentary blows of jingoes thirsting forwar, and the constant support through thick and thin ofa bourgeois government, including the voting for itsarmy and navy appropriations, as the Jauresists haddone. The three posts were knocked from under thegrandiose superstructure of Jaures’ speech, and thespeech itself lay a heap of ruins. It was all done withintwenty minutes—a feat never to be forgotten; in itselfworth going to Europe to witness, enjoy and profit by. Iwas told that, attacked by a chronic infirmity, after thevote that overthrew Jauresism, Guesde shook by thehand a friend, who called upon him, saying: “I can notnow speak, but my heart rejoices.”

I make no question that among the many notabilitiesin the Socialist Movement of the Continent, JulesGuesde is the most pregnant. Should the evil genius of



Bebel eventually prevail over the genius that, so far, hasbeen exceptionally good to him, and preserve him alivewhen the crash will come upon Europe, it will beGuesde, not Bebel, that will dominate the day as the“deus ex machina” of the situation;—but of this moreanon, when I shall reach the “Belgian Situation” of thisserial.


IV.

VICTOR ADLER.

A strange sensation comes over one when Adlerspeaks. He is a good speaker; he is an elegant speaker;he arrests the attention of his audience from the start,and keeps it to the finish, untired. One almost wishes tohear more. He spoke repeatedly in the committee. Onone occasion he rose to submit a document, and startedsaying: “I’m not going to speak; only an explanation.”Bebel thereupon called out to him banteringly: “Well,Victor, it must have pained you greatly to make thepromise that you would not speak!” I leaned over toKautsky, who sat just behind me, and asked himwhether Adler was so fond of hearing himself talk?Kautsky answered with the neat epigram: “Whoeverspeaks well likes to speak.” Indeed, Adler speaks well.He spoke often; yet, often tho’ he spoke, he never said afoolish thing. Taken separately, in and by themselves,his sentences were weighted with wisdom. Nevertheless,taken connectedly, as speeches, in the place where andfrom the person by whom they were uttered, they wereabsurd—as absurd as a beautiful fish out of water, or afine man under water. The finest of fishes is a corpse outof water, and so is the finest of men under water. Theyare out of the conditions for their existence. In thecouncil of war of Socialism, and in the mouth of thepresumptive leader of a revolutionary movement in agreat country like Austria, the nice balancing of pros andcons, the scrupulous scanning for possible evil in whatseems good, and of possible good in what seems evil, thedoubting and pondering—all that sort of thing is



strangely out of place, downright absurd, howeverinestimable it may be in the philosopher’s closet. Itsavors of the piping thoughts of peace, not of the roughthoughts of war. It savors of contemplative ease, not ofaction. The law of revolution is motion. Motion impliesnot necessarily hastiness: contemplation necessarilyimplies inactivity. As absurd as the revolutionist wouldbe in a seance of philosophers, so absurd is thephilosopher in a council of war. The former is a bull in achina-shop, the latter a mill-stone around the neck.

I mean neither to flatter nor insult when I say thatAdler is a Montaigne out of season. Montaigne,admittedly the philosopher whose thoughts, more thanany other’s, have been absorbed by the thinking portionof the world, had for his emblem a nicely balanced pairof scales, and for motto: “Que scay ie?” (What do I know,after all?) Every time Adler spoke, methought I sawMontaigne’s emblem quivering over his head, withMontaigne’s motto resplendent at its base. RosaLuxemburg styled Adler’s reasoning “sausage,” what inAmerica would be called “hash.” Plechanoff brilliantlycharacterized it as the “theory of systematic doubt.”Those who recall the witty, tho’ often somewhat coarse,stories about General Geo. B. McClellan that sprang upduring the Civil War, as the result of his Montaigne-likeattitude in the field, may form a conception of Adler onthe Socialist breastworks. The Adler-Vanderveldeproposed resolution fittingly bears Adler’s name as thefirst. What the Vandervelde contribution thereto meantI shall indicate when I come to Vandervelde himself. Thedocument bore Adler’s stamp in its paralyticcontemplativeness.

Though not strictly germane to the subject of Adler,

DANIEL DE LEON


yet neither wholly disconnected therefrom, incidentalmention may here be made, as food for thought, thatfraught with significance is the circumstance of such aresolution—presented, moreover, after full four years ofJauresist exhibition—being able to muster up suchstrong support at the Congress as to be defeated only bya tie vote. Nor is this other circumstance lacking ofsignificance in the premises:—The International Bureauhad declined to recognize the Socialist Labor Party ofAustralia, whose credentials I carried; it declined therecognition, despite that party’s 25,000 votes; it declinedthe recognition on the ground that Australia was “acolony and part of the British Empire”; and it decided topostpone action upon the matter until the Britishdelegation’s views were obtained, myself notified thereofand the matter then taken up anew by the Bureau withfuller light. Now, then, despite all this: despite thecredentials of the Australian S.L.P. being laid upon thetable on the ground that Australia was “a colony andpart of the British Empire,” and as such, prima faciedlynot entitled to separate recognition: despite anynotification reaching me or action to the contrary beingtaken by the Bureau: despite all that, the very next day,what spectacle was that seen at the Congress?—the“colony and part of the British Empire,” Australia, had aseparate seat on the floor with a member of the Britishdelegation, Mr. Claude Thompson, as the lonerepresentative! And he cast the two votes of Australia(every nationality casts two) for, what resolution? FORTHE ADLER-VANDERVELDE RESOLUTION! Thusthe two votes of Australia, manufactured in thatmanner, gave the resolution a chance; they came withinan ace of triumphantly carrying the resolution over the



stile. All comment is unnecessary either as to what hadhappened behind curtains, or what influences were atwork.

Returning to Adler, talented tho’ such a man is, hisstyle of talent tells several tales on the movement thatcan evolute him to its head. The first of these tales isthat the Austrian movement still vacillates on infantlegs; the second, that the leader of the Austrianmovement is still to appear. When he appears, when thecurrent of the Austrian movement shall have gainedsteadiness of course, among the first of its acts will be tosweep the vacillating, the philosophic Adler aside. Andwhen that day comes, probably no historian orphilosopher will weigh the pros and cons of the removalwith a more scrupulously judicial mind than will VictorAdler himself.


V.

GEORGE PLECHANOFF.

In order to safely judge men, their race, theirlanguage and the literature of their country should beknown. He who is not versed upon these three sources ofinformation will not, unless he be a reckless mind,venture upon a positive estimate. My knowledge of thestock Russian is limited, perhaps still more limited is myknowledge of Russian literature. I can, consequently,have only “impressions” upon the Russian, theseimpressions being gathered from a general knowledge oftheir history, the acquaintance and personal contactwith a very few of them, and some casual glimpses intothe nation’s literature. With this caveat, I may feel freeto say I cannot reconcile Plechanoff with my“impressions” of the Russian. Heinrich Heine saidsomewhere that there were two things he could notunderstand—how he and Jesus came to be Jews. Ishould say that at the Amsterdam Congress one thingforced itself upon me as un-understandable, to wit, howPlechanoff could be a Russian. The man’s quickness ofwit and action, aye, even his appearance, are so utterlyFrench that I can not square them with my“impressions” of the stock Russian, whom I conceive tobe slow in deciding, languorous in action. Two instances,culled from several minor ones, at Amsterdam, willillustrate the point.

Van Koll of the Holland delegation and chairman ofthe first day’s session—he was subsequently and wiselymade permanent chairman for all the sessions, so as toimpart some degree of continuity to them—opened with



a speech. Van Koll’s speech sounded as he looks—dulland bovine. His face had no more expression while hespoke than a pitcher of water when the water is flowingout. Indeed, the only time during the whole Congresswhen I noticed an expression on his face was after he gotthrough reeling off his speech, and Mrs. Clara Zetkin, ofthe German delegation, was rendering a Germantranslation thereof. Mrs. Zetkin is the exact opposite ofVan Koll. Dull and bovine as he is, she bubbles over withanimal spirit. Into whatever she translated, even if itwas a simple motion to adjourn, she threw the fire ofthrilling, impassioned declamation. Of course she did soin translating Van Koll. A faint glimmer of expressionsuffused his broad and beefy, though good-natured, face.He looked at the lady sideways, and, no doubt wonderingat the “bravoure” that she threw into the translation,looked as if he was thinking to himself: “Did I, really, getoff all that?” No wonder he wondered. His speech was ofthe kind that Paul Singer, of the German SocialDemocracy, is usually set up to deliver when time andspace is to be filled. It was soporific enough to set almostany audience to sleep—let alone so large an audience,about 500 delegates, as the one that he faced, and barelyone-third of which could at any one time understand theparticular language that happened to be spoken. TheCongress was giving distressing signs of listlessnesswhen Plechanoff jumped to the rescue. He sat, as thethird vice-chairman, at Van Koll’s left with Katayama,the delegate from Japan, as the second vice-chairman, atVan Koll’s right. Plechanoff had been watching for hischance. The moment it came he seized it. He rose,stretched his right arm across Van Koll’s wide girth andtook Katayama’s hand. Katayama took the hint; he also

DANIEL DE LEON


arose and, symbolically, the Russian proletariat wasshaking hands with their Japanese fellow wage slaves.It was a well thought demonstration, the work of a flashof genius. Apart from rousing the Congress from thelanguor it was dropping into, and driving it to frenziedapplause, the handshake of Plechanoff and Katayama atthat place was a pathetic rebuke to Capitalism, whosecode of practical morality was at the very hour beingexemplified in the heaped up corpses of Russians andJapanese on the Manchurian battlefields. It contrastedthe gospel of practical humanity that Socialism isushering into life, with the gospel of practical rapinethat Capitalism apotheosizes.

The second instance of Plechanoff’s quickness of witand action was one I already have referred to in mypreliminary report. It was the assault he made in thecommittee upon the Adler-Vandervelde resolution,especially the part that attacked Adler. That part ofPlechanoff’s speech looked like a succession of forkedtongues of lightning converging upon Adler’s devotedhead. It was a succession of French-witted epigrams,lashing what he called Adler’s “doute systematique”(systematic doubt). The strokes went home so unerringlythat Adler, phlegmatic though he is, found it necessaryto ask the floor for an explanation, when the debate wasover, and personal explanations were in order.

Apart from his brilliantly striking personality,Plechanoff’s activity suggests a train of thoughts along adifferent line. The question takes shape, To what extentcan a man in exile effect an overturn in the country thathe is exiled from? That Anacharsis Klootz, the Hollanderand exile, played an important part in a foreign country,France, during the French Revolution, is known. And



there are more such instances. The question that rises tomy mind is not what a role history has in store for aPlechanoff, a Russian exile, this side of the Vistula. Thequestion is, Can one, long an exile from his own country,preserve such close touch with it as to become leadinglyactive in it at a moment’s notice? “Emigrations” duringtroubled days proverbially became aliens from their ownfatherland; when they return home they drop strangersamong strange conditions. The instances of Bolivar inSouth America, Hobbes in England, Castelar in Spain,not to mention royalties without number, who, thoughlong exiled, returned home and led their parties tosuccessful victories, may suggest the answer to thequestion posed above, were it not for the obviousdifferences between such uprisings and the socialrevolution in whose folds Plechanoff is active, and ofwhose weapons he is one of the titan forgers. In none ofthose other uprisings did the masses count; in all ofthem a minority class alone was interested, struck thekey-note and furnished the music—with the masses onlyas deluded camp-followers. It is otherwise with theapproaching Social Revolution. It is of the people, if it isanything. Can contact be kept with the people at adistance, any more than it can be kept with a distantatmosphere?

On the other hand, America, the country that manyan observer of our times has detected to bear closeparallel with Russia in more than one typical respect,remains to all intents and purposes an unknown land toPlechanoff. In a letter from Mrs. Corinne S. Brown, ofChicago—one of the delegates of the Socialist party atAmsterdam—to the Milwaukee Social DemocraticHerald, the lady declares that the Congress was a “great

DANIEL DE LEON


revelation” to her, inasmuch as “it was surprising to noteof how little importance the United States is amongthose continentals.” The observation is correct. Itincludes Plechanoff. Thus, while the unwilling imperialcannon of Japan is signalling for a political revolution inautocratic Russia; while the capitalist system is makinggiant strides towards transforming the face of theMuscovite’s realm; while here in America Capitalism,having reached its acme, is kicking over one by one theliberal ladders by which it climbed to the topmost rung,and has begun to swing back into absolutism via all thedevious paths of popular corruption and politicalchicanery; while these events, big with results, are bothnoisily and noiselessly proceeding on their coursetowards a kissing point, raising Russia ever nearer tothe American standard, and lowering America evernearer to the Russian level;—in short, while thisevolution is taking place Plechanoff is fatedly, and thatunbeknown to himself, becoming more and more analien in Russia, and at the same time, as to America, heprobably has of the country no clearer idea than that itis a quarter from some quarter of which considerablefunds flow towards the propaganda that he carries {on}.

Unless untimely death deprives the RevolutionaryMovement of Europe of the services of this valiantpaladin, the career of George Plechanoff promises tofurnish an intensely interesting sociologic specimen, towhich the historian of the future will turn his eyes fordirection, for example and for scrutiny.


VI.

EMILE VANDERVELDE.

At the risk of having some friend of Vandervelde’shastily throw this article aside before reading to the end,I shall start with the broad side of thewedge.—Vandervelde is essentially a comedian.

This may seem an insult; it may seem derogatory toVandervelde’s unquestionable intellectual parts; it mayseem a disparagement of his undeniable services,rendered to the cause of Socialism. It may seem all that.Yet it is not. None can take really offence but blindadmirers. As to these—so much the worse for them.

The Rachels, the McCullochs, the Siddonses, theBooths, the Bernhardts, the Irvings, the Terrys, theTalmas, together with scores of others, have all beenactors, yet they have enjoyed wide and deep respect,have evoked genuine admiration, have spurred toemulation. On the skirt on the picture of one of them agreat artist gallantly wrote his name with the expressionof the certainty that thus her skirt would raise him toimmortality. When it is considered that one and all ofthese stars improved their powers with all theappliances and means to boot known to the tricks of thestage;—when it is considered that skilful touches canimpart chin to the chinless face; breadth to thestraightened forehead; size to the gimlet eye; hair to thefrayed skull; beard to the weak face; breadth of shoulder,depth of chest and roundness of limbs to the shaggy, theshallow of breast and the spindle-shanked;—when allthis is considered and the fact is duly weighed thatVandervelde, even if he would, is deprived of recourse to

DANIEL DE LEON


such aids and expedients by the stage on which he stars,then the man’s extraordinary histrionic powers can notfail to evoke wonder, and the esteem he enjoys withmany may be readily understood.

I have previously stated how Clara Zetkin, thetranslator into German, threw spirit and fire even intotranslations of tame routine matter, clean out of place.The lady is no artist. Vandervelde is; he is aconsummate actor. The conclusion may not be warrantedfrom his conduct when he speaks originally. The mannerin which he operates his arms, the studied modulationsof his voice, his peculiarity of stepping forward, thenstepping back and posing—all these habits may besimply personal mannerisms. His talent as an actorappears when he translates. He translated several timesfrom the German into French. A translator may withgenuine naturalness put into his translation all thewarmth of the original, provided the original expresseshis own sentiments. When, however, the original’s viewsare contrary to his own, when they even assail him,then, to reproduce the original with its original fire is afeat of different category. Vandervelde accomplishes thefeat. In his translations of even views that he does notshare, he reproduces the vocal emphasis, the gestures,the stamping of feet, the flash of the eye, the pouting oflips, the puckering of brows—in short, all the emotionsof the original, however hostile to himself. A speechtranslated by him does not lose in its rendition, howevercounter to his own sentiments. That is a gift, shared byfew. I verily believe Vandervelde could reproduce aspeech of even Jaures, including the streams ofperspiration that trickle down Jaures’ cheeks, or aspeech of Guesde, including the rasping notes of



Guesde’s voice.On Thursday, after the debate in the committee on

international tactics was over, the Adler-VanderveldeResolution defeated, and the Dresden-AmsterdamResolution accepted, the committee proceeded toconsider the procedure to be adopted before the fullCongress. As stated in the second number of this series,Bebel was of the opinion that no further speeches ormotions be allowed in the Congress. He, accordingly,moved that the committee submit to the Congress acondensed report of its transactions, that Vanderveldebe the reporter, and that the Congress then take a vote.Bebel argued that Vandervelde himself, the co-mover ofa defeated resolution, would be able to make animpartial report of the occurrences. Nobody objected toVandervelde as the reporter, but numerous were theprotests against applying the gag in the Congress. I, forone, objected. Although not mean was the opinion I hadbeen forming of Vandervelde’s extraordinary ability as aconscientious actor, I was not ready to trust him withthe stating of the attitude of the Socialist Labor Party,which I had represented in the committee, including mymotion. For a moment Bebel forgot himself, and startedto interrupt me, compelling me to notify him then andthere that the Party I represented would not allow itselfto be intimidated, and that the day would come when hewould learn to appreciate the importance of the S.L.P.stand. Too well-meaning a man and too sensible withalto insist upon a false position, Bebel immediatelysubsided, and thus saved me the necessity of greaterseverity. Bebel’s motion was materially altered. To makea long story short, it was decided that all the defeatedmotions, mine included, be submitted to the Congress, as

DANIEL DE LEON


they were; that they would all be incorporated in thereport of the Congress; finally, the movers of the severalmotions were to furnish Vandervelde with a synopsis oftheir arguments, and were not to speak unlessdissatisfied with Vandervelde’s report, each beinghimself the judge of whether he should be satisfied ornot—a condition that I insisted upon. As stated in mypreliminary report, I furnished Vandervelde with such asynopsis, but I took the precaution of causing my nameto be inserted on the list of speakers by Troelstra, thechairman of the Friday session of the Congress, in case Ifound it necessary to supplement Vandervelde. I stoodthe eleventh on the list. The table of the Americandelegation was away in the rear. On Friday, when thereport of the committee was to be made, I sat forward atthe table of the French comrades. Vandervelde made hisreport. It was then more than on any other occasion thatthe man displayed his matchless theatrical powers. Heimpersonated Bebel, he impersonated Guesde, heimpersonated Jaures, he impersonated every mover andmost of the speakers. He impersonated me, even quotingexactly some of my words. As I sat there watching theincredible performance, I mentally put to the actor thequestion: “How do you do it?”—I was satisfied, and soinformed Troelstra, authorizing him to strike my namefrom the list. He also was still under the spell ofadmiration for what he termed Vandervelde’s “greatachievement.” I agreed with him, and he shook my handrapturously.

I have often wondered at the reasoning of people whocondemn the stage as immoral—as having an immoraleffect upon the audience. They condemn the actor, theypity the audience. The reasoning seems to me topsy-



turvy. If there is immorality about the theater, the actoris the victim, the audience the victimizer. Can thehuman being who habitually simulates love and hatred,rapture and wrath, joy and sorrow—can such a beingpreserve the spontaneity of its own individuality? Is itnot rather the actors who are sinned against by theaudience that pays them for such self-immolation thanthey who debauch the audience by such spectacle ofsuicide of individuality? I, for one, would never knowwhen a great actor is in earnest. His hand-shake, hisembrace, his utterances off the stage, can not, meseems,be but affected by the simulation of his profession. Theactor’s habit once acquired, he seems to me perpetuallyon the stage. Nor can I resist the impression with regardto Vandervelde. In fact, his career bears me out. Afterthe futile, even disastrous and certainly ill-advisedBelgian general strike of a year and odd ago,Vandervelde boasted in the Belgian Parliament that, athis call, so and so many thousands of workingmenrose,—they did and scattered as on the stage; noise,signifying nothing! So with the Adler-VanderveldeResolution: its fascination for Vandervelde was its stageparade. So, more recently, since the Congress, when, asa delegate of the Inter-parliamentary Union and PeaceConferences in this country, he could not only leaveunprotested the eulogies to the spiked-police-clubPresident Roosevelt, but could join in carrying them tothe political head of the Capitalist Class—a comedywithin a comedy! And so also did we see him here oneday staging in public and declaiming for the SocialDemocratic party, on the plea of its being “Socialist,” andthe next day staging in public and declaiming for theanti-Socialist Gompers and his capitalist Civic

DANIEL DE LEON


Federation, on the plea of their being “friends of Labor.”Kautsky, as I stated in a previous article of this series,thought that he who speaks well likes to speak.Likewise, it may be said, he who acts well loves a stage.With him it is, Anything for a stage; rather die than notto stage.

Off and on actors have contributed their sharetowards arousing the masses from lethargy and toaction. But the actor’s part on such occasion is merelysubsidiary. A movement in which a Vandervelde is themost conspicuous figure can not but lack the coherencyof mature development. Every nationality follows itsown course of detailed development. A Vandervelde isthe product of the course that the Belgian Movementhappened to take. Clear as anything is the conclusionthat, valuable though a Vandervelde may be in such acountry, his conspicuousness denotes absence ofseriousness in the Movement. With greater maturity aMovement grows serious, and then produces otherleaders. The leader of the seriously revolutionaryBelgian Movement is yet to make his appearance.


VII.

ENRICO FERRI AND BULGARIA.

Unable to find among my notes the name of theBulgarian delegate on the Committee on InternationalPolitical Policy, whom I wish to consider in connectionwith Ferri of Italy, I shall herein designate him by thename of his country—Bulgaria.5

As is commonly known, there are two conflictingwings in the Socialist Movement of Italy—the Ferri wingand the Turati wing, the former being considered theradical, the latter the opportunist element. The Italiandelegation at Amsterdam was entirely Ferri-ist,indicative of the fact that the principles of the Ferrielement are dominant in the Italian Movement. Basedupon this fact, together with its correlative, that there isno split in the Socialist Movement of Italy due to thetactfulness of both wings, Ferri made a scholarly speechat the committee.

He argued: Principle is an essential element to action;without principle action is worthless. On the other hand,principle is inoperative without organization, andorganization implies tactics or conduct. Accordingly, todeclare correct principle and disregard its application isfolly. The application of principle thus assumes primeimportance after the principle is set up. Arrived at thispoint the real difficulty arises. Common experience,however, points the way. The captain who receives hissea-letters knows that he is to leave a certain port andmake for a certain other. His sea-letters are his

5 [The delegate’s name was Christian Rokovsky, or Rocovsky.

—Editor]

DANIEL DE LEON


“principle.” They determine the general direction of hismotion. His tactics thereupon come into operation. Whatparticular tactics he may observe from day to day, fromhour to hour, cannot be dictated to him. They are in ageneral way dictated by his sea-letters: he may not adopttactics that will head him for some other port in someother direction: but within the scope of such generaldirections, the details of his manoeuvres must be left tohim: he will choose them according to the exigencies ofsurrounding circumstances, and also according to thedictates of his temperament. What his sea-letters are toa captain, principle is to a Socialist Movement. It tells uswhence we come, and directs us whither to go. No morethan in the case of the captain’s sea-letters, does or canprinciple prescribe the details of action, the tactics, of aSocialist Movement. They also depend upon theexigencies and accidents of the field, together with thetemperament of those engaged in the movement.Summing up these thoughts, and expressing theapprehension that there was a tendency in thecommittee to precipitate a rupture, Ferri proceeded toreason as follows: Though different tactics may not beequally good, there is not, generally, any that isunqualifiedly bad from its inception. Herein lies thefatality of ruptures; a rupture fatedly drives theconflicting tactics further and further apart, further andfurther away from their own incipient element ofsoundness, until they both degenerate into extremes,into excesses, into caricatures of themselves. This isfatedly the result, and the result is ever fatal to thecause that they both hold close to their hearts. Hence, hesaid, his efforts in Italy to avoid a rupture, and his joythat his efforts were successful. That was the essence of



Ferri’s scholarly speech.—All of which is very true.When the turn came of Bulgaria to speak, the

delegate, a young and forceful man, grappled withFerri’s line of reasoning. Without rhetorical flourishes,but tersely and to the point, he argued: The experiencein Bulgaria shows the folly of preventing a rupturebetween conflicting tactics. There had been two elementsin the party. One believed in a clip and clearpropaganda, and uncompromising tactics; the otherbelieved in a policy of opportunism, of “co-operation ofclasses,” of fusion, and of compromise—in short, ofgeneral radicalism. The two wings earnestly sought tocompose their differences, and keep together. It wasfound impossible. Hours upon hours, meetings uponmeetings were consumed with nothing but debates. Theissue was discussed from all viewpoints—scientific,theoretic, practical. The longer the discussion lasted, thetighter was the tangle. In the meantime agitation stoodstock-still. Finally the rupture ensued. It was as if anightmare was lifted from the Socialist chest. The time-consuming, nerve-racking polemics ended. RevolutionarySocialism regained its strength; its striking arm wasfree; it sailed in to do work. The straightforwardagitation started. Instructive, because straight anduncompromising, literature sprang up. The work ofpropaganda began in good earnest. Since then realSocialist enlightenment has spread. Progress has beenmade.—All of which also is very true.

Ferri and Bulgaria, in juxtaposition, point to what Iconsider the one, at least the leading fault of theseinternational congresses, as conducted by ourcontinental comrades. The picture that the two, inthemselves superb speeches condensed above, throw

DANIEL DE LEON


upon the canvas, is the picture of the mind that lacksevolutionary perspective. Each said a truth, but a truthapplicable only to a certain stage of development,inapplicable to any other. In other words, they are truthsthat can not stand abreast of each other. They rank insuccessive order in the evolutionary scale.

It is undoubtedly true, as Ferri stated, that twoopposing tactics may each have an element, a startingpoint of soundness; that, for the sake of saving thoseelements of soundness to the movement, rupture shouldbe avoided; whereas rupture has fatedly for its effect thedriving of the ruptured tactical elements to suchextremes from their own premises that they became self-destructive. True; but the evolutionary stage, wheresuch a policy of conciliation is possible, alwayspresupposes a previous stage. It presupposes the stagewhere the clash of conflict has pounded to dust theheavy incrustations of error that tactics, often the best ofthem, first make their appearance in. The indispensablepreparatory work of classification having been gonethrough during that previous stage, a country’sMovement is then, and not before, ripe to enter into thenext evolutionary stage, the stage that Ferri had inmind. Consequently, it is also undoubtedly true, asBulgaria stated, that opposing tactics, held together,only palsy the Movement’s march; that time and energy,needed for agitation, are wasted in irreconcilablepolemics; and that only rupture can set the movement a-going. Again, true enough, but, as explained above, trueonly of an earlier evolutionary stage than that whichFerri had to deal with in Italy; true only of theevolutionary stage that Bulgaria had just beenexperiencing. At the earlier stage rupture is an element



of progress; at the second, harmony. Of the truth of thissynthesis the Movement in America has had, and is stillhaving striking proof.

Here, two conflicting policies were wrestling in theSocialist camp. The one was called “Narrow,” the other“Broad.” As terms of distinction, tho’ not of demarkation,the two names will do as well as any other. The issuewas essentially one of organization. It took two externalmanifestations—one on the Party’s attitude towards theTrades Unions, the other on the party’s attitude towardReformers. The two manifestations finally merged intoone—the Trades Union policy. In the language ofBulgaria, the dispute palsied the Movement’s work. Itlasted nearly nine years, from 1890 to 1899. In the endthe opposing elements were as two spent swimmers, thatcling together and choke their art. They broke away.Rupture ensued. It was inevitable. No amount ofpurpose would have brought it on; no amount of“wisdom” could have prevented it. The Movement hadentered upon the evolutionary stage described byBulgaria. The clarifying conflict, the conflict withoutwhich clarification is not possible, was in theevolutionary cards. It broke out, and progress, theprogress of clarification, immediately set in. Each side,the Socialist Labor Party and its rival, that sprang intobeing with the rupture, developed its practical principleunhampered. If there be any grain of help to theSocialist Revolution in the policy of not exposing aGompers, a Mitchell, a McGuire or any of the leadinglabor lieutenants of the capitalist class, caught red-handed in their crimes, lest “offence be given” to theirduped rank and file; or in the policy of not awakeningthe Socialist conscience against Unions that deliberately

DANIEL DE LEON


exclude members of their trade so as to keep theshrinking jobs to themselves, and thus rip the WorkingClass in twain; or in the policy of not turning the X-raysupon strikes that are instigated by competing capitalistsagainst each other, and are to be dropped the momentthe capitalist “agent-provocateur” has gained hispurpose, or that fakers incite and keep up for the sake ofstrike jobs that the bleeding rank and file is taxed out of;or of echoing the cry of “Scab!” raised by scab-breedersagainst their victims; or in the policy of tolerating as“Socialist,” addresses and articles on subjects that are nopart of working class demands; or in the policy ofshutting the eye to dickers and deals with the bourgeoispoliticians; or in the policy of encouraging the insolenceof the presumptuous,—all for the sake of generalpropitiation and of votes; in short, if—upon the theorythat there always is some virtue even in the deepest-dyed villain—any grain of help to the SocialistRevolution should lie concealed in such a policy; and, onthe other hand, if—upon the theory, again, that therealways is some vice even in the most angelic man—anygrain of harm to the Social Revolution should lie hiddenin the opposite policy, the conflict will bring out both.Pounded between the upper and the nether millstone ofthe S.L.P. and its rival, whatever incrustation of seriouserror either’s policy is coated with will be ground to dustand blown to the wind. Then will the Movement inAmerica enter upon the evolutionary stage of harmony,and it will be in condition to do so only because it passedthrough the purging evolutionary stage of rupture—twodistinct evolutionary stages, that, being successive andnot simultaneous, reject identical treatment, as ourcontinental comrades seek to administer.



At this place it will be aidful to the point underconsideration to refer to the resolution that I presentedin the name of the S.L.P. for the repeal of the KautskyResolution, and which was given in full in mypreliminary report. A continental comrade, whowitnessed the transactions of the committee, amusedlyremarked to me that the effect of the S.L.P. resolutionwas like that of a stone thrown into a puddle—all thefrogs leap up. Nothing was further removed from thecomrade’s mind than to express contempt for hisEuropean fellows. It was only a witty way of describing ascene, of portraying a frame of mind. The witticismindicates the light in which the S.L.P. resolution waslooked at. And that is the point. In point of fact theS.L.P. resolution was the most moderate andconservative of all those presented. By expressly statingwhat is unallowable in “fully developed capitalistcountries, like America,” in contradistinction with“countries not yet wholly freed from feudal institutions,”the S.L.P. resolution avoided the one-sidedness of boththe Ferri and the Bulgarian stand. It took cognizance ofthe different stages of development that the severalnationalities are now in, and thereby it avoided the errorof uniform treatment for different evolutionary stages ofdifferent societies. The false habits of thought of ourcontinental comrades caused them to disregard thesoundness of poise of the S.L.P. resolution; while,unconsciously acting obedient to another and equallyfalse yet with most of them habitual notion, they werestartled at the idea of America presuming to condemnpoint blank the production of Kautsky, one of their own!In their international congresses America is notsupposed to fill any role other than that of wall-flower.

DANIEL DE LEON


As in the sky the star-world reveals to us formationsin various stages of development, from the nebulous, thehalf-formed and up to the full-orbed luminary; as in thewoods specimens are seen from the tender sapling up tothe wide-branched monarch of the forests; as all aroundus humanity teems with individuals at different stagesof growth from the infant up to the robust adult,—solikewise in the firmament of nations different societiesare to-day moving in different evolutionary epochs. And,just as in the astronomic, the botanic and the humaninstances, a knowledge of the lower evolutionary stageaids in {knowing whence the higher proceeded, and aknowledge of the higher aids in}6 understanding whitherthe lower tends, so with the different SocialistMovements of to-day. It is positive as aught can be thatbut one party of Socialism will eventually be seen inBulgaria or America, as is substantially seen in Italy to-day. The revolutionary stage of harmony is as inevitablea stage as that of adult growth from infancy—providedlife continues; and, just as {infancy is an inevitableprecursor of adult}7 manhood, the evolutionary stage ofrupture is the inevitable precursor of unity—the unity inwhich, full scope being allowed for the differences intemperament unavoidable in mass movements, theindividual units are held together by a double bond: thebond of principle and that of tactics purged of error byexperience.

It is the leading fault of these internationalcongresses, as conducted by our continental comrades,that they proceed upon the Procrustean principle. They

6 [Bracketed words dropped from all pamphlet editions.—Editor]7 [Same as above.—Editor]



seek to fit movements of unequal evolutionary size intobeds of equal length or shortness. The result isconfusion. Men who push resolutions inapplicable to allnations, fatedly invite sophistical arguments to escapethe result of their own ill-thought decrees. The KautskyResolution of 1900 was an instance in point; theDresden-Amsterdam Resolution is no exception—as Ishall presently show.


VIII.

THE DRESDEN-AMSTERDAM RESOLUTION.

The Munich Fliegende Blaetter once had a cartoonrepresenting a scene in the office of a parish priest inSouthern Germany. The priest, rotund and benevolent-looking, sat in his arm-chair sympathetically facing afemale parishioner, a peasant woman standing beforehim. The woman bore the marks of recent severehandling. Her head was bandaged; so were both herarms; and under her short skirt a bandaged leg was tobe seen. She must have been complaining to the Fatherthat her husband had given her a beating. The Fathermust have addressed her some words of consolation, andadmonition to patience. The cartoon bore only onesentence; it was the woman’s answer: “Die Frau soll undmuss gepruegelt werden, aber der verdammte Kerluebertreibt es!” (The wife should and must be beaten,but the devil of a fellow carries the thing too far!) Thatwoman’s frame of mind on the subject of conjugalrelations portrays exactly the frame of mind of theGerman Social Democracy towards Jauresism,—they donot object to the idea, only the devil of a fellow carriesthe thing too far.

THE LAY OF THE LAND IN EUROPE.

More than once in the course of this serial, and verymuch in full in the “Review of the DresdenConvention,”8 I have pointed out the special socio-political condition that the bulk of the European

8 See Addenum L.



continent finds itself in—indeed, the whole of thecontinent, France conspicuously excepted. Suffice it hereto repeat that, with the bulk of the continent, althoughportions of the capitalist body are everywhere seenevolved, nowhere is the evolution complete; in someplaces the evolution is further advanced, in othersbackward: in all capitalist society is still more or lessenveloped in the warp of the feudal cocoon. Thus one andall present the phenomenon of two ruling classes, hencealso political systems, simultaneously in existence: theolder, the feudal, still dominant, thanks to the “visinertiæ” of precedence; the younger, the capitalist,pressingly assertive, thanks to its latent power ofultimate ascendancy. In countries so circumstanced the“co-operation of classes,” as the term now runs, is notexcluded. Its tactful application may even be a source ofpositive solace for the proletariat. The classic instance ofGreat Britain, so oft cited, need but be referred to. Onetime the feudal lord, as an offensive measure in hisstruggle with the capitalist, another time the oncomingcapitalist, as an offensive measure against feudality,backed up the interests of the bottom class, theproletariat. For the “co-operation of classes,” whichmeans the co-operation of a ruling class with theproletariat, the social phenomenon is requisite of thesimultaneous existence of two ruling classes, systems, ofdistinct type and successive eras. It is obviously atransitional period, offering transitional opportunities.The instant the elder of the two systems is supplantedby the younger, the transitional opportunities are at end.Germany, although the most advanced, capitalistically,of all the continental nations that are found in thattransitional stage, but being the most powerful of all,

DANIEL DE LEON


typifies the rest. It goes without saying that, at leasttheoretically, Jauresism, that is, the “co-operation ofclasses,” can not choose but be sympathetic to Germany,together with the rest of the continental nations of whomGermany is the type, and of whose sentiments Germanygives fullest expression. Nor is the theory unsupportedby practice and positive evidence. It is a fact not to beoverlooked or underrated that at the Paris Congress of1900, the Kautsky Resolution being under discussion,Auer, the spokesman of the German delegation,supported the Resolution saying: “True enough, aMillerand case has not yet arisen among us (inGermany); we are not yet so far; but I hope we mayreach the point at the earliest day possible.” And thewords of Auer were applauded to the echo without adissenting voice from the German delegation, or the restof the continental nations that have Germany as theirfugleman. Ministerialism, the “co-operation of classes,”Jauresism, in short, was sympathized with by all; it wasadmired and looked forward to as a desideratum.

For reasons that are exactly the reverse of the medalof which the German position is the obverse, the FrenchSocialist elements that are now organized in the “PartiSocialiste de France” (Socialist Party of France) had andhave neither approval nor admiration for Jauresism. Forit they justly have unqualified condemnation only. Thevery socio-political reasons that justify the “co-operationof classes” in countries circumstanced as Germany,reject it in countries circumstanced as France. InFrance—as in America, together with the rest of theEnglish-speaking world in general—the transitionalphenomenon of the simultaneous existence of two rulingclasses of distinct type and successive eras is absent. In



France—as in America, together with the rest of theEnglish-speaking world in general—Feudality has beenwiped out, or remains only as a vanishing “trace”:Capitalism thrones with undisputed sway. The elementsnow constituting the Socialist Party of France resistedwith might and main the proposed Kautsky Resolution.Yet were they overwhelmingly snowed under. The onlyorganization of importance that stood by them was theSocialist Labor Party of America. Even the delegationfrom more advanced Great Britain joined in full theprocession of the less advanced continental States. TheRevolutionary Socialists of France came beaten out ofthe Paris Congress of 1900. Jauresism came out withflying colors.

SENTIMENT AS A FORCE.

So far I have pursued the inquiry only along thestrictly social and political line. Another line of inquirymust now be taken up. Movements are made up of men,and man is “flesh and blood, and apprehensive.” Toexpect of him that he rise wholly above the foibles of hisnature is to expect of him what he may not be. Well mayhe say he “dares do all that may become a man, whodares do more is none.” The German Social Democracy,meaning thereby its managing powers, is a humanagency. As such it is of the earth, not of the NewJerusalem. TO THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACYTHE SOCIALIST PARTY OF FRANCE ISUNSYMPATHETIC. Free as America’s happy locationmakes us, I need not write under the diplomaticrestraint that the closely dove-tailing geography of theEuropean nations forces upon the Socialists of the

DANIEL DE LEON


several European nationalities. The lukewarmness inthe affection for the Socialist Party of Franceentertained by the German Social Democracy is apsychologic phenomenon of vastly deeper bearing thanmerely philosophic curiosity. It also has its bearing uponus in America, and, along with us, upon the English-speaking world at large. While the phenomenon flowsfrom, it supplements the difference in the statusbetween France, on the one side, and the rest of thecontinental States, on the other. Jointly the two forcesillumine the field in a manner that neither could alone.

While undoubtedly prizing, the genius of the GermanSocial Democracy feels rebuked by the Socialist Party ofFrance. Although vastly surpassing the latter in point ofmembership, in point of the extent of press facilities, inpoint of financial resources and, last not least, in point ofthe public-eye-filling vote, the latter’s clear-as-a-pike,soundly poised, brilliantly unbending and unterrifiableMarxist posture disturbs the equanimity of its Germancousin. The phenomenon can be explained only upon thegeneral principle that man usually feels sore at otherswhen he is sore at himself. That the distinguishedleaders of the German Social Democracy should feel soreat themselves is, paradoxical though the opinion maysound, as inevitable a fact as it is groundless. Whyshould they? Truth is that which fits all the facts in thecase. The German Social Democracy is true. Its conductfits the facts that surround it. It is doing, not merely thebest that it is able to do, but the very best that thecircumstances allow. That best, however, is not up to thestandard of the Socialist Party of France. No blame canattach to the German Social Democracy on that score,any more than praise for superior inherent virtue can be



the meed of the Socialist Party of France. It is noinherent quality in the river that flows through thechain of our great lakes that it displays the superbpanorama of the cascade of Niagara; nor is it aninherent defect in the waters that pour down the easternslopes of the Rockies that their course is accompanied bythe humbler river swamps of the Missouri andMississippi valleys. Rivers, true enough geology teaches,shape their own beds. But that is only a finality. At thestart, their course and aspect are predetermined by thesolid mass that happens around them. The stream of theGerman Social Democracy is, indeed, making its bed,that tributary bed to the eventual international networkof river beds through which the floods of an emancipatedproletariat, the emancipated human race, will rush theirfruition-full billows. Until then, however, the course andaspect of the German Social Democratic stream is pre-determined by the set of existing solid facts, none ofwhich it can be held responsible for, and through whichit is forced to wear its way—identically as are pre-determined the course and aspect of the stream of theSocialist Party of France by the more favorablecircumstances that it, in turn, is as little to be creditedfor. Groundless, accordingly, is the secret sense ofsoreness at themselves on the part of the German SocialDemocratic leaders.

Yet the soreness is inevitable. The circumstance thatthe founder of Socialist Science—the author of Socialisttheory, Capital, and of Socialist tactics, The EighteenthBrumaire of Louis Bonaparte—was born in Germanyand wrote in German has exercised so preponderatingan influence upon the general, the public mind, that theopinion one time was, and is not yet worn out, that

DANIEL DE LEON


Socialism is essentially a German product, indigenous inand applicable only to Germany. The well-known anddroll anecdote related about Zola in this connection willnaturally suggest itself to all.9 The importantcircumstances, that the founder of Socialist science hadhis wit whetted in France, and that it was in still a thirdcountry, England, that he gathered his facts and fromwhose shores he launched his two great works, easily gounperceived. Inestimable as was Marx’s early Germantraining, it was not all-sufficient; far from it. In fact,since Aristotle’s, Marx’s is the only universal mind thehuman race has produced. The science reared by such agenius is, of course, universal. For all that, it would be“doing more than may become a man” were the foremostelements of Germany, now gathered in the GermanSocial Democracy, not to feel a special pride in Marx,aye, to claim him as their own, the gift of the Germannation to the world. If to this the further circumstance iscoupled that it was in Germany that the teachings ofMarx first took the crystallized form of a Movement, of apolitical party, then the inevitableness of the presentsense of soreness at themselves on the part of theGerman Social Democratic leaders becomes as obviousas it was shown to be groundless. It is a sentiment thatcannot choose but spring up in men whose ownMovement, starting with as clear-as-a-pike Marxistposture as to-day distinguishes the Socialist Party ofFrance on the continent, was, nevertheless, constrained

9 The story is told that Zola, seeing a German friend with a copy of

Marx’s Capital, said: “I couldn’t read such a book. The gothic type is anabomination to my eyes.” The friend thereupon opened the book andheld it up to the startled gaze of Zola. Capital having been printed inEngland is not in gothic but in Latin type.



by the “force majeure” of imperative circumstancestemporarily to deflect its pristine course, and pursue theriver bed that the surrounding boulders of still lingeringfeudalism pre-determined for it.

A sentiment so natural, however deplorable, is, withmen of knowledge and character, such as the leaders ofthe German Social Democracy, kept under the self-imposed control that character and knowledge equip aman withal. With men lacking both character andknowledge the sentiment runs riot. It is in itsmanifestation of riot-running that the Germanphenomenon under consideration has its bearing uponus in America, as also in Australia and GreatBritain—the English-speaking world at large, and thatit injuriously reacts back upon the German fatherland ofthe riot-runners abroad. The German Socialist ofintelligence and character in Great Britain, Australia orAmerica finds the grief of his expatriation soothed by thethought that, at least, his lot has cast him into a countrywhose social and political institutions are so muchfurther advanced that they afford opportunities for theuntrammeled development of Marxism. The GermanSocialist, on the contrary, of neither intelligence norcharacter, in the English-speaking world, grieves all themore thereat. The former is found enthusiastically activein the Socialist Labor Parties of these countries; thelatter entertain for these parties envious, vindictivemalice. Whatever energy he displays is to keep theSocialist Movement back, lest—oh, horror!—it outclassthe Movement in Germany. It is no idle digression topursue this aspect of the subject a little more in detail.

At Amsterdam Bebel told of a conversation he hadwith Marx and Engels in London. Having expressed to

DANIEL DE LEON


them his astonishment at the backwardness of theMovement in Great Britain, despite the country’sadvantages and their own unquestioned influence upontheir surroundings, he was answered: “Indeed, thingswould be different here, were not the British capitalistsso peskily shrewd: they deaden the Labor Movement bycorrupting its leaders!” Marx and Engels, as Bebelpointed out, placed their finger on the baneful influenceof the “co-operation of classes” in Great Britain. Thisnotwithstanding, Edward Bernstein—the revisionist—when he was in England, and M. Beer—the anti-revisionist poser—who is still in England, have been andever are seen in full sympathy with every move in GreatBritain that has the “co-operation of classes” as its silentor avowed guiding principle. The fact of “Labor”members of Parliament being elected on Tory andLiberal tickets won their admiration; and the morerecent, more extensive and more brazen application ofthe “co-operation of classes,” as manifested by the “LaborRepresentation Committee” movement, has receivedtheir unstinted applause. Nor did and do thesegentlemen omit to emphasize their posture by co-ordinate conduct. While praiseful in theircorrespondence to the German Social Democratic pressof all manifestations of the “co-operation of classes” inGreat Britain, they had and have disapproval only for allopposite manifestations. These they either slur, or seekto smother with silence. Whatever luminous interval theotherwise muddle-headed British Social DemocraticFederation has experienced they decried; and that mostsignificant event of modern days in the history of theBritish Movement, the birth and rise of the BritishSocialist Labor Party, in final revolt and declared war



against the infamy of the but too long continued “co-operation of classes” in Great Britain, is as if it werenot—for all that the contributions of the Bernsteins andBeers from London to the German Social Democraticpress contain on the subject.

If anything, still more pronounced is the phenomenonin Australia. In that island-continent is a “Labor Party”corner-stoned on the “Brotherhood of Capital andLabor,” in other words, guided by the principle of the “co-operation of classes.” The party elects several of itscandidates to the Australian Parliament. Recently thebourgeois ministry fell, due to a conflict between the freetrade and the protection wings of capital. The country’sExecutive and direct representative of the British Crownthereupon picked out a member of the Labor Partycontingent in the parliament, bestowed upon him thepremiership, and invited him to form a new ministry.The gift was accepted; the request was granted; and a“Labor Ministry,” composed of laborites and bourgeois,was empaneled—by the grace of a bourgeois overlord.The performance was an exhibition of the “co-operationof classes” upon a stage more conspicuous and a scalemore vast than any hitherto tried. Connected with theAustralian Labor Party is a loosely shaped body thatrejoices in the name of “Social Democratic Federation,”and which, of course, draws to itself the class ofexpatriated Germans under consideration. Throughthese the press of the German Social Democracy—fromthe Berlin Vorwaerts and Neue Zeit down—forthwithbegan to teem with exuberant articles on the Australianoccurrence. One of these articles even flourished thejubilant headline, “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.”While thus rejoicing, the articles either wholly ignored

DANIEL DE LEON


the existence in Australia of a sound, uncompromising,militant Socialist Labor Party which was polling its full25,000 votes, or made only casual allusions to it,suppressing its electoral strength, even mutilating itsname. Thus the spectacle was presented of Bebelstorming at Dresden and carrying the convention withimpassioned assaults upon the THEORY of the “co-operation of classes,” while simultaneously the GermanSocial Democratic press was misled by its Germanagents abroad into singing pæans for the PRACTICE ofthe “co-operation of classes”! Thus the bizarre spectaclewas seen of denunciations for one Millerand in France tothe orchestration of praises for a whole batch ofMillerands in Australia!

Finally, in America, the same phenomenon manifestsitself in downright repulsive form. The noisy victories ofJapan on the battlefields of Manchuria have so takenthe world by surprise that we are all apt to forget thatmuch of that which we wonder at in Japan Americapresents upon a manifold larger scale. America’sdevelopment within the short span of its barely 130years of independent life is unmatched. Coupled,moreover, with the circumstance of the veritablyboundless area over which the development crept andleaped, the social growth of America presents aspectsthat could be presented under no other circumstances,hence are nowhere else to be seen. Important as theseaspects are to a general study of sociology, to the properunderstanding of the country, and to the subject in hand,I shall not here take them up. They were set forth in theSocialist Labor Party’s report to the Amsterdam



Congress.10 Suffice it here to point to a certainsummary. While in small, thickly settled and old France,Jauresism is a Utopian vision of the future, in young,broad-acred and hardly explored America Jauresism is arecollection of the past—a past that, in point of distanceof development, lies far in the rear, but that, in point oftime, lies close behind, with a tradition still warm withthe glow of inspiration, and that the country’s youth stillsteadily revives. The theory of the “co-operation ofclasses” is, in America, a fatal delusion that the course ofAmerican development most naturally raises before thepopular mind. It is the Marxist’s duty as firmly to set hisface against and expose it. The unintelligent anddishonorable German Socialist in America promotes theillusion here as his compeers do in Great Britain andAustralia. Moreover, here, more so than elsewhere hisdeportment is marked with unconcealed dislike, evenhatred for the land and its people, arrogantly demandingacquiescence with his views as the proconsul in Americaof an imaginary Socialist hierarchy in Germany. AdolfHepner, the fellow-prisoner of Liebknecht, said to me inhis editorial room of the St. Louis Tageblatt on theafternoon {of} Monday, the 27th of April, 1891: “Thedifficulty I notice here in America is that the Germanswho are loudest in their claims of Socialist knowledgeare the ones most ignorant on the subject. The Germanworkingman who has come over with some knowledge ofthe subject goes about unassumingly. But a set ofGermans, who, if they were to find themselves inGermany, would not dare to make even their existenceknown in the councils of the party, are here the most

10 See Addendum J.

DANIEL DE LEON


loud-mouthed and pretentious. They know even less ofthe country than they know of Socialism. They do notunderstand what they see or hear. They get everythingmixed up. Vain-gloriously seeking to exhibit themselvesin the plumage of Socialism, they encourage by joiningpositive absurdities (Albernheiten). Thus we have seenthem join hands with the Greenbackers. They hurt theprospects of Socialism here, they throw disrepute uponthe German Movement, and they mislead public opinionin Germany. As anxious as they are to cut a figure here,they are still more anxious to be thought at home to becutting a figure in America. Of course they are corrupt.A despicable crew (Elendiges Gesindel).” In saying this,Hepner was speaking of his experience in New Yorkmainly, and was illustrating his points with the NewYorker Volkszeitung Corporation in general, its HermanSchlueters and Alexander Jonases in particular—theidentical head-center that presumptuously declares: “WeGermans speak from above down” (Wir Deutschensprechen von oben herab); that is seen to-day secondingthe “co-operation of classes,” as manifested by AmericanJauresism, yclept “American Federation of Labor,” or“Socialist,” “Social Democratic,” “Public Ownership”party; that but recently, as in the instance of thebrewery workers, and as so often before, in otherinstances was convicted of “co-operating with theclasses” to the point of selling out the workers foradvertisements; and, finally, that, like its confreres inEngland and Australia, furnishes its own country withfalse information only. They all imagine they areupholding their country’s policy: in fact they butcaricature the same. When the sentiments and thoughtsof superior men fall into the hands of little folks a mess



is the inevitable result.

CONVERGENCE OF MOVING SPRINGS.

The social, political and psychological moving springsof the Social Democracy in Germany that lead to suchriot-running excesses abroad are, however{,} well underthe control of superior men at home, not wholly withouttheir regrettable manifestations even there. Forinstance:

I was at the International Congress of Zurich, held in1893. France was represented only by the wildcatAllemanists, with Alleman himself as the leading figure.I met in Zurich not one of the leading men in theSocialist Movement of France. None attended. They didnot because they could not. And they could not becausetheir own national electoral campaign coincided with thedate of the Congress, and, as was known in Zurich, theGerman contingent had declined to postpone or advancethe date of the Congress in accommodation of theFrench. Nevertheless, when eleven years later the dateof the International Congress to be held at Amsterdamin 1903 collided with the national electoral campaign ofGermany, the date of that year’s Congress was, uponmotion of Singer, unceremoniously postponed a fulltwelve months.

Again, and of still deeper meaning: Within four daysof the opening of the Amsterdam Congress; at the veryseason when the Socialist Party of France was holdingits own national convention at Lille; when the party wasfurnishing Europe proof positive of the solidity andgrowth of its organization;—at that season the BerlinVorwaerts published a correspondence from France

DANIEL DE LEON


belittling the body, while claiming to befriend it. Thecorrespondence laid emphasis upon the “influentialpress” of the Jauresists, suppressing the fact that thatpress’s “influence” was wholly due to the support itreceived from the Combes ministry; the correspondenceexaggerated the power of attraction exercised by theJauresists upon the liberal-inclined workmen; thecorrespondence summed up in dark colors the prospectsof the Socialist Labor Party of France. Nor has this spiritof latent animosity ceased since the AmsterdamCongress. Since then I notice that Guesde has feltconstrained to correct in the Berlin Vorwaerts morerecent false statements that have since then appeared inthe Vorwaerts against him and the Socialist Party ofFrance, and that proceeded from the paper’scorrespondent in Paris.

It goes without saying that the attitude of the GermanSocial Democracy finds ready imitators on the continentin the quarters that Germany typifies. So ready was theimitation in the instance of the pre-Amsterdam Congresscorrespondence from Paris to the Berlin Vorwaerts, thattwo days before the opening of the Congress—on Friday,August 12—, while the city was filling up with thedelegates from all parts of the world, Het Volk, theSocialist daily of Amsterdam, quoted the Vorwaertscorrespondence, and, catching its spirit, improved uponit with lengthy comments to the effect that “sad is theplight of the Socialist Party of France”; that “the Frenchworkingmen in overwhelming majority are lining upwith Jaures”; that “the mass of the Socialist workers aresiding, not with Guesde, but with Jaures”; that “theGuesde party is losing ground”; etc.; etc.;—all the exactreverse of the facts. The article of Het Volk—a paper



published in the very city where the InternationalCongress was within two days of being held, a paperissued by the very organization that had charge of theCongress—was in the nature of an opening address. Itwas an official manifesto.

FRENCH SOCIALISTS’ TACTICS.

The wound inflicted upon the vanguard of theInternational Socialist Movement at the Paris Congressof 1900 was deep. It was felt even in the United States.Here, however, thanks to the country’s advantage oflocation, the evil effect of the Kautsky Resolution couldand was readily resisted and overcome by the SocialistLabor Party. Otherwise in France. Her continentallocation and compulsorily intimate interrelation withnations politically less advanced than herself,unavoidably render her deeply sensitive to their conduct.The problem presented to the revolutionary Socialists ofFrance at the close of the Paris Congress of 1900 was ofprime magnitude, and thorny was the path before them.The mere overthrow at home of Jauresism would havebeen a Pyrrhic victory. Such is the lay of the land inEurope that the rest of the continental nations are main-body to the army of which France is the head of thecolumn. As such, no more than the head of a column onthe military field of battle, could France afford—eitherfor her own safety or for the safety of the main body—tomarch too far ahead, perchance disconnected from therest of the European Socialist army. Accordingly, twothings were simultaneously essential to success—theoverthrow of Jauresism at home, and also the disgustingof the rest of the European continent, Germany

DANIEL DE LEON


especially, with their ugly pet: the shaming them intowithdrawing their support from the abortion. Indeed,the two things resolved themselves into one, the formerbeing predicated upon the latter. The revolutionaryFrench Socialists now reorganized in the Socialist Partyof France, rose at the crisis equal to the occasion, andthey pursued their policy with a tactfulness andstrategy, that, even had it proved unsuccessful, wouldhave deserved admiration and emulation. Crowned as itwas with final success at Amsterdam, it constitutes abrilliant page in the annals of triumphant Socialistgenius.

The same instinct that moved, and thought thatguided, the Socialist Labor Party of America in itstactics against the variously named Jauresisticeruption{s} in this country, presided over the councils ofthe Socialist Party of France in the campaign that itconducted against essentially the self-same article athome. There are evils, like diseases, that may not bechecked: they must be allowed to run their course. Tocheck them is to scotch, not kill the snake. They mustrather be poulticed into ripening to a head. It is thetactics known in the field of mathematics or of logic bythe name of the “reductio ad absurdum”—thedemonstration of error by pointing to the absurdconclusion that it leads to. On the field of society theerror, or absurdity, must be helped along; lashed, ifpossible, to the point of its own unveiling. When in thiscountry the counterpart of the French JauresistMovement—here assuming the various and successivenames of “Social Democracy Colonization,” or “Socialist,”“Public Ownership,” “Social Democratic” party—put inits appearance, the Socialist Labor Party’s steadily



pursued and triumphant tactics were to lash the errorinto its own logically absurd results. Thus, one year, itwas lashed to exhibit whither one aspect of itspolicy—currying favor for Socialism by acting as candle-holder for the “labor lieutenants” of the CapitalistClass—logically led to, by driving it to vote for aGompers at New Orleans, and the next year forcing it toexhibit the futility of the same policy by driving it to setup its own candidate against Gompers at Boston, andthereby itself uncover, through its trifling poll, thehollowness of the “Socialist” support striven for by suchmethods. Thus, at other times, it was lashed to exhibitwhither another aspect of its policy—fusing oneconomics with the middle class—inevitably led to, bydriving it to fuse with middle class and other capitalistcandidates on politics also. Thus, again, it was lashed toexhibit still another aspect of its policy—fraternizationwith Gompers unionism—by driving it to approve of theguild methods of such organizations, and forthwithdriving it to turn a somersault back, and seek to washits hands of the smut that stuck to them, the momentthe practical results were held up of the base betrayal ofthe dearest principle of Labor, SOLIDARITY, that guildpractices rend in shreds. Another time it was lashed toexhibit what that other aspect of its policy—laxity oforganization—comes to, by driving it, on the one hand,to exhibit the sight of a discordant mob, holding differentviews in different latitudes and longitudes, and on theother, to submit abjectly to the yoke of a privately owned“party press.” And so forth, and so on. Thus the SocialistLabor Party in America against Jauresism here. Theidentical tactics—pursued, however, upon the vastlymore difficult, because more slippery, field of

DANIEL DE LEON


parliamentarism, and having, moreover, a vastly wideraim, being intended to mature the necessary fruitbeyond the borders of France herself, in theunsympathetic sister states of the Continent—did theSocialist Party of France take up against Jauresism athome.

Jaures, more than once at Amsterdam, twitted theSocialist Party of France with being in a state of“cataleptic rigidity.” The reproach must have had a badtaste on Jaures’ own lips. Jaures is took keen a man tohave failed to realize—at least from the tone of his secretsympathizers and now unwilling opponents from otherparts of Europe—that it was to that very “catalepticrigidity” of his adversaries at home that he owed hisimpending downfall at the International Congress. WhatJaures termed the “cataleptic rigidity” of the SocialistParty of France was a posture of such uncompromisingsoundness that it had upon him all the effect of a goad.Levity never becomes more frivolous than whenconfronted with gravity. Utopianism, being unbalanced,is mercurial. Its own inherent law of being drives it toact obedient to the maxim that the wise Ulysses set upfor the empty-pated Achilles—“things that move dosooner catch the eye than what not moves.” Of itselfcondemned to eye-catching pyrotechnics, the “catalepticrigidity” of the soundly poised Socialist Party of Francedrove Jauresism down the inclined plane at the bottomof which it was to dash itself: pricked it from cover,where it might be misunderstood, into the open, where itwould stand exposed. From being at first only silentlypassive at the idea of a Millerand, a reputed Socialist, inclose ministerial intercourse with a Gallifet, the butcherof the Commune; from subsequently seeking to ignore



the responsibility of Millerand for the ministerial acts ofthe slaughter of the Chalon and the Martiniqueworkingmen on strike;—from such seemingly slightbeginnings, Jauresism presently rushed headlong downits course. It extenuated Millerand’s actions;boisterously upheld them; earned the praises, even adecoration, from the Muscovite Autocrat, thatmonstrosity of our days that combines the recklessblood-thirstiness of the barbarian with the vices andhypocritical pretences of civilization. It went further. Itaccepted for Jaures himself, at the hands of bourgeoisdeputies, a vice-presidency in the Chambers. It went stillfurther. It merged into a bourgeois ministerial “bloc”;turned its press into semi-official mouthpieces of asubsequent wholly bourgeois ministry; and, finally, itcapped the climax by voting the ministerial budget, theappropriations for the Army and Navy included!—“Thedevil of a fellow” had, decidedly, “carried the thing toofar”; yet not an inch further than his premises fatedlyled to, or that the safety of the Socialist Movementneeded. The “cataleptic rigidity” of the Socialist Party ofFrance had goaded Jauresism to exhibiting in thenoontide glare the logical consequences of the “co-operation of classes” in countries wholly freed fromfeudal trammels, countries where the only classes extantare the capitalist plunderer and the plunderedworkingman.

The Socialist Party of France had accomplished theprincipal point in its program. It had driven Jaures towhere his supporters outside of France could not choosebut be ashamed of his political company. At Amsterdam,as narrated in the flashlight “Jules Guesde,” Guesdedeclared his party disclaimed any purpose of “seeking

DANIEL DE LEON


international aid for itself in the internal strifes of themovement at home.” The declaration must not be lookedinto too closely. It is hard accurately to determine thepoint where the “seeking of international aid in internalstrifes at home” ends, and the laming of outside supportto a home foe begins. The Socialist Party of Francelamed the support that Jaures had so far openly enjoyedfrom beyond the French frontier. How effectively thelaming was done transpired at the Dresden nationalconvention of the German Social Democracy, held in1903. What now remained to do was to clinch theadvantage. That was done at the French nationalconvention of Reims. At the Paris InternationalCongress of three years before, the revolutionary FrenchSocialists voted emphatically against the KautskyResolution. At Reims they stooped to conquer. Itmattered not that the resolution adopted at theimmediately preceding Dresden convention. embodiedthe Kautsky Resolution, let it in by a back door. Theimportant fact, the one fact that the Socialist Party ofFrance kept its eyes fixed upon was the language, thetone of the language to the tune of which the DresdenResolution was adopted. That tone denied the KautskyResolution—the international, official prop of Jauresism.The Reims convention adopted the Dresden Resolution11

with only such verbial changes as were obviouslynecessary, and forthwith forwarded it to theInternational Bureau at Brussels as the motion oninternational tactics that the Socialist Party of Francewould offer at the next year’s Amsterdam Congress. Themove was like the tying of a knot to a string of beads.

11 See Addendum B.



There was no chance allowed for backsliding. Thesupport of Germany could not slip; and, with Germany,the continental states that follow in her train wereconsidered secured. After that there remained nothing todo but to glean at Amsterdam the fruit of the intellectualalertness that could plan, pursue and execute suchbrilliant tactics, such masterly strategy.

AT AMSTERDAM.

The posture, mental—I would almost say physical,also—of the peasant woman in the story that I openedthis flash-light with, was the posture at Amsterdam ofall the continental nations whose social and politicalbackwardness renders Jauresism palatable. Thedistressed peasant woman of the story can well beimagined in a paroxysm of rage towards the fellow whohad so severely handled her, and yet be full of love andaffection, aye, even veneration for him. Such conflictingsentiments necessarily react on each other. On the onehand, her love, affection and veneration could not choosebut dull the edge of her resentment. On the other hand,in equal measure with her love, affection and veneration,her rage would be sharpened at the abuse of a rightbefore which she bowed in reverence. Such was thepsychology at Amsterdam. It explains hownone—excepting, of course, the representatives of theSocialist Party of France—dared condemn him asunqualifiedly as he deserved. It explains how all—RosaLuxemburg and Plechanoff joined to the Europeanexception—had some good word for him, some evenbouquets to mitigate the smart of their tongue-lashings.It explains the weakness of Bebel’s speech. Finally, it

DANIEL DE LEON


explains the adoption of the Dresden-AmsterdamResolution, and the essence of the resolution itself.

The resolution adopted at Amsterdam, and which Ihave all along designated as the Dresden-AmsterdamResolution, was the resolution submitted to theCongress by the Socialist Party of France, with but onealteration. It substitutes the word “repudiate” for“condemn”—the Congress “repudiates,” it does not“condemn,” whatever the difference may mean. Thegenesis of the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolutionsufficiently explains its essence and purpose. These werefurther accentuated by the speeches made in its support.Finally, the vote of the Congress completes the picture.

At the Paris Congress of 1900, it was not merely thesubstance of the Kautsky Resolution that characterizedthe thing. It was the speeches made in its support thatpreened its feathers. Similarly at Amsterdam. In and ofitself, the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution could havebeen voted for by Jaures himself. He did not: he foughtit. He spoke passionately against it; he satirized itssupporters; he ridiculed its contents. What he reallyfought, opposed, satirized, and ridiculed was therhetorical orchestration against himself, and which gavethe resolution point. That, jointly with the genesis of theresolution, was what forced Jaures’ hand, and therebyearned for the otherwise faulty resolution the supportthat it received from the Socialist Labor Party ofAmerica, as the least bad and only feasible forward stepunder the circumstances.

The Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution preserves theearmarks of the defective attitude of these InternationalCongresses. The Kautsky Resolution was a bed ofProcrustes: it met the fate of all such Procrustean



attempts: each one interpreted it to suit himself, to theextent that it earned the witty nickname of theCaoutchouc (india rubber) Resolution. The Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution pulls, or affects to pull, some ofthe claws of the Kautsky Resolution, but it essentiallypreserves the Procrustean defects of its original, defectsthat, as the Kautsky Resolution experienced, willinevitably lead to sophistical arguments intended toescape the effect of its defective construction. That thisforecast is not likely to be imaginary may be judged bythe vote of the Congress—the large number ofabstentions.

The success of the tactics and strategy of the SocialistParty of France had a narrow escape. The calculationthat the continental states, which habitually follow inthe train of Germany, would be secured by securingGermany, did not prove wholly correct. Victory wassnatched by the skin of the teeth. In the first place—aswas pointed out in the flash-light “Victor Adler”—theAdler-Vandervelde proposed resolution intended toafford the Jaures sympathizers a half-way roost orasylum, was defeated only by a tie vote.12 In the secondplace, when the final vote was taken on the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution, six nationalities abstained fromvoting. With the exception of Argentina, who consideredher own Movement too small to take sides in such anissue, all the other abstainers felt too strongly the

12 The vote by nationalities stood:Aye:—Australia, 2; Argentina, 2; Austria, 2; Belgium, 2; Denmark, 2;

England, 2; France (Jaures), 1; Holland, 2; Norway, 1; Poland, 1;Sweden, 2; Switzerland, 2. Total 21.

Nay:—America, 2; Bohemia, 2; Bulgaria, 2; France (Guesde), 1;Germany, 2; Hungary, 2; Italy, 2; Japan, 2; Norway, 1; Poland, 1;Russia, 2; Spain, 2. Total, 21.

DANIEL DE LEON


Jauresistic requirements of their own country fully tofollow the lead of their otherwise leader, Germany. Theycould not go so far as to vote for the resolution; theydared not vote against it, and thus rank themselves onthe side of Jaures; they halted half way.13 They all willfind arguments in the defective construction of theresolution that was adopted to follow the even tenor oftheir way, as dictated by their home conditions.

The Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution put the quietuson Jauresism in France. For that much it deservespraise. For the rest the resolution has all theweaknesses inherent in legislation that, special in itspurpose, affects to be general in scope.

13 The vote by nationalities stood:Aye:—America, 2; Austria, 2; Bulgaria, 2; England, 1; Germany, 2;

Holland, 2; Hungary, 2; Italy, 2; Japan, 2; Norway, 1; Poland, 2; Spain,2; Switzerland, 1; Russia, 2. Total, 25.

Nay:—Australia, 2; England, 1; France (Jaures), 1; Norway, 1. Total,5.

The abstensions were:—Argentina, 2; Belgium, 2; Denmark, 2;Holland, 2; Switzerland, 2; Sweden, 2. Total, 6 nationalities, 12 votes.


IX.

THE GENERAL STRIKE.

The adoption of the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolutionwas the one act of importance done by the AmsterdamCongress. All the others of the many subjects on theorder of business were, as Bebel pronounced them,trifles (Nebensachen). Nevertheless, one of these triflesdeserves special treatment. It is the “General Strike.”

The strike is that question that, as much as any andmore than so many others of the many sub-questionsraised by the Labor Movement, incites dangerous lures.It is a topic so beset with lures that, on the one hand, itoffers special opportunities to the demagogue and the“agent provocateur,” while, on the other, it frequentlythreatens to throw the bona fide labor militant intodangerous proximity of thought with the out-and-outcapitalist. Nothing short of calmest judgment canpreserve the requisite balance of mind in the premises.

Whether great revolutions are considered in dayswhen the battle field was the only court, the court of firstand last resort, or whether they are considered since thedays when the court of first resort has become thehustings,—at whatever period of social developmentgreat revolutions are considered, physical force hasremained, down to the latest instance of recordedhistory, the final court where final judgment was finallypronounced. This circumstance has wrought a certainoptical illusion in the popular mind; and the illusion inturn, has reacted back and engendered at the oppositeextreme what may be termed a peculiar mental malady.The optical illusion consists in presenting physical

DANIEL DE LEON


force—so prominent, because so noisy, a factor in thesettlement of great issues—as a creative power; theopposite, the mental malady, consists in what Marx hasdesignated in “The Eighteenth Brumaire of LouisBonaparte” as “Parliamentary Idiocy,” meaning thatabject fetich, reverence for “Law,” a malady that “fetterswhomsoever it infects to an imaginary world, and robsthem of all sense, all remembrance, all understanding ofthe rude outside world.” Neither physical force nor theballot is a creative power. They are methods, successivemethods, at that, of the real creative power. The fourlatest and leading events in modern and capitalisthistory are instances in point.

When capitalist interests had engendered in GreatBritain a capitalist class, and this class felt hampered bythe existing feudal institutions of the land, an inevitablesocial revolution designed itself upon the canvas ofBritish history. The previous revolutions of the land hadresorted forthwith to physical force. Not this. The timeshad changed. The first field of encounter now was thehustings. There the preliminary battles were fought, andthere the Revolution won. With the election of theHampdens and the Pyms to the Parliament that beardedCharles I., Capitalism triumphed. That is true. But truealso it is that the triumph was not final. The originalcourt of first and last resort now became the court ofultimate appeal. Thither, to the court of physical force,the party aggrieved below took its case. Strokesthereupon arbitrated the issue. Physical force confirmedthe verdict.

It was likewise with the subsequent Revolution inAmerica. The issue at stake was to sunder or to confirmthe feudal trammels to capitalist development. That



issue was first taken to the hustings. Tory and Patriotcandidates were the pleaders. The Revolution won. Withthe election of the Continental Congress Capitalismtriumphed; but, again, only in the court of first resort.Again the aggrieved party “appealed.” The court of lastresort entered final judgment at Yorktown. Not untilthen was the case settled.

It was likewise in France in the instance of what isknown as the French Revolution, but which again wasthe revolution of Capitalism against Feudalism. Theissue was fought out at the hustings. When the StatesGeneral were returned elected with a bourgeois ThirdEstate triumphant over the noble and clerical candidateswho contested the bourgeois seats, the Revolutionobtained judgment in the lower court. French feudality“appealed,” and the court of last resort confirmed thejudgment of the court below.

Finally in our own conflict over slavery, that navel-string of feudalism that still remained to be cut, the casewas first conducted at the hustings. The election ofLincoln was the title of the verdict in the lower court;Appomattox was the title of the verdict with which thecourt of last resort finally settled the issue.

In all of these instances the ballot performed anessential, though not a complete mission; in all of themphysical force filled an important, though not an all-sufficient role. Neither the “ballot” nor “physical force”was found to be enough. They were found to besupplemental to each other, but supplemental asmethods only. The creative power lay in neither. It wasfound to lie back of both—in the pre-requisite work ofAgitation, Education and Organization, the threeelements, which combined, imply clarification as to

DANIEL DE LEON


purpose, unity as to policy.The strike spells “physical force.” As such it is neither

a creative power, nor yet, at the modern stage ofcivilization, the all-sufficient method that physical forceonce was. It is not even a first, at best it can only be acrowning method. The test applicable to the Strike—as apartial manifestation—is pre-eminently applicable to theStrike—as a general manifestation. The partial strikemay be a skirmish, and skirmishes may be lost withoutthe loss being fatal; the general strike—aimed atwithout regard to the principles established by modernexperience as applicable to modern exigencies—is ageneral rout, and that is fatal. The advocates of the“General Strike” incur a double error; they keep in mindonly the second court, wholly oblivious of the first;furthermore, they overlook the important fact that, notthe Revolution, but the Reaction ever is the appellant inthe second court, the initiator de facto of physical force.So long as a Revolution is not ripe enough to triumph inthe court of first resort, it is barred from the second. Theposture of the advocates of the “General Strike” isobviously archaic. On the other hand, succumbing towhat Marx termed “Parliamentary Idiocy,” there arethose who totally reject the General Strike, their mentalhorizon is bounded by the ballot; as a rule they arepeople who see in the Trades Union only a temporarymakeshift; they do not recognize in it the “reserve army”form of the Revolution that, ten to one, as taught us bymodern history, will have to march upon the field of lastresort, summoned thither by the Usurper, defeated inthe court below.

The question of the General Strike was discussed onlyby and before what in the previous flash-light of this



serial, “August Bebel,” I termed the “rump Congress.”The bulk of the delegates were at the great committee onInternational Political Policy, or “doing the town.” Iheard only the fag end of the discussion, on Thursdayafternoon, after the Committee on International PoliticalPolicyhad concluded its labors. The S.L.P. gave its voteagainst the Allemanist proposition,14 which was cast inthe mold designated above as “archaic,” and voted withthe majority for the Holland proposition,15 which,although not as precise, in some respects, as theproposition presented by the Socialist Party of France,16

was free from Allemanism and gathered the support ofthe bulk of the Congress. For the reasons stated abovethe discussion on the General Strike was spiritless atthe Congress. Nevertheless, seeing that the principleswhich prevailed on the subject were those that foundstrongest expression at the national convention of theSocialist Party of France, held in Lille17 during the weekjust preceding the Amsterdam Congress, and that it wasmy privilege to assist at the Lille session from thebeginning to the end, snatches of the discussion thereare not out of place in this report—all the more seeingthat almost all the delegates at Lille were also delegatesat Amsterdam. The arguments of four of the speakerswill be of special interest in America.

Lafargue used an illustration taken from America toclinch his point. “Who is it,” he asked, “that has it in hispower to bring about a general cessation of work? Is it

14 See Addendum G.15 See Addendum E.16 See Addendum F.17 See Addendum O.

DANIEL DE LEON


the workingman or the capitalist? Look to Americawhere these questions turn up on gigantic scales. Wheneight years ago Bryan threatened to be electedPresident, what was the confident threat made to theWorking Class by the Trust magnates? It was this: ‘IfBryan is elected we shall shut down!’ Under presentcircumstances, it is the capitalist who has the power andmay also have an interest in bringing about a generalstrike. The workingman can only be the loser.”

Guesde made on the occasion two speeches. Thesecond supplemented the first. It was an analyticalreview of the development of the notion of the GeneralStrike. He traced its source to a resolution adopted by anold “radical” body in France. With much intellectualacumen he proved that the idea was born of and ever hasbeen accompanied with that false conception of theLabor Movement that denied its essentially politicalcharacter.

Osmin, a delegate from Aube, summed up the attitudeof the General Strike supporters, who seemed to bemainly Parisians, with a neat and satirical epigram.“Henry IV.,” said he, “wishing to captivate Paris, thegood will of the people of Paris, said: ‘Paris is well wortha mass,’ and he turned Catholic. It looks to me thatthere are people here, who, wishing to captivate the goodwill of some Parisian folks, hold that ‘Paris is well wortha General Strike resolution’!”

Finally, a delegate from Paris, Chauvin, and one-timeSocialist deputy in the Chambers, made a speech that,despite its being rendered in French, and despite thelocality, rendered it difficult for me to keep in mind thatI was in France, not in America; that the occasion was aconvention of French Socialists, not of the Socialist



Labor Party; and that the speaker was a member of theSocialist Party of France, not a member of my ownParty. Chauvin’s arguments were S.L.P. up to the hilt.Said he in substance: “The General Strike is an alluringnotion. No doubt the chimera sticks in the heads ofmany a workingman. Quite possible it is even popular inthe shops. What of it? Is that a reason for us to yield todelusion? Quite possible we may, if we did, ingratiateourselves with workingmen, who now look upon us withdisfavor, if not suspicion. But is ‘Ingratiation’ ourmission? Is our mission not rather ‘Education’? A policyof ‘Ingratiation’ looks to the immediate present at thesacrifice of the future. The policy of ‘Education’ looks tothe important future athwart the thorny present. Byechoing the errors of the masses of the working class wemay ingratiate ourselves with them TO-DAY. But whatof the MORROW, when bitter experience will havetaught them that we were no wiser than they? Aye,when they will learn that all the while we knew better,and yet acted contrary to our own better knowledge?They will then execrate us; and we would deserve theirexecration. Not the echoing of our fellow wage-slaves’errors is our task. Such a task is easy. Ours is the task ofuprooting their errors. The more strongly rooted, all themore imperative is our duty to set our faces against sucherrors. That renders our task arduous (penible), you willsay. Yes, arduous indeed, for the present; easy later on.The opposite policy, on the contrary, renders our taskeasy for the present—aye, so very easy!—but how aboutthe future? The crop of thorns that we would thus haveourselves raised would tear our flesh topieces!”—Obviously Socialist theory and practice are thefruit of conditions. Similar conditions produce similar

DANIEL DE LEON


fruit. The thoughts of the militant Socialist are onewherever he be.

Chauvin is a hair-dresser by occupation. He is a manof middle age, nervy, spare, of comely features, modestand serious. His gestures, when he speaks, areAmerican; they are well under control and emphatic. Nohowl against him intimidates the man: its only effect isto intensify the lines on his face. When his words arouseopposition, his favorite gesture is to stretch out his rightarm with the palm of his hand out; and he proceedsunperturbed. When the day of reckoning comes, theFrench capitalist class will have to reckon with Chauvin.


X.

CONGRESS MISCELLANIES.

My memoranda on the Amsterdam Congress proper,together with kindred matters in Europe, contain a largenumber of notes on subjects not yet touched upon. Thesesubjects—with the exception of the “InternationalBureau,” the “Situation in Belgium” and the “BritishS.L.P.,” which will be treated separately—are mostlyfugitive in their nature. Some, however, will materiallyaid in obtaining the proper “color” of the Congress. TheseI shall cursorily take up now.

* * *Such is the slovenliness with which all the official

reports of the Amsterdam Congress, that I have so farseen, are gotten up that the Socialist Labor Party’sdelegation is credited with only one delegate. Thedelegation consisted officially of four members, and wasso entered by me in the official blank furnished by theBureau. The S.L.P. delegation consisted of myself,elected by a general vote of the Party, and of threeothers to whom the National Convention empowered theNational Executive Committee to issue credentials. Theywere Moritz Poehland, Dyer Enger and Jules Ferrond.Of these only Poehland put in an appearance. He joinedme on the third day of the Congress. Enger wrote to mefrom Norway that he was detained away; while Ferrond,due to an odd series of unfortunate coincidences,remained in Belgium, disconnected from me, althoughready all the time to proceed to Amsterdam.

* * *What with the confining work on the Committee on

DANIEL DE LEON


International Political Policy, and my being alone on thefirst two days, the S.L.P. report to the Congress was notdistributed until the third day. In respect to “Reports,” Inoticed a marked difference between Amsterdam andZurich in 1893. At the latter Congress, the nationalitythat had no report was the exception; at Amsterdam, theexception seemed to be the nationalities that hadreports. As to the report of the S.L.P., the methodadopted at Zurich—printing the report in one volume,with the English, French and German versions inparallel columns—had proved clumsy and was discardedby our National Executive Committee. At this Congressthe method would have proved still clumsier, seeing theS.L.P. report was in four languages—English, German,French and Swedish. While the separate method is onthe whole better, it entailed in this instance the labor offolding—except the French translation which I caused tobe printed in France and was neatly bound in a redcover. On the third day of the Congress, Poehlandhaving arrived, we buckled down to the work. With theaid of the five comrades of the British S.L.P., the foldingand distributing was disposed of in short order. We couldhave disposed of twice the number—250 in eachlanguage, except the French, of which there were 500.They were all taken with interest, in many instancesseveral copies being demanded. In not a few instances,especially along the tables of the German and Austriandelegations, the S.L.P. report produced astonishment(Ueberraschung) as one of the delegates put it; the falsereports about America in their countries had caused himto believe that the S.L.P. had ceased to be (bestehtueberhaupt nicht), as he expressed it. They all learnedbetter. The reports of the Australian S.L.P., in my



charge, were also distributed, and let some light intodark corners.18

* * *The building in which the Congress met, the Concert

Gebow, was a vast improvement over Zurich. The hallwas spacious with broad galleries above; theappointments were excellent; the drapery andfoliage—with one exception that I shall presentlymention—was tasteful. For all that, the Congresspresented the aspect of a stock exchange.

* * *The stock exchange appearance of the Congress arose

from the Babel of languages. If, out of five personsgathered at a meeting, only two at any time understandthe language spoken by a speaker, the other three mustbe positively and wilfully rude before any confusion iscreated. At Amsterdam there were close to five hundreddelegates, without counting the thickly packed galleries.It is safe to say that at no time did more than twohundred understand the speaker of the moment. Eventhe involuntary rustling of three hundred enforced non-listeners will create a buzz. That three hundredmen—unable at any time to understand what was beingsaid from the platform where sat the three presidents,their aides and the translators—will not simply rustle isobvious. They engaged in conversation, walked about,paid mutual calls on old acquaintances, went in andwent out, and slammed the doors.

It was simply impossible to understand the dailyannouncements made from the platform. At the close of

18 See Addendum M.

DANIEL DE LEON


the Thursday session an announcement was maderegarding the procedure of the next day. Although thenotice was given in English, German and French, andthe translators had good, strong voices, I could not makeout the details from the distance of the table of theAmerican delegation. I walked forward and inquiredfrom three delegates, who sat nearer the platform acrossthe passage way on whose further side sat the Americandelegation. None of the three could give me information.I then continued to walk towards the platform andinquired from each delegate who gave me a chance. Ithen cared less for the information I had actually startedin search of. What I then aimed at was to test how nearto or far from the platform the announcements could bemade out. In that way I ran the gauntlet of a goodportion of the German and Austrian, of the Swiss, theItalian and the Belgian tables. I questioned twenty-threedelegates by actual count,—not one had been able tocatch enough of the announcement to know just whatwas said. It was not until I climbed up the platform andinquired from Vaillant himself that I found out what Iwanted. It was a stock exchange pandemonium.

* * *To the American eye there was one unfortunate

incident in the decorations that aided the stock exchangeillusion. The incident was in plain view of the Congress,even ostentatiously so. At the foot of the platform, butconsiderably above the floor, rose the speakers{’} tribune.It was draped in gorgeous red and its front bore theinitials I.S.C., standing, no doubt, for “InternationalSocialist Congress.” The three initials were, however,contrived into an unfortunate-looking monogram. The S.



was made to twine itself around the upright that stoodfor the I, and the combination of the two was placedwithin the C, giving the monogram the appearance ofthe $ mark, accentuated by the broad C. For all theworld, it looked like a loud “Dollar and Cents” sign,rendered all the louder by its color—yellow on a blood-red background.

Considering that this Congress, differently from allothers, charged 10 francs ($2) from every delegate, andhalf a guilder (20 cents) from the visitors per session, itlooked as if the proverbial thrift of the Hollander wasemblematically besides practically illustrated.

* * *As against this, the Amsterdam Congress compared

favorably with the one of Zurich in still anotheraspect—the appearance of the women delegates. AtZurich, the Cynthia Leonards of the olden days of the“Socialistic Labor Party,”—those Aspasias without eitherthe charm or æsthetic qualities of Aspasia, those GeorgeSands without either the character or talent of thatgreat woman—were conspicuous in point of sight and inpoint of sound. At Amsterdam, if they were at allaround, they escaped my notice. The Movement hascertainly cleansed itself.

* * *A curious incident occurred on the morning of the

opening of the Congress. I happened to be among theearliest delegates in the hall. The sign “America” readilyled me to our table. One of the two seats at the head ofthat table was taken. I took the other. As I sat down, theoccupant of the other and opposite seat, rose andcheerily reached out his hand to me saying: “Comrade

DANIEL DE LEON


De Leon, I think?” He was a young man of open,pleasant face, with Jovian locks and a generous, flowingred necktie. I told him that was my name and acceptedthe proffered hand. He shook it enthusiastically andproceeded to explain:

“My name is Klein. I am a delegate of the Socialistparty. I’m from Indianapolis. I’m here also as thereporter of the Appeal to Reason. Whenever I meet aSocialist I feel that I meet a brother.”

The gladsome greeting turned aside whatever rapier Imight otherwise have raised against a political foe.Nevertheless his mentioning of the Appeal to Reasondrew from me the answer:

“As you are a reporter of the Appeal to Reason I wouldsuggest to you, that next time you see Wayland, you askhim for me whether it is not about time for him toreproduce that tombstone of mine under which heclaimed to have buried me five years ago. People mayforget that I’m dead, they may think he romanced.”

Klein smiled jovially and observed: “Socialists shouldnot fight.”

I thought so too. And that being neither the place northe time for a controversy on American affairs, Iswitched off the conversation on general matters. After aminute or so, leaving my satchel and traveling cap assymbolic possession of my seat, I walked over to thenearby table of the British delegation, where I noticedthat the British S.L.P. delegates had just taken theirseats. While there, talking with them, I presently heardmy name uttered behind me in what seemed to be ashort but animated little spat. Turning around I sawthat several other members of the “Socialist” or “SocialDemocratic” delegation had arrived; they seemed



disinclined to respect the symbols of possession I had leftbehind at the desirable seat. But Klein insisted that thatwas “Comrade De Leon’s” seat, and they desisted. Kleinhad shown himself loyal, though an adversary.

I shall presently have another occasion to do justice tothe young man’s character.

* * *The Swedish reports of the S.L.P. caused me to fall in

with Hjalmar Branting, the editor of the StockholmSocial Demokraten and member of the Swedish Riksdagor Parliament. Branting is the acknowledged leader ofthe Movement in Sweden. Theoretically I knew as much;Funke, now in Sweden and until recently editor of theS.L.P. Swedish paper, Arbetaren, had furnished me withdetails—Branting is a Jauresist, and has all theJauresist antipathy for such S.L.P. views as theArbetaren expresses. His paper and Arbetaren hadshivered many a lance against each other’s armor.

I told him that Funke had translated for me severalletters from France that appeared in the SocialDemokraten, and whose descriptions of Guesde remindedme of the pictures that Goethe said Roman Catholicprelates circulated of Spinoza. In those pictures thegentle Spinoza was represented with the face of a fiend.I remembered and repeated to him one of thosedescriptions in particular, where Guesde’s hair, eyes,nose and beard were described with special venom, andthe man himself as a cross between a Jumping-Jack anda Mephisto.

Branting is considerably more than a six-footer, withthe rotundity of girth and facial features indicative ofprofound phlegma. I had ample time to watch his

DANIEL DE LEON


thoughts formulate an answer. His looks indicated thathe felt I was accurately posted. He did not venture todeny the statement. Finally he remarked, smiling good-naturedly: “Funke may have somewhat exaggerated inthe translation,” and, breaking off suddenly, heproceeded along another tack. “Do you know,” he said, “Ihave a son, a stepson, in America; and he writes to methat things are there entirely different from what theyare in Sweden. He is an enthusiastic S.L.P. man.” I toldhim I knew the young man, and certainly agreed withhim that the situation in America would not justifyJauresism. That conversation closed with his expressinga strong desire to be able to follow events in Americamore closely than his time allowed.

* * *Illustrative of how true is the statement made to me

by one of the European delegates that “America is aterra incognita to us,” the following incident may becited:

The editor of an Austrian paper, a man bearing theear-marks of study and who even spoke enough Englishto be understood, came to me as I sat in my seat andasked:

“John Mitchell, the President of the Miners’ Union, heis in Europe; I would like to see him. He surely is in theAmerican delegation?”

This Socialist editor had just information enoughabout America to mislead him. The absurd, evencriminally negligent and false reports furnished to theEuropean Socialist papers by their correspondents fromAmerica had nursed in his mind such a picture of that“labor lieutenant” of Mark Hanna’s that the picture



naturally made him expect to see Mitchell in thedelegation from America at the Congress, all the moreseeing that Mitchell was known to be at the time inEurope in attendance on a miners’ convention, and allthe more seeing that other editors of European Socialistpapers, De Werker, of Antwerp among the lot, spoke ofhim as “Comrade Mitchell” (Genosse Mitchell)! TheAustrian Socialist editor in question did not even knowthat Mitchell had so speedily rendered himselfimpossible, that even the “Socialist,” or “SocialDemocratic,” party, which at first boomed him as a“great champion of Labor,” found him too much of a loadto carry and had been forced to drop him. Of course, theinnocent Austrian Socialist editor in question did notknow that there was at all (ueberhaupt) a SocialistLabor Party in existence, least of all that that party hadfrom the start exposed Mitchell for what he is, nevermisleading any workingman into leaning his confidenceupon that broken reed.

When the Austrian Socialist editor referred to askedme the question whether John Mitchell was in mydelegation, meaning, of course, the supposedly oneAmerican delegation, I answered emphatically:

“No, Sir; not in my delegation”; and gravely wavingmy hand towards Klein, who sat opposite me, added:“Not in my delegation; but he may be in the delegation ofthat gentleman.”

Klein threw up his hands and hastened to put in: “Notin mine, either!”

“It is about time, high time you dropped him,” Iretorted.

The Austrian Socialist editor in question lookedperplexed. To this hour he may not have recovered from

DANIEL DE LEON


his astonishment (Ueberraschung).

* * *Another Scandinavian delegate whom I had the

pleasure of meeting was Olav Kringen, the delegate fromNorway, who attended the convention with his wife.Oddly enough, one should say, Kringen, as well as theNorwegian delegate to Zurich, eleven years ago, hadbeen in America, Minnesota. At Amsterdam, outside ofthe representatives from America and Great Britain onthe Committee on International Political Policy, Kringenwas one of the two who addressed the Committee inEnglish. The other was Katayama, of Japan.

* * *Among the droll incidents at the Congress, one that

was not merely droll but suggestive withal, was anincident to which my fellow delegate Poehland nudgedmy attention.

It was late on the Thursday afternoon session of theCongress. The Committee on International PoliticalPolicy had closed its labors. The report to the Congresswas to be submitted on the following morning. Thereport was to recommend the adoption of the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution as presented by the SocialistParty of France. With Poehland opposite me,temporarily occupying the seat of Klein, I was in my seatbusy writing my preliminary report in time for theAmerican mail. Presently I felt the paper, on which Iwas writing, gently pushed. Looking up I saw Poehlandwith a grin from ear to ear, nodding to me to look downour table. The spectacle to which he called my attentionfully deserved his grin.

A yard or so below from where we two were sitting at



the head of the American table, stood Herman Schlüter,of the New Yorker Volkszeitung Corporation{,} and Mrs.Corinne S. Brown, of Chicago—both of them members ofthe delegation of the “Socialist,” or “Social Democratic”party. They stood on opposite sides of the table, andwere engaged in a heated altercation. The lady lookedcomposed, benign, firm and dignified; Schlüter lookedred, heated, embarrassed and sheepish. What was it allabout?

The resolution, as adopted by the Committee onInternational Political Policy, was, as I have statedbefore, the resolution presented by the Socialist Party ofFrance, and this resolution followed closely that adoptedat the Dresden national convention of the German SocialDemocracy. The Dresden Resolution “condemned”Jauresism. The resolution presented by the SocialistParty of France retained the word “condemn.” Thesupporters of the Adler-Vandervelde Resolution, havingfailed in the Committee, were now going about agitatingin its behalf for the tussle the next day; and the pointupon which they now centered their opposition to theresolution that prevailed in the Committee was the word“condemn.” By attacking that word they expected tobring about the defeat of the proposed Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution and the triumph of its Adler-Vandervelde substitute. Mrs. Brown was captured. Sheobjected to “condemning”; she was not there to“condemn”; she did not believe in “condemning”; to“condemn” was “un-Socialistic”; etc., etc. Schlüter, on thecontrary, favored “condemning.” He argued that, if youdisapprove a thing, you “condemn” it; with a silly facialexpression he tried to combat the notion that to“condemn” was harshly “un-Socialistic”; etc., etc.

DANIEL DE LEON


Theoretically, Schlüter was right; theoretically, Mrs.Brown was wrong. And, yet, the lady’s poise andmanners were those of conscious truth, while Schlüter’spoise and manners were those of conscious falseness.What was it that imparted to the picture presented bythe two disputants the aspect of sincerity to wrong, andof insincerity to right? That was the rub! Mrs. Brown,wrong though her posture was, was consistent with thepremises from which she and her party had started andalong which she and Schlüter finally landed in the samecamp; whereas Schlüter, right though his posture was,knew he was inconsistent with the premises from whichhe started, and to the tune of which he finally coalescedwith Mrs. Brown. When the Schlüters set up the yell of“S.L.P. harshness!” they knew the falseness of theslogan. They knew full well that their’s was but amanoeuvre of false pretence intended to availthemselves of Utopianism with the hope to down theS.L.P. which they had not been able to corrupt, andwhich CONDEMNED their practices. Mrs. Brown wasbut clinging to a principle to which she adhered from thestart—hence her posture of sincerity. Schlüter wasstealing a page from S.L.P. principle which he hadaffected to oppose—hence the sheepishness of hisposture and looks, especially when he noticed the S.L.P.delegates enjoying his plight.

* * *As I stated before, there was another occasion during

the Congress when Klein’s character showed toadvantage. It was in the matter of the ImmigrationResolution.

There was a proposition signed by Van Koll, of the



Holland delegation, restricting the immigration of“inferior races.” The Committee on Emigration andImmigration elaborated the matter, and finally aproposition was formally introduced bearing sixsignatures, those of H. Schlüter, Morris Hillquit, and A.Lee—all members of Klein’s “Socialist,” or “SocialDemocratic” party delegation—among the lot. Thisproposition disingenuously dropped the word “inferior,”and substituted it with the word “backward” races, andsought to explain it by placing in parentheses the words“such as Chinese, Negroes, ETC.”19

Such a posture was perfectly in keeping with theworking class-sundering, guild-spirit-breathing A.F. ofL., which dominates the eastern wing of the party thatfurnished three out of the six signatures to theproposition, all the three signatures being from the East,from New York, at that, and two of the three (Schlüterand Lee) employes of the New Yorker VolkszeitungCorporation, while two (Schlüter and Hillquit) arestockholders of the said corporation. How much inkeeping with the anti-Socialist Gompers A.F. of L. theproposition was may be judged from the language of the“Labor” Mayor Schmitz of San Francisco, in hissalutatory address to the annual convention of the A.F.of L. that was opened in San Francisco on the 15th ofthis month (November, 1904). He included the Japanese(! ! ) among the races to be proscribed; and hisrecommendation was adopted by the convention. The“ETC.” in the proposition presented at Amsterdambegins to be elucidated. Moreover, how wholly in keepingwith the spirit of the Eastern wing of the said “Socialist,”

19 See Addendum I.

DANIEL DE LEON


or “Social Democratic” party, the proposition was, is afact that stood conspicuously advertised in the latePresidential campaign. On the bill-boards of the city ofTroy, N.Y., there were posted during the recentPresidential campaign huge posters on behalf of theSocial Democratic party. In the center of the posterswere the pictures of Debs and Hanford; between themappeared the motto from the Communist Manifesto:“WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES{,} UNITE!”; andabove it all, in commentary of {on} the party’sinterpretation of the great Socialist motto, there was anexordium to the workers enumerating, among theatrocities of the capitalists, that “THEY WANTUNRESTRICTED IMMIGRATION”—evidently rankingtheir party on the side of restricted immigration, andseeking support from such an anti-Socialist sentiment.

The proposition being put in print and circulated inthe Congress, the canvassing commenced. The bulk ofthat day I was elsewhere engaged and did not appear inmy seat. Imagining he could take advantage of that andsecure both the American votes for his A.F. of L. guildishresolution, Schülter approached my fellow delegate,Poehland, and sought to rope him in. Of course he failedegregiously, and found out that the S.L.P. consists not ofone man but of a solid body of Socialists. Poehlandrepudiated Schülter’s request for support: he repudiatedit with scorn. Of course: Where is the line that separates“inferior” from “superior” races? What serious man, if heis a Socialist, what Socialist if he is a serious man, wouldindulge in “etc.” in such important matters? To thenative American proletariat, the Irish was made toappear an “inferior” race; to the Irish, the German; tothe German, the Italian; to the Italian—and so down the



line through the Swedes, the Poles, the Jews, theArmenians, the Japanese, to the end of the gamut.Socialism knows not such insulting, iniquitousdistinctions as “inferior,” and “superior” races among theproletariat. It is for capitalism to fan the fires of suchsentiments in its scheme to keep the proletariat divided.

When the proposition came up for debate, be it said tothe credit of Klein that, ungullied by the insidiouswording of the resolution to conceal its nefarious purposeand entrap acceptance, he repudiated the work of hiscolleagues. With flashing, inspired eyes, the young mandeclared he “would feel ashamed, as an Americancitizen, to vote for such a resolution!”

Upon the howl raised in the Congress the propositionwas withdrawn.

* * *There is just one more miscellany that I shall here

report.The Congress adopted a proposition that goes by the

name of “Unity Resolution.”20 The same empowers theInternational Bureau to offer its good offices to allnationalities in which the Socialist Movement may bedivided to the end of unifying it, in order that thebourgeois parties of each nation be confronted with butone Socialist party. The proposition was submitted to theCongress by the Committee on International PoliticalPolicy, which adopted it unanimously at the end of thesession.

Immediately upon the adoption of this Resolution,Vaillant announced that the Socialist Party of France,

20 See Addendum H.

DANIEL DE LEON


standing upon the Dresden-Amsterdam Resolution justpreviously adopted, stood ready to unify with all FrenchSocialists who likewise would plant themselves upon theprinciples therein enunciated. Towards the end ofVaillant’s speech I also announced myself to thechairman for the floor. By that time the Committee wasfast breaking up. The large lobby had merged with andnow sat in among the members of the Committee. Amember of the French delegation, who happened at themoment to be seated near me, seeing I had announcedmyself to speak, suggested that I repeat exactly whatVaillant had said. I answered him I would, in the main,only “with an American variation.” In the hubbub thatfollowed, the subject of the Unity Resolution wasbrushed aside, and I had no chance to speak on it. I shallhere say what I meant to say, but had no chance:

“Mr. Chairman: As a delegate from a country in whichthere are two parties, both of them represented on thisCommittee, as you know, I wish to endorse in the nameof my Party, the Socialist Labor Party of America, whatComrade Vaillant has said, and to add this: One of thelullabies, a favorite one, that heralded the advent of thesecond party in America was that ‘Germany once hadtwo Socialist parties, France has several, why shouldAmerica have only one?’ The second party was thusushered into being in imitation of Europe. Now thatEurope decides there should be but one Socialist party ineach country, I trust the second party may be as ready tofollow the European lead in the matter of unity as it wasto follow European example, as it imagined, in thematter of disunity.”


XI.

THE INTERNATIONAL BUREAU.

Marx’s name has reached the point where traditionclusters around him. Among the Marxian traditions thatI heard in Europe was his conception concerning thecentral administrative body of the International.According to that conception, the International SocialistCongresses were to be only a temporary, transitionaland social affair. The real, ultimate and effective fruit ofthe transitional period being an InternationalConference essentially different from the Congresses.The Congresses were large, the Conference would besmall; the Congresses were public, the Conference wouldbe secret; the Congresses were legislative, theConference would be executive. While the Congresseswould debate, discuss, gather for friendly intercourse,the Conference would meet for action. The traditionforecast the present International Bureau, and this, inturn, is supposed to foreshadow the real “Bureau” of thetradition—an unobtrusive meeting of one or tworepresentative men from the several nationalities, insome unadvertised place, for the purpose of conferringupon the ripeness of the times, and at the fit hour,decide upon and give the signal for the downfall ofCapitalism, or bourgeois rule. The tradition soundsluridly revolutionary, much akin to conspiracy. And yetthere is nothing lurid or conspiracy-like about thethought in its essential features. It is perfectly natural.The very thing is now going on in capitalist circles. TheSocialist program is no secret: It demands theunconditional surrender of capitalism: its International

DANIEL DE LEON


Congresses so announce it to the world: its localorganizations work to that end. Nothing more naturalthan that conferences, intended to feel the pulse of thetimes, should be held. They certainly are held nowwhenever two Socialists meet. That the day will comewhen more than two will make up the conference, andthat such conferences will not be heralded and criedfrom the house-tops, is obvious. Whether, however, theconferences in question will proceed upon the theorythat the Social Revolution will be simultaneouslyinternational, and that it will take place with themathematical precision implied by the tradition, isanother question. Indeed, the tradition, as traditionsgenerally, has certainly come down distorted. It is hardlylikely that Marx could have expressed a view indicativeof such a Punch and Judy conception of society. For allthat, the tradition does forecast correctly the formationof an International Bureau, where the internationalaffairs of the Movement can be attended to more soberlythan it is possible to attend to them in mob Congresses.In so far, Marx’s forecast reflects the uniformity of theman’s clearness of vision.

The Edinburgh Socialist, organ of the British SocialistLabor Party, published in its September issue a wittypersiflage of both the manner in which the delegations ofthe present International Congresses are made up, andthe manner in which the International Bureau deportsitself. As to the former (the delegations), the satire refersto the fact that the British delegation greatly out-numbered the German, despite the latter’s 3,000,000votes; and graphically reproducing the spirit in whichmany of the delegations were made up, the Britishespecially, the satire puts into the mouth of Hyndman of



the British Social Democratic Federation a speechillustrative of the situation. The gentleman declares tohis fellow British delegates that he is “gratified at theenormous growth of Socialism in Great Britain”; that theenormity of the growth “was evinced by the largenumber of delegates”; that that was “the best and mostreliable test”; that some people estimate the strength ofa Socialist organization by the amount and soundness ofagitation it carried on, but that those who thought so“took a very narrow and provincial view of things”; andthat the thing to do was to strive and send ever moredelegates to the International Congresses. As to thelatter (the International Bureau), the satire gets up thefollowing resolution in the name of the said huge Britishdelegation as the climax of their deliberations:“Resolved, That the class struggle does and shallcontinue to exist until notified to the contrary by theofficials of the International Bureau.” I may here alsoadd the opinion of Mrs. Corinne S. Brown of the“Socialist,” or “Social Democratic” delegation, whom Iquoted once before. Writing from Amsterdam to theMilwaukee Social Democratic Herald, the lady said:“Everything seems to be settled by the Bureau, nothingby the convention,” all of which correctly reflects twofacts: the loose, picnic spirit in which the Congresses aremade up, as a whole, and the arbitrary deportment ofthe Bureau. In fact, the latter is the inevitableconsequence of the former.

Marx must have foreseen the social or picnic characterof the Congresses. He must also have realized theimpossibility of remedying the evil, in so far as it is anevil. Difficult to conceive is any scheme of “basis ofrepresentation” that would impart to the delegations

DANIEL DE LEON


another, a soberer character. Moreover, even if such ascheme were conceived and enforced, its contemplatedpurpose would suffer shipwreck upon the rock of theunavoidable Babel of languages. There is but one wayout—a working Bureau. Thus arose since the ParisCongress of 1900 the International Socialist Bureau,called for short International Bureau, consisting of tworepresentatives of each nationality that chooses to enrollitself.

I have not yet heard a criticism of the InternationalBureau that is not correct. It is, on the morrow,inconsistent with its own precedents of the previous day;it now decides a case one way, then another; it is hasty;it is childish; it is arbitrary. An illustration of these factswas furnished in my report to the Australian and theCanadian Socialist Labor Parties;21 another, and ifpossible, stronger illustration will appear in thesubsequent article, “The British S.L.P.” The satirequoted above from the Edinburgh Socialist is felicitous:the Bureau’s present attitude is just one to warrant thejoke that it could notify the class struggle that the latterwas abrogated. The International Bureau is all that, andyet it is eminently necessary and eminently useful. Allits defects, and they are numerous, are inevitable; butthey are inevitable only at this, the Bureau’s unripe age.Born of the need for order and of the purpose to solidifythe international movement through a channel of rapidintercommunication, the International Bureau may besafely expected to gradually cast off the slough of thedefects of its youth, and get itself into proper workingorder. This consummation is all the more certain seeing

21 See Addendum K.



that the Bureau consists, on the whole, of the elite of theMovement.


XII.

THE SITUATION IN BELGIUM.

I spent,—“en route to the Amsterdam Congress,” so tospeak,—nine days in Belgium, from July 29 to August 8,when I arrived in Lille, upon the invitation of theSocialist Party of France, to attend its nationalconvention, that took place in that city from the 8th ofAugust to the 12th. In order to reach Lille, I had to crossBelgium from north to south, and back again toAmsterdam. During the nine days so spent I read all theBelgian Socialist papers that I could get, looked into theorganization of the party, and conversed with all themembers of the rank and file that I could reach. Theresult of my investigations along the above three lines ofinquiry are these:

As to the Belgian Socialist press—with the possibleexception of the Brussels Le Peuple, and even there theexception must not be insisted upon too strongly—wereit not because one is told so, they would not, ofthemselves, convey the information that they areSocialist. The only information they convey is that theyare Labor, but Labor only in the sense that A.F. of L.journals are Labor. They often reminded me of the one-time K. of L. journals. But what with the clerical issuethat these journals are wrapt up in, and what with the“Co-operatives” that absorb their attention and energies,Socialist education is absent. I saw hardly a line duringthose nine days that would help to steady theworkingman in his understanding of his classinterests—a term of frequent occurrence in the papers.Nothing to protect the worker against the chicanery of



capitalist politics. Often did I put to myself the question:“These people’s whole reliance is on their vote; even thatis going down; what would become of it if, along with theAmerican machinery that is being imported, the Belgianruling class were to import some American capitalistdevices to mislead the Labor vote?”

As to organization, the Belgian Socialist Movement ismainly organized into “Co-operatives”—stores andfactories run upon the co-operative principle for thebenefit of the stockholders. In these Socialist “Co-operatives,” bourgeois and workingmen, pro- and anti-Socialists are found. They gather for the sake ofcheapness of goods. No other bond unites them. These“Co-operatives” are a threat both to the party’s integrityand to the party’s enlightenment.

They are a threat to the party’s integrity in that theyfoment the building of cliques for the jobs. Say thatforty-five jobs are furnished by the running of a “Co-operative,” then ninety men—the forty-five ins and theorganized forty-five outs—will make it their business touphold the institution by suppressing its defects andexaggerating its value. Often by worse means. Theintrigues thus bred are numerous and constant.

The “Co-operatives” are a threat to the party’senlightenment in that they draw the Movement’s mindfrom its real objective—“the producer’s interests”—andkeep it riveted on the bourgeois objective—“theconsumer’s interests.” And the threat is all the moreserious for reason of the immediate advantage that the“Co-operatives” offer. Few things are more dangerous toa Movement, revolutionary in its essence, thanpalliatives that are not incidental to the storm step, butthat consume the marchers’ thought, time, energy and

DANIEL DE LEON


aspirations. In this instance the palliative is all the morepoisonous in that it directly plays into the hands of thecapitalist’s craving for lower wages. What has beenexperienced here in America in connection with proposedhomes for working girls, is inevitably experiencedelsewhere in connection with schemes to reduce theworker’s living expenses. The girls’ wages declined ineven measure with the declined item for rent. So inBelgium wages are proverbially the lowest. The labors ofthe “Co-operatives” at first incite the decline in wages,and then act as a salve to the wound. The original falsestep is thus transformed into a justification for itscontinuance. The Belgian “Co-operatives” may be calledthe Belgian version of American pure and simpleunionism—eminently useful, if used as merelytemporary makeshifts; eminently harmful in the end, ifconsidered a finality, or even of sufficient importance todeserve a preponderance of time and effort.

Finally, as to the rank and file. Under this head I mayas well sum up the situation. The summary is bestintroduced by quoting two expressions I have heardused.

Belgium is highly musical; amateur musical bandsabound, especially in the cities, and these are heardeverywhere, especially on Sundays—the people’s day ofrollicking enjoyment. The municipal governmentsencourage the people’s love for music. The musical bandsabove a certain degree of proficiency are distributed bythrees in the parks. There the sets of threes playsuccessively on a certain number of Sundays, afterwhich they draw lots for prizes ranging from 1,000 to200 francs. It was so in Antwerp, where the threeleading competitors played in the principal, the Rubens



Park, on Sunday, July the 31st. One of the three bandswas purely of musicians, another of bourgeois, the thirdwas the Socialist band. Of all the three, the Socialistband was without a doubt the best. Relatively andabsolutely it was magnificent. It formed just outside ofthe park, and marched in to the tune of the Marseillaisewhen its predecessor vacated the stand. The strain wasin itself inspiring; it was rendered all the more inspiringby the dense mass, obviously workers, that filled thepark and parted, amidst loud plaudits, to make way forthe musicians; nor did the scene lose in impressivenessfrom the sight of the policemen in line, with handsraised to their caps in military salute of the Socialistband. What, with all that as an introduction, and thesuperb music that followed and continued for about anhour, I shall not soon forget that Sunday forenoon—northe remark made to me at the close of the concert.Nicholas Van Kerkvoorde, a former Socialist LaborParty member of Section Buffalo, and now a resident ofAntwerp, had taken me to the park. At the close of theconcert he introduced me to several of the peoplepresent. Still under the immediate influence of thegrand sight I had seen and those grander strains that Ihad just heard, I remarked to one of them:

“Your Socialist band is superb!”“If only our Socialism were as good!” was the rejoinder

that followed as a flash, and that was emphasized by alook of anger.

The other remark made to me, not by one or by twopeople, was this: “Our present Movement is worthless.Our leaders are Utopians, if not bourgeois radicals.WHAT WE NEED IS A MAN OF KNOWLEDGE,CHARACTER AND A LITTLE FUNDS, JUST

DANIEL DE LEON


ENOUGH TO MAKE HIM INDEPENDENT, TO GIVETHE SIGNAL. WE THEN SHALL HAVE AMOVEMENT. NOT BEFORE.” Right there in Antwerp,the Socialist daily, De Werker, suspended, and wastransferred to Ghent, for lack of readers,notwithstanding it drew{,} for seven years, a subsidy of40,000 francs from the local “Co-operative,” andnotwithstanding the thousands of votes still polled in thecity. Moreover, its former editor,22 now without a job,wormed himself into the good graces of the employers’class, and, while I was there, was being praised by thesegentlemen in the public press for his “wisdom inestablishing harmony between Capital and Labor.” I wasinformed that he obtained some kind of secretaryship inthe Employers’ Association. That is the state that theSocialist press of Belgium, jointly with its “Co-operatives,” has reduced the Movement to, or keeps it in.

What outlook does all this point to? I had more thanonce put the question to myself, and left it unanswereduntil a fact adduced by Nemec {Menke?}, a Bohemiandelegate at Amsterdam, suggested the answer, at anyrate, an answer. Nemec {Menke?} represented Bohemiaon the Committee on International Political Policy. Hisremarks before the Committee, alluded to by me in mypreliminary report from Amsterdam, were to the effectthat the radical bourgeois reputation which themovement in Germany was obtaining had for itsimmediate effect to “encourage the Anarchists to re-assert themselves.” In proof of this Nemec {Menke?}referred to a recent issue of the Berlin Vorwaerts inwhich it was reported that “1,500 Anarchists met in

22 Louis Krinkles, later secretary of the boss diamond syndicate.



Berlin, denounced the German Social Democracy as abourgeois affair, and not a word was raised in defence ofthe party.” I had no opportunity to ascertain from Nemec{Menke?} the date of that Vorwaerts, so as to verify andweigh the passage for myself. Taking the passage asgiven, methought the “Anarchy” of the said Berlinmeeting might, perhaps, be understood by the terms ofcondemnation not uncommon in Belgium from Socialistquarters against the nerveless Movement in their owncountry. Might not the Berlin “Anarchists” of thepassage be impatient Socialists, too impatient to realizethat the German Social Democracy could not dootherwise than it does? In short, were they reallyAnarchists? In Belgium a steady sediment of Socialistdissatisfaction is gathering against the presentadministration of the Movement. There thedissatisfaction is justified. May we not any one of thesedays read in some Belgian Socialist paper denunciationsof these dissatisfied elements as “Anarchists”? The trainof thought, set in motion by Nemec’s {Menke’s?} passagefrom the Vorwaerts, connected with what I had seen ofthe Movement in France. A new vista, at least apossibility, that I had never before considered, unrolledbefore my eyes. Recentest events in Russia have raisedthe barometer of the possibility.

To borrow an illustration from Marx rather than, forthe sake of originality, quoting another of the severalthat may be cited, butyric acid is a substance differentfrom propyl formate. And yet both consist of theidentical elements—carbon (C), hydrogen (H), andoxygen (O); and what is more to the point, both consist ofexactly the same proportions of the three elements—4atoms of C, 8 of H, and 2 of O. While Marx adduces the

DANIEL DE LEON


illustration in connection with another subject than thepresent, it illustrates the one in hand as well; and well itis for those Marxists, who are inclined to be dogmatic, toponder over the biologic law that the illustration reveals.Biology teaches that different substances need notnecessarily consist of different elements; identicalelements, in identical proportions, may crystallize intodifferent substances. The determining factor in suchcases is the temperature and atmospheric pressure. Inother words, the illustration reveals that differentresults are not predicated solely upon the difference inthe composing elements. Other factors have, to a certainextent, a final word to say. Transferred to the domain ofsociology the identical conclusion must be admitted.

Taking into consideration only certain cardinalprinciples, the conclusion can not be escaped thatAmerica is the theatre where the crest of Capitalismwould first be shorn by the falchion of Socialism. In allthese cardinal principles Europe, on the whole, isdecidedly behind. While, so far, as decidedly in advanceof America in the tangible and visible part of theSocialist Movement, the facilities, capabilities, andripeness of continental Europe for ringing the tocsin ofthe Social Revolution and successfully carrying out theRevolution, are, to all appearances, infinitely behindAmerica. Such is the conclusion that one set of facts, andthose the visible ones, lead to. But in sociology, as inbiology, “temperature and atmospheric pressure,” oftenunforeseen, may bring about startling results.

Even so short a period as barely twelve months ago,the bare thought of the gathering of the Zemstvos at St.Petersburg would have been a symptom of insanity: thethought in connection with and as the result of such a



bolt from a clear sky as the Manchurian campaigncannot be imagined to have occurred outside of astraitjacket cell. And yet, not the thought but the fact isnow in plain view of a startled world. What such asudden “temperature and atmospheric pressure” mayengender, the imagination cannot conceive. Europe is ananti-monarchic powder magazine. The sparks, that theconflagration of the Zemstvos’ gathering will blowwidecast, may create an explosion that may shake allEurope. It is in the conjunction with such explosionsthat the settling sediment of militant Socialists inBelgium, and their possible kindred in Berlin, inAustria, Italy and other European countries may rise toa significance most undreamed of. It is in suchconjunctions that the powers of Guesde will place him ina position that may determine the issue. Moreover, withundoubted Socialists at the head of the other SocialistMovements in Europe—and never forgetting thatrevolutionists ripen fast—who knows what surprises forAmerica the near future carries in its folds?

—In which event who would underrate theimportance, at such a juncture, of a Socialist Movementhere in America, thoroughly organized, with theRevolution thoroughly perfected in its brain?


XIII.

THE BRITISH S.L.P.

In order to measure the daring flight of the youngSocialist Labor Party of Great Britain, a proper estimateis necessary of that which until recently has been knownunder the vague appellation of the “Socialist Movementof England.” Nor can the proper insight be had in thelatter without first a full appreciation of a certaincharacteristic of the English ruling class.

I would much prefer to quote exactly and in full theMarxian passage I have in mind. It occurs in Capital; as,however, it turns not upon economics but on psychologyand is thrown out, in Marx’s way, as a casual remark, itwould take me longer to find it than I have the time for.Its substance is that a ruling class dominates, not onlythe bodies, but the mind also of the class that it rules.The idiosyncrasies of the French feudal lord left theirmark upon the French bourgeois. The characteristic ofthe English feudal lord for imaginary superiority overhis continental fellow is impressed upon his successorthe English capitalist. The history of England bearsmany a striking illustration of the practical effect of thisquaint characteristic. England had led Europe incapitalism, but the capitalist religion, ycleptProtestantism, remained absent. On the continent, thereligious and the economic manifestations of thecapitalist revolution went hand in hand, until theProtestant wave beat over the continent. The Englishanomaly could not then continue. But the whim ofEnglish superiority prevented the wave from passingover the land “unamended.” The result was the “EnglishChurch”—neither fish, flesh nor yet fowl. It has been



similarly with all the movements that started on thecontinent impelled by the progress of the times, such asparliamentary and electoral reforms. The Englishcapitalist class could not wholly resist their influence; itwas dragged along unwillingly; unwillingly because ithad not itself initiated the movement; and theunwillingness of its conformity was marked by thevariants that it adopted to satisfy the idiosyncrasy of itsown pride.

As the British capitalist perpetuated the mentalfoibles of his former lords, so did the leaders that aroseamong the working class perpetuate the foibles of theirrulers, the capitalist class,—whatever did not take itsstart with them, however beneficial it be, could not beaccepted in all its purity. If the movement was of anature that total rejection was out of question, it wasadopted with a “variation,” enough of a “variation” tosave appearances, and seem original. It goes withoutsaying that the liberties that may be taken in the matterof religious forms and electoral franchises, withoutmaterial injury to either, are, in the very nature ofthings, excluded when the “variations” are to be appliedto a science. There is no “variation” possible to ageometric or an arithmetic proposition. Howevertunefully twittering the “fantasia,” it is absurd, anddestructive of the original. It is so with Socialist science.The “intellectuals” in the Socialist Movement ofEngland, could not accept continental Socialism.—Notthey! They had to try, and they did try, and they are stilltrying their fantasias on the subject. The result wasdisastrous, and the disastrousness of the result isaggravated by a form of Trades Unionism that hadsprung up on the native heath of British capitalism, and

DANIEL DE LEON


that—as indicated by the words of Bebel in the passageupon the subject which I quoted in the flash-light “TheDresden-Amsterdam Resolution” of this serial—theBritish capitalist was “peskily clever” enough to water tohis heart’s content, and to his own pockets’aggrandizement. Thus one of these “intellectuals”pronounces the Bible HIS source of “Socialistinformation”; another revels in the fantasia that “moneyis the source of all evil”; a third writes a book to showthat “Socialism means cheap goods”; a fourth substitutesthe “usurer” for the “capitalist”; a fifth’s substitute forthe whole is the “rack-renting landlord”; the“propitiation of lords and ladies” is the hobby of severalothers; extensive and expensive roulades on the “fallacyof the class struggle,” at any rate its inapplicability toEngland, is the entertainment of another set ofilluminati; more recently, two of them, Pete Curran andHerbert Burrows, disgraced the name of Socialism byappearing in its colors at the Boston “Peace Conference”of utopian (and also hypocritical and scheming)capitalists; and, at Amsterdam, yet another, Hyndman,with India on the brain, is too dull to understand thesupreme importance of the sessions of the Committee onInternational Political Policy, fumes at the Committee’sattracting the bulk of the delegates from the sessions ofthe Congress, goes about like a setting hen with thepitiful Dadabhai Naoroji under his wings unable, forlack of an audience, to get the latter to cackle his piece,and finally, unable to contain himself any longer, turnsthe rump of the Congress into a dime museum with thewailing croak of his Hindoo;—and so forth, too numerousto enumerate in full. And, meandering in among thatvast volume of dissonance, the platitudes of the “peskily-



clever”-capitalist-beloved Britished Trades Union “idea”is ever heard to run like a veritable “Leit-Motif.” It goeswithout saying that such an Augean stable breeds therank weed of individual vanities. It is a regularSalvation Army pandemonium, without, however, eventhe redeeming feature of the Salvation Army—order. Itcannot have order. The old vice, derived from the feudallord and transmitted down by the capitalist master, runsriot in these proud inheritors of the “hereditasdamnosa”: each sets himself up as a God-ordainededitor, or “leader”: and, like mountebank would-beleaders the world over are ever seen to act, each plays atleadership to the tune of “down with leaders!”

Such was the lamentable spectacle presented by the“Socialist Movement of England” until within two yearsago, when several scores of men and some women, all inthe vigor of life and intellect, saw their task, and bravelyundertook it. Nothing like an Augean stable to call forththe Hercules. The task appeals clearly, the Herculesresponds. The new Movement took the name thatdesignates the revolutionary Socialist organization ofAustralia, America and Canada—“Socialist LaborParty”—thus completing, with a link in Great Britain,the chain of S.L.P. organizations in the English speakingworld.

The British S.L.P. was born with vitality enoughimmediately to set up its tribune—The Socialist,published in Edinburgh. The movement touched theright chord. Its organization now spread—not on paperas with the Social Democratic Federation—over Englandand Scotland. Its organ, at first a four-paged publication,now is twice the size. Its membership is active, wellposted, serious and determined. Theirs is the S.L.P.

DANIEL DE LEON


attitude everywhere—the sword drawn, the scabbardthrown away. Yet theirs is a task infinitely morearduous than the sufficiently arduous task thatconfronts the S.L.P. everywhere else. Whollyemancipated from the incubus of the hereditary mentalinfirmity handed down by the successive British rulingclasses, the British S.L.P. has a long distance to travelbefore it makes up for the time lost by the hitherto“Movement” in the work of uncompromising agitation,education and organization. The tablets of the Britishworkingmen’s minds are scribbled all over with thecraziest pot-hooks put there by generations of freaks. Itwill take giants’ hands to wipe these pot-hooks off.Moreover, infinitely taller and denser than in America isin Great Britain the petrified barrier of TradesUnionism constructed upon the principle of the “co-operation of classes.” The flight taken by the BritishS.L.P. is daring. How daring may be measured by theexceptionally mountain-high difficulties to overcome.But to the brave difficulties are only encouragements.

The British S.L.P. appeared at Amsterdam with fivedelegates. How well these understood the responsibilitythat rested upon their shoulders towards the BritishMovement, was exemplified by the firmness of theirconduct in the choice they made between the alternativeof admission to the Congress with disgrace, or steppingout with honor. In fact, it was the first test the youngparty was put to. It stood the test manfully. Thealternative was forced upon them through one of thosedecisions of the International Bureau which were acompound of the Bureau’s present defects—hastiness,inconsistency and arbitrariness through defectiveorganization. The original and sensible decision of the



Bureau was that every nationality consisting of only onedelegation (parti unique) was to verify its owncredentials; with nationalities, however, consisting ofmore than one delegation, each delegation was to verifyits own credentials. This decision was adopted by theBureau, submitted by it to the Congress on the first day,and unanimously ratisfied by the latter. Agreeable to theprocedure thus adopted the credentials of all thedelegations were verified on that same day. It was sodone in the instance of the three delegations fromFrance, and it was so done in the instance of the twodelegations from America. The British S.L.P. didlikewise. The other delegations from Great Britain—theIndependent Labor Party (Keir Hardie group), the LaborRepresentation Committee (Shackleton group), SocialDemocratic Federation (Bax-Hyndman group), theFabian group, and a fifth group which consisted of thelatest secession in London from the Social DemocraticFederation—met jointly despite the violent feuds amongthem at home, and jointly transacted the delegations’business. Although invited to join the picnic, the BritishS.L.P. held aloof. Its delegation verified its owncredentials separately; reported them to the Congress onthe official blanks furnished for the purpose; were readoff by the chairman of the session, along with all theother delegations’ reports; and, along with all the others,against which no objection was raised, wereunanimously voted by the Congress to be seated. On thethird day of the convention regular delegates’ cards wereissued by the International Bureau, without which cardsno admission could be obtained to the Congress. Themeasure was wise, but if enforced, with due respect tothe action of the Congress, both in the matter of its

DANIEL DE LEON


decision on the manner of verifying the credentials andin the matter of its vote seating all the delegates whoreported thereupon without opposition, proprietyrequired that delegates’ cards be furnished to thedelegates of the British S.L.P., the same as they werefurnished to all the other delegates. This was not done.The following day when the delegates of the BritishS.L.P. presented their original cards they were refusedadmission for not having the second, or regular cards.They appealed to the International Bureau. While theirappeal was pending, pressing invitations were extendedto them and pledges made by emissaries of the SocialDemocratic Federation to submit their credentials to the“British delegation.” The delegates of the British S.L.P.remained firm. Any other course would have been self-stultification. The Bureau denied their appeal. Theconduct of the Bureau was in defiance of the double votetaken by the Congress, votes in which the British S.L.P.had participated; it was also at fisticuffs with the rulesotherwise in operation. For the rest, the decision, bywhatever back-stairs method it was foisted upon theBureau, had no practical effect. The British S.L.P. could,anyhow, not have had a separate vote on the resolutionsunder the two-vote rule for nationalities. Moreover, theparty’s report to the Congress had been distributedbefore that.23 The incident, nevertheless characterizesboth the present status of the International Bureau, andthe characterfulness of the young British S.L.P.

At the request of the British S.L.P., I interrupted myreturn home from the Amsterdam Congress with a flyingagitation tour over Scotland and England. I spoke in

23 See Addendum N.



Edinburgh, Falkirk, Glasgow and London. The meetingswere good, even in London, where a driving rainmaterially interfered with the gathering of a crowd. Theaudiences were serious, attentive and so intenselyinterested that the attempts of some emissaries from theAugean stable to create a disturbance at all the fourmeetings were promptly squelched by the audiencesthemselves.

Though the task before the British S.L.P. may, in away seem insuperable, in another it is more promiseful.The masses seem responsive to the Evangel of theSocialist Revolution, preached in straightforward,coherent language; above all in a language whoseearnestness denotes the conviction born of knowledge.


ADDENDUM.

DOCUMENTS.

A.

KAUTSKY RESOLUTION.(Paris Congress, 1900.)

In a modern democratic state the conquest of thepublic power by the proletariat cannot be the result of acoup de main; it must be the result of a long and painfulwork of proletarian organization on the economic andpolitical fields, of the physical and moral regeneracy ofthe laboring class and of the gradual conquest ofmunicipalities and legislative assemblies.

But in countries where the governmental power iscentralized, it cannot be conquered fragmentarily.

The accession of an isolated Socialist to a capitalistgovernment cannot be considered as the normalbeginning of the conquest of political power, but only asan expedient, imposed, transitory and exceptional.

Whether, in a particular case, the political situationnecessitates this dangerous experiment, is a question oftactics and not of principle; the International Congresshas not to declare itself upon this point, but in any casethe participation of a Socialist in a capitalist governmentdoes not hold out the hope of good results for themilitant proletariat, unless a great majority of the



Socialist Party approves of such an act and the Socialistminister remains the agent of his party. In the contrarycase of this minister becoming independent of his party,or representing only a fraction of it, his intervention incapitalist government threatens the militant proletariatwith disorganization and confusion, with a weakeninginstead of a fortifying of it; it threatens to hamper theproletarian conquest of the public powers instead ofpromoting it.

At any rate, the congress is of opinion that, even insuch extreme cases, a Socialist must leave the ministrywhen the organized party recognizes THAT THEGOVERNMENT GIVES EVIDENCES OF PARTIALITYIN THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN CAPITAL ANDLABOR.


B.

DRESDEN RESOLUTION.(Dresden, Ger., National Convention of German Social

Democracy, 1903.)

The National Convention of the Party demands that,although its delegation in the Reichstag shall asserttheir right to fill with one of their own members theoffices of first Vice President and of a Secretary in theReichstag, it nevertheless declines to assume courtlyobligations, or to submit to any conditions that are notfounded on the constitution of the Empire.

The National Convention of the Party condemns tothe fullest extent possible the efforts of the revisionists,which have for their object the modification of our triedand victorious policy based on the class war, and thesubstitution for the conquest of political power by anunceasing attack on the bourgeoisie, of a policy ofconcession to the established order of society.

The consequence of such revisionist tactics would beto turn a party striving for the most speedytransformation possible of bourgeois society intoSocialist Society—a party, therefore, revolutionary inthe best sense of the word—into a party satisfied withthe reform of bourgeois society.

For this reason, the National Convention of theParty, convinced, in opposition to revisionist tendencies,that class antagonisms, so far from diminishing,continually increase in bitterness, declares:

1st. That the Party rejects all responsibility of anysort under the political and economic conditions basedon capitalist production, and therefore can in no wisecountenance any measure tending to maintain in power



the dominant class.2d. The Social Democracy can strive for no

participation in the Government under bourgeoissociety, this decision being in accordance with theKautsky Resolution, passed at the InternationalCongress of Paris in 1900.

The National Convention of the Party furthercondemns every attempt to blur the ever growing classantagonisms in order to bring about an understandingwith bourgeois parties.

The National Convention of the Party relies upon itsReichstag delegation to use its power, increased by theincrease in its own numbers and by the great accessionof voters who support it, to persevere in its propagandatowards the final object of the Social Democracy, and, inconformity with our program, to defend most resolutelythe interests of the working class, the extension andconsolidation of political liberties, in order to obtainequal rights for all; to carry on more vigorously thanever the fight against militarism, against the colonialand imperialist policy, against injustice, oppression andexploitation of every kind; and, finally, to exert itselfenergetically to perfect social legislation and to bringabout the realization of the political and civilizingmission of the working class.


C.

DRESDEN-AMSTERDAM RESOLUTION.(Amsterdam Congress.)

The Congress repudiates to the fullest extent possiblethe efforts of the revisionists, which have for their objectthe modification of our tried and victorious policy basedon the class war, and the substitution, for the conquestof political power by an unceasing attack on thebourgeoisie, of a policy of concession to the establishedorder of society.

The consequence of such revisionist tactics would beto turn a party striving for the most speedytransformation possible of bourgeois society intoSocialist society—a party therefore revolutionary in thebest sense of the word—into a party satisfied with thereform of bourgeois society.

For this reason the Congress, convinced, in oppositionto revisionist tendencies, that class antagonisms, so farfrom diminishing, continually increase in bitterness,declares:

1. That the party rejects all responsibility of any sortunder the political and economic conditions based oncapitalist production, and therefore can in no wisecountenance any measure tending to maintain in powerthe dominant class.

2. The Social Democracy can strive for noparticipation in the Government under bourgeoissociety, this decision being in accordance with theKautsky Resolution passed at the InternationalCongress of Paris in 1900.

The Congress further repudiates every attempt to blur



the ever growing class antagonisms, in order to bringabout an understanding with bourgeois parties.

The Congress relies upon the Socialist ParliamentaryGroups to use their power, increased by the number ofits members and by the great accession of electors whosupport them, to persevere in their propaganda towardsthe final object of Socialism, and, in conformity with ourprogram, to defend most resolutely the interests of theworking class, the extension and consolidation ofpolitical liberties, in order to obtain equal rights for all;to carry on more vigorously than ever the fight againstmilitarism, against the colonial and imperialist policy,against injustice, oppression and exploitation of everykind; and finally to exert itself energetically to perfectsocial legislation and to bring about the realization ofthe political and civilizing mission of the working class.


D.

ADLER-VANDERVELDE PROPOSEDRESOLUTION.

(Amsterdam Congress.)

The Congress affirms in the most strenuous way thenecessity of maintaining unwaveringly our tried andglorious tactics based on the class war and shall neverallow that the conquest of the political power in theteeth of the bourgeoisie shall be replaced by a policy ofconcession to the established order.

The result of this policy of concession would be tochange a party which pursues the swiftest possibletransformation of bourgeois society into a Socialistsociety, consequently revolutionary in the best sense ofthe word—into a party which contents itself withreforming bourgeois society.

For this reason the Congress, persuaded that the classantagonisms, far from diminishing, increase continually,states:

1st. That the party declines all responsibilitywhatsoever for the political and economic conditionsbased on the capitalist production and consequentlycannot approve of any means which tend to maintain inpower the dominant class;

2d. That the Social Democracy, in regard of thedangers and the inconveniences of the participation inthe government in bourgeois society, brings to mind andconfirms the Kautsky Resolution, passed at theInternational Congress of Paris in 1900.


E.

GENERAL STRIKE RESOLUTION.(Amsterdam Congress.)

The Congress, considering that it is desirable to definethe position of the Social Democracy in regard to the“General Strike;”

Declares (a) that the prime necessity for a successfulstrike on a large scale is a strong organization and a self-imposed discipline of the working class;

(b) That the absolute “general strike” in this sense,that all workers shall at a given moment lay down theirwork, would defeat its own object, because it wouldrender all existence, including that of the proletariat,impossible; and

(c) That the emancipation of the working class cannotbe the result of any such sudden exertion of force,although, on the other hand, it is quite possible that astrike which spreads over a few economically importanttrades, or over a large number of branches of trade, maybe a means of bringing about important social changes,or of opposing reactionary designs on the rights of theworkers; and

Therefore warns the workers not to allow themselvesto be taken in tow by the Anarchists, with theirpropaganda of the general strike, carried on with theobject of diverting the workers from the really essentialstruggle which must be continued day by day by meansof the trade unions, and political action, and co-operation; and

Calls upon the workers to build up their unity andpower in the class struggle by perfecting their

DANIEL DE LEON


organization, because, if the strike should appear at anytime useful or necessary for the obtainment of somepolitical object, its success will entirely depend on that.


F.

GENERAL STRIKE PROPOSED RESOLUTION.(Lille, Fr., National Convention of Socialist Party of France,

1904.)

Whereas, The collective laying down of work, or thestrike, is the sole weapon left by capitalist legality, onthe domain of economics, at the disposal of theproletarians in the defense of their bread and theirdignity;

Whereas, By causing the antagonism of interests, thatcharacterizes the capitalist order, to flare up even in theeyes of the blindest, and, on the other hand, byawakening the class instinct among the workers, thestrike is of a nature to lead the latter to the class-consciousness that can and is bound to turn them intoSocialists; therefore

The Socialist Party of France reminds all its membersthat it is their duty to affiliate with their respectiveTrades Unions, to join hands with their comrades onstrike, and to aid with all their power in the triumph ofrevindication.

Whereas, On the other hand, a more or less extendedstrike, or a general strike, may, with the aid of theorganization of Labor and under favorablecircumstances, act decisively in a revolutionaryexplosion; while at the same time, wherever theproletariat has no other available means of action, or isthreatened with the loss of those it has, such a mass-suspension of work may be the only means to eitherconquer or recover such weapons;

The Socialist Party of France, without assuming anyresponsibility in the conflicts that lie outside of its

DANIEL DE LEON


proper field, declares itself ready to fulfil its full duty insuch eventualities;

But it affirms, louder than ever, that the capture ofthe means of production by society, depends upon thecapture of the political power by the organizedproletariat—all workingmen, who have becomeconscious of their class, must align themselves withRevolutionary Socialism, alone capable, through thepolitical and economic expropriation of the capitalistclass, to insure the well being and freedom of all.


G.

GENERAL STRIKE PROPOSED ALLEMANISTRESOLUTION.

(Amsterdam Congress.)

Whereas, An impartial examination of the economicand political facts that, during the last years, have besetthe proletariat of the several countries in the matter ofthe different forms of capitalist exploitation, show thatthe several countries, in their respective Socialistorganizations, have been led to the weapon of thegeneral strike as the most effective means to arrive atthe triumph of Labor’s revindications, as well as toinsure the defence of public liberty;

Whereas, These instances indicate how, at all acutecrises, Labor’s consciousness turns in some spontaneousmanner to the general strike, which it looks upon as oneof the most powerful and withal practical weaponswithin its reach; therefore

The Revolutionary Socialist Party invites theInternational Congress of Amsterdam to induce allnations represented at the Congress to turn theirthoughts to a study of a rational and methodicalorganization of the general international strike, which,without being the only weapon of the revolution,constitutes a weapon of emancipation that no trueSocialist has the right to ignore or to disparage.


H.

ANTI-IMMIGRATION PROPOSED RESOLUTION.(Amsterdam 1904.)

Fully considering the dangers connected with theimmigration of foreign workingmen, inasmuch as itbrings on a reduction of wages and furnishes thematerial for strike-breakers, occasionally also for bloodyconflicts between workingmen, the Congress declares:

That, under the influence and agitation from Socialistand Trades Union quarters, the immigrants willgradually rank themselves on the side of the nativeworkingmen and demand the same wages that the latterdemand.

Therefore, the Congress condemns all legislativeenactment that forbids or hinders the immigration offoreign workingmen whom misery forces to emigrate.

In further consideration of the fact thatWORKINGMEN OF BACKWARD RACES (CHINESE,NEGROES, ETC.) are often imported by capitalists inorder to keep down the native workingmen by means ofcheap labor, and that this cheap labor, which constitutesa willing object for exploitation, live in an ill-concealedstate of slavery,—the Congress declares that the SocialDemocracy is bound to combat with all its energy theapplication of this means, which serves to destroy theorganizations of Labor, and thereby to hamper theprogress and the eventual realization of Socialism.

H. VAN KOLL (Holland).MORRIS HILQUIT (United States).CLAUDE THOMPSON (Australia).H. SCHLUETER (United States).



A. LEE (United States).P. VERDORST (Holland).


I.

UNITY RESOLUTION.(Amsterdam Congress.)

The Congress declares:In order that the working class may develop its full

strength in the struggle against capitalism, it isnecessary there should be but one Socialist Party in eachcountry as against the parties of capitalists, just as thereis but one proletariat in each country.

For these reasons all comrades and all Socialistorganizations have the imperative duty to seek to theutmost of their power to bring about this unity of theparty, on the basis of the principles established by theInternational Conventions; that unity which is necessaryin the interests of the proletariat, to which they areresponsible for the disastrous consequences of thecontinuation of divisions within their ranks.

To assist in the attainment of this aim, theInternational Socialist Bureau as well as all partieswithin the countries where unity now exists willcheerfully offer their services and co-operation.

BEBEL,KAUTSKY,ENRICO FERRI,V. ADLER,TROELSTRA,VANDERVELDE.


J.

REPORT OF THE SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY OFAMERICA TO THE AMSTERDAM CONGRESS.

To the International Socialist Congress of Amsterdam,August 14, 1904:

Greeting:—To judge by the frequent expressions of astonishment

from European sources at what they call thebackwardness of the Socialist Movement in America—abackwardness which they judge wholly by votes—theconclusion is warranted that essential features ofAmerica are not given the weight that they are entitledto, or are wholly overlooked. What these features are thecountry’s census furnishes the material to work upon,and, again, the immortal genius of Karl Marx suppliesus with the principle to guide us in the selection of therequisite categories of fact and with the norm by whichto gauge and analyze the material thus gathered.

In the monograph The Eighteenth Brumaire of LouisBonaparte, the proletarian insurrection of 1848 is usedas a text for the following generalization:

“Nations enjoying an older civilization, havingdeveloped class distinctions, modern conditions ofproduction, an intellectual consciousness, wherein alltraditions of old have been dissolved through the work ofcenturies, with such countries the republic means onlythe POLITICAL REVOLUTIONARY FORM OFBOURGEOIS SOCIETY not its CONSERVATIVEFORM OF EXISTENCE,” and this grave fact is broughtout forcibly by contrasting such a country, France, with“the United States of America, where true enough, the

DANIEL DE LEON


classes already exist, but have not yet acquiredpermanent character, are in constant flux and reflux,constantly changing their elements and yielding themup to one another; where the modern means ofproduction, instead of coinciding with a stagnantpopulation, rather compensate for the relative scarcity ofheads and hands; and finally, where the feverishlyyouthful life of material production, which has toappropriate a new world to itself has so far left neithertime nor opportunity to abolish the illusions of old.”

This was written in 1852. The giant strides sincemade by America, her fabulous production of wealth,rise in manufacture and agriculture that practicallyplace her at the head of all other nations in this respect,in short, the stupendous stage of capitalist developmentthat the country has reached, would seem to remove thecontrast. It does not. These changes are not enough todraw conclusions as to the stage of Socialism that maybe expected. The above passages from Marx explain why,and they indicate what other factors need considerationbefore a bourgeois republic has left behind it its“conservative form of existence” and entered upon that“political revolutionary” stage of its life, without which aSocialist Movement can not be expected to gain itssteerage way. These factors—the “permanent character”and, therefore, “intellectual consciousness” of theclasses, due to the “traditions of old having beendissolved through the work of centuries;” the maturity oflife of material production which, no longer having “toappropriate a new world to itself,” has the requisite timeand opportunity “to abolish the illusions of old,”etc.,—also require consideration, and their status beascertained. They are essential to a final and intelligent



conclusion. A rough and rapid sketch of the facts thatthrow light upon these factors will clarify the situation.

Since the census facts of 1850 on which Marx drew,the continental area of the United States has beenwidened by not less than 1,057,441 square miles, or notfar from doubled what it was in 1850; as a result, thecenter of population, which in 1850 was at 81 deg. 19min. longitude, or 23 miles southwest of Parkersburg inthe present State of West Virginia, has since shiftedwestward fully four degrees of longitude, and now liessix miles west of Columbus, Ind.; and as a further oraccompanying result, the center of manufacture, whichin 1850 lay at 77 deg. 25 min. longitude, nearMifflintown, Pa., has since steadily traveled westwarduntil it has to-day reached 82 deg. 12 min. longitudenear Mansfield in central Ohio. Nor has the westwardmove stopped. One more fact of importance along thisline of inquiry will suffice to aid in forming an idea of thegeologic lay of social conditions, so to speak. While aslate as 1880, thirty years after Marx’s monograph, thecensus returned 55,404 water wheels and no electricmotors, ten years later the water wheels had fallen to39,008 and the electric motors, starting then, have sincerisen to 16,923 and steam power in proportion. Thesituation, brought about by these facts, may be summedup by the light of the quaint report that played-outlocomotive engines, which once did service on our cityelevated roads and have been discarded for electricmotors, now are drawing trains on the railroads inChina! Machinery and methods of production, discardedin more advanced centers, are constantly reappearing inless advanced localities, carried thither by the flux of ourpopulation westward. It goes without saying, that under

DANIEL DE LEON


such conditions, not only is the population still not“stagnant,” not only is there still a “constant flux andreflux,” not only is there still a “constant changing” or“yielding up to one another” by the classes, but that stillthe odd phenomenon is visible in America of familieswith members in all the classes, from the upper andplutocratic class, down through the various gradations ofthe middle class, down to the “house-and-lot”-owningwage slave in the shop, and even further down to thewholly propertiless proletariat. It goes without sayingthat, under such conditions, there still is in America that“feverishly youthful life of material production” and that,accordingly, “the illusions of old” have not yet had timeto be wiped out. Nor has the immigration from Europeaided matters. On the whole it has fallen in with thestream as it flows. It is, for instance, a conservativeestimate that if one-half the Europeans, now located inGreater New York and who in their old homespronounced themselves Socialists, remained so here, theSocialist organization in the city alone would have notless than 25,000 enrolled members. Yet there is no suchmembership or anything like it. The natives’ oldillusions regarding material prospects draw the bulk ofthe immigrants into its vortex.

It goes without saying that such conditions point tothe existing bourgeois republic of America as stilltraveling in the orbit that Marx observed it in, during1852,—at the CONSERVATIVE and not yet thePOLITICAL REVOLUTIONARY form of its existence. Inshort, these conditions explain why, as yet, despite thestupendous development of capitalism in the country, anumerically powerful Socialist Labor Party, such as sucha capitalist development might at first blush mislead the



casual observer into expecting, does not and can not yetexist. Incidentally, these conditions throw valuable lightupon the nature of the “revolutionary movements” thatperiodically spring up, whose discordant waves angrilybeat against the Socialist Labor Party, and whosemouthpieces make so much noise—abroad. It explains,for instance, the flaring up of the Single Tax Movementwith its 300,000 votes in the eighties; it explains thePopulist Movement of a decade later, in the nineties,with its 1,200,000 votes; it explains the latest of theserial in direct line of succession, the so-called Socialistor Social Democratic Movement of this decade with its250,000 votes. The first two have already passed away,and the latter—after adopting a “revisionist” platformand a trades union resolution, which its own delegate tothis International Congress, Mr. Ernst Untermann,admits in the Neue Zeit of last May 28th to be “a covertendorsement of the American Federation of Labor, whichmeant nothing else than a thrust at the American LaborUnion, which had seceded from the former organizationin order to EMANCIPATE ITSELF FROM THEDOMINATION OF THE REACTIONISTS ANDHANDMAIDS OF THE CAPITALISTS,” and which,with stronger emphasis, the American Labor UnionJournal, of May 26th, a hitherto upholder of the said so-called Socialist party, deliberately brands as“COMMITTING THE PARTY TO SCAB-HERDING”—may be said to have fairly entered upon the period of itsdissolution. Each of these movements successively setitself up as the AMERICAN Socialist Movement andwaged violent war against the Socialist Labor Partyduring their flickering existence, and then—draggeddown and throttled by the umbilical cord of the illusions

DANIEL DE LEON


that are born from the conditions in the land sketchedabove24—after living their noisy day, regularly andfatedly entered upon their period of dissolution,—never,however, without regularly leaving behind a more or lesssolid sediment for the Socialist Labor Party, whom, onthe other hand, and as regularly, during the period oftheir rise and growth, they cleansed (by drawing tothemselves) of unfit and unripe elements that, in the

24 The passage in the above article of the American Labor UnionJournal is worth reproducing in full in that it illuminates a goodlyportion of the umbilical cord that fatedly drags down and throttles allthese alleged “American Socialist” movements which periodically riseagainst the Socialist Labor Party. This is the passage:

“The men who spoke in support of the resolution (the substitute) fromBen Hanford to Hilquit did not attempt to reply to these arguments.They kept up a constant reiteration of the charges that those whoopposed the resolution are opposed to trades unions, which was athousand miles from the truth, the facts being that the opposition wasnot to trades union endorsement, but to the kind of trades unionism itwas sought to endorse. AS IT STANDS THE SOCIALIST PARTY ISCOMMITTED TO SCAB-HERDING, organization of dual unions,misleading of the working class, the expenditure of union funds todefeat Socialist candidates, the segregation of the working class intocraft units which are powerless to accomplish anything AND IT HASBEEN COMMITTED TO THIS BECAUSE A FEW AMBITIOUSEASTERN COMRADES WERE ANXIOUS TO MAKE THINGSPLEASANT FOR THEMSELVES IN THE PURE AND SIMPLEUNIONS.”

And in a subsequent article, June 2, the same paper explains in whatconsists the “making of things pleasant for themselves” by the Easternmembers, the dominant element, in its party. It says:

“The rank and file have no axes to grind. They have no inducementTO CRAWL LIKE WHIPPED CURS AT THE FOOT OF A NATIONALLABOR FAKIR. The rank and file are not SEEKING PREFERMENTin pure and simple bodies. They are not SEEKING ADELEGATESHIP ABROAD, nor are they after AN ORGANIZER’SCOMMISSION in fakirdom. They have no PAPERS TO PEDDLE infakirdom”—in short, the umbilical cord of the private and guildinterests of that Eastern and dominant element of the so-calledSocialist, alias Social Democratic, party is of a nature that mustinevitably betray the working class, and consequently throttle the saidparty as its lineal ancestors did.



intervals, had gravitated towards the S.L.P. Thus, sinceits incipient vote of 13,337 in 1890, the first year of itsreal existence, the vote record of the Socialist LaborParty, during the following presidential or nationalcampaign years, presents the following table:

In 1892—21,157 votes;In 1896—36,564 votes;In 1900—34,191 votes.

In 1902, not a presidential year but so far the nearestapproach thereto through State elections, the vote againrose to 53,763.

If proper weight is given to the social conditionssketched above, another circumstance of much weightwill transpire—the circumstance that in America, thesmall vote of a bona fide Socialist organization is nocriterion of its strength, of the work it does, or of theSocialist sentiment in the land, in short, it is no criterionof the proximity or distance of the crowning event, of thedethronement of the capitalist class. In Americacapitalist morality has invaded the hustings. Thechicanery practised by the ruling class in the factory, theretail shop or their legalized gambling dens, known as“stock exchanges,” has been introduced by them into theelectoral field, and there sways supreme. The laws theyhave enacted to keep their respective parties fromcheating each other would furnish a living Montesquieuwith a matchless theme for a matchless chapter on “TheSpirit of Legislation.” Of course, the spirit of these anti-fraud election laws directly warrants the contendingparties of the ruling class to ignore, aye, to violate themagainst a bona fide party of Socialism. The unseating ofa Congressman for fraudulent election practices is notunknown, but it is never practiced, except by the

DANIEL DE LEON


majority against the minority party when the formerneeds the seat. Such a thing as the unseating of acapitalist class member of the Reichstag for fraud andordering a new election at which a Socialist candidate iselected, as has happened in Germany; or the unseating,for similar reasons, of a Count Boni de Castellane—thesharer, through marriage, of our American capitalist JayGould’s millions—strikes our American capitalists, andall others who are swayed by their modes of thought, asincomprehensibly silly. They understand it as little asWestern people understand the sentiment of a Japanesesoldier to rather die than surrender to the Russians.What that means to a vote that really threatens theruling class is obvious. Obvious, consequently, is the factthat the day of the Socialist vote is not yet. Thecapitalist corruptionists thwart to-day the fiat of theballot. But monkeying with the thermometer never yetaffected the temperature.

Accordingly, the criterion of the seaworthiness of aSocialist Movement in the waters of American conditionsis the character of its agitational, educational, andorganizing propaganda; the quantity and quality of theliterature it soaks the country with; the strictness of itsself-imposed discipline; the firmness and intrepidity ofits posture. The Socialist Labor Party has for now fouryears published the only Socialist daily paper in theEnglish-speaking world—the Daily People; for the lastthirteen years it has published a weekly—the WeeklyPeople . These, besides the vast literature that itpublishes through its press—much of it original, much ofit translations of the best that the revolutionarymovements in other languages have produced—arestandard in the English-speaking movement. They



breathe the uncompromising spirit that Americanconditions render imperative to a Socialist Movementunless it is ready either to render itself ridiculous, or tobetray the working class with revisionist flap-doodleism.Accordingly, the Socialist Labor Party never withholds ablow at Wrong lest it make an enemy, or lose a friend. Ityields to no lures. If, in other countries conditions allow,or, perchance, require a different course, not so here: theSocialist Labor Party of America hews close to the line.In its war upon the capitalist class, the Party allows notitself to be used as a prop for that class: whether thecapitalist formation appear in the shape of a Trust, or inthat of a revamped bourgeois guild, sailing under thefalse colors of “Trades Unionism,” the Party ruthlesslyexposes both—IT EXPOSES BOTH—even thoughworkingmen may hold stock in the former, the Trust, asthe so-called Trades Union of the Amalgamated Iron andSteel Workers do in Carnegie’s United States SteelCorporation; and even if it be workingmen whoconstitute the rank and file of the revamped bourgeoisguilds sailing under the flag of Trades Unionism, andthereby keep the working class divided by the ChineseWalls of prohibitive high dues and initiation fees, orother guild practices, as many so-called Trades Unionsdo. The unflinching attitude imposed upon a bona fideparty of Socialism in America is incomprehensible to thesuccessive waves of alleged revolutionary movementsand American reformers generally, who with thetenacity of a disease turn up and turn down on thecountry’s political stage. Being incomprehensible tothem, the Socialist Labor Party is the object of theirviolent animosity, and is successively pronounced deadby them,—on paper. The S ocialists of Europe will

DANIEL DE LEON


understand this phenomenon when they are told thatthe identical epithets which the Millerand-Jauresrevisionists of France bestow upon the Parti Socialistede France—“ill-natured,” “narrow,” “intolerant,” etc.,etc.,—have been and continue to be bestowed withmonotonous regularity by these American “revisionists”upon the Socialist Labor Party.

It is this “ill-nature,” “narrowness,” “intolerance,” etc.,that is urging on the day of the dethronement of theAmerican capitalist class. At the time of the McKinleyassassination in 1901, for instance, when the capitalistclass tried to profit by the event to root up all impulsetowards its overthrow, all voices with one exception, thathad at all seemed in opposition to class rule, weresilenced, they dared not utter themselves. That solitaryexception was the voice of the Socialist Labor Party.Scores of its speakers were arrested and otherwisepersecuted, yet they held their ground and triumphedover the attempt to throttle the voice of the proletariat.Capitalist development in America is now steadilyovertaking and overcoming the obstacles that Marxenumerated for the conservative form of the Americanbourgeois republic to enter upon its politicalrevolutionary form. Things are ripening rapidly. Whenthe day of the vote shall have arrived for the SocialistMovement of America that vote will be counted—or themen whom the Socialist Labor party is gathering anddrilling WILL KNOW THE REASON WHY. Thebackwardness of the Socialist Movement in America ison the surface only. Whatever the thermometer of theSocialist vote, monkeyed with by capitalist corruption,may register, the temperature is rising.

The S.L.P. platform demands—and the Party’s every



act is in strict accordance with the demand—theunconditional surrender of the capitalist class; and theParty is guided exclusively by the Polar Star of theprinciple that the emancipation of the working classmust be the work of the working class itself. The Partytakes nothing less because it knows that anything lessmeans Revisionism.

DANIEL DE LEON,Delegate of the Socialist Labor Party of the United

States of America.New York, July 15, 1904.

By order of the National Executive Committee, S.L.P.,HENRY KUHN,

National Secretary.


K.

REPORT OF THE DELEGATE, TO THESOCIALIST LABOR PARTIES OF AUSTRALIA

AND CANADA.

SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY OF AUSTRALIA.J.O. MORONEY, Gen’l Secy.,

Sydney, N.S. Wales.And

SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY OF CANADA.T. HASELGROVE, Nat’l Secy.

London, Canada.

Comrades:—Entrusted as the delegate of the SocialistLabor Party of America to the late InternationalSocialist Congress at Amsterdam, with credentials fromyour respective organizations, I beg to submit to you myreport in what refers to yourselves in particular.

On the official list published by the Congress, Canadaand Australia appear as separately representednationalities. Such, however, is the unreliability of theprinted bulletins of the Congress, due to the disorderthat marked its administration, that probably acorrection will be found necessary as to Canada, andcertainly a footnote as to both Canada and Australia. Letit be stated at the outset that the Socialist Labor Partiesof the above two countries can not appear as having beenofficially represented in the Congress. They were soincidentally, in so far as, in the only matter ofimportance in the Congress, their names appearattached to my signature as two of the three bodies fromwhom I bore credentials. That this should be so, and the



resulting consequence, due to which the Socialist LaborParties of Canada and Australia can not be heldresponsible for any vote or abstinence of voting that mayappear attached to those countries, is a historic incidentof the Congress that it will be well to place on record.

At the previous Congress (Paris, 1900) anInternational Bureau was established with headquartersat Brussels. In the course of a series of articles, which Ishall have in The People supplemental to my first reportof the Amsterdam Congress to the S.L.P. of America, Ishall take up more in detail the matter of thisInternational Bureau. Suffice it at present to say thatthe original purpose of the Bureau was to facilitateinternational communication between the severalSocialist organizations of the world, each nationalitybeing entitled to two members on the Bureau. At theAmsterdam Congress the Bureau assumed, and I thinkjustly, the functions of a general committee of theCongress to facilitate its procedures. Accordingly, on themorning of the opening of the Congress a printed slipfrom the Bureau was circulated among the delegateslaying down certain general regulations. One of thesewas to the effect that “each NATIONALITY was to verifyits own credentials.” The regulations on the slip were inthe nature of committee suggestions for the Congress topass upon. Upon these suggestions being submitted tothe Congress, the International Secretary, M. Serwy,stated expressly that a typographical error had creptinto the clause that I quoted above. Instead of eachNATIONALITY verifying its credentials, the Bureau’sactual proposition was that such verification byNATIONALITIES was to be only in the instances inwhich a nationality had only one party—“parti unique;”

DANIEL DE LEON


but that in all other cases—the cases of nationalitieswith several parties—the verification of credentials wasto be done by each party separately.

The reason for this was obvious. France, an importantnationality, had two rival, aye, hostile parties—the PartiSocialiste de France (Guesdiste or anti-ministerialistparty) and the Parti Socialiste Français (the Jaures-Millerand pro-ministerialist concern). Whether theJaures party would be willing to submit to a jointverification of credentials with the Guesdist party Iknow not. Perhaps it would have liked it. Such a coursewould be in keeping with its scuttle-fish, confusion-raising policy. Certain, however, it is that the Guesdistparty would under no circumstances tolerate suchintimacy. Furthermore, there was a third French party,the Allemanist body. This body, though small, is full ofpretensions. It calls itself the “French RevolutionaryLabor Party.” Its leader is Alleman, a flannel-mouthedblatherskite, whose leading principle is the cart-before-the-horse idea of a “general strike.” As Allemanepretends to represent the trades unions the Bureau didnot like to kick him out, nor did it like to force him intomaking common cause with the Guesdists, whom itdetests, or with the Jauresists, whom it affects to dislike.In view of all this the Bureau’s decision was that eachPARTY was to verify its own credentials. Theproposition was concurred in by the Congress. Agreeabletherewith, I filled out the blanks furnished for thepurpose—one with the list of the delegates of the S.L.P.of America and one each with my name as bearingcredentials from the Socialist Labor Parties of Australiaand Canada. I handed the blanks myself to Plechanoff,who acted that day as vice-president and was in charge



of all the delegations’ blanks. He handed them over oneafter another to the chairman; they were read off andconcurred in by the Congress. That was on Sunday, thefirst day of the Congress.

The very next day the Congress virtually went intorecess and continued so until Thursday evening, to awaitthe report of the most important committee of all—theCommittee on International Political Policy. In themeantime, every morning and afternoon, about an hourbefore the regular hour for the Congress or committee tomeet, the Bureau held a session to decide upon mattersand contests that were coming up. Learning that thematter of the “Jewish Bund” (Russian) was to come upbefore the Bureau on Tuesday afternoon, I attended thatbureau’s session, curious to get an insight into thatcurious “Jewish Bund” development. When thediscussion on that closed and the Bureau was just aboutto rise, I learned by the merest accident that thecredentials of the Socialist Labor Parties of Australiaand Canada were being “held up,” on the ground that“no one had appeared to defend them!! !” This was newsto me. I insisted on the spot, despite the objectionsraised by Mr. H. Meyer Hyndman, that the matter betaken up first thing the next morning. It was so decided.

Next (Wednesday) morning I forced the matter to anissue. It was by that time clear to me that thecontinental members of the Bureau had unwittinglyallowed themselves to be trepanned by the saidHyndman. I first of all protested against a procedurethat left the party interested—myself in the case—in thedark, so wholly in the dark that it was by the merestaccident I had discovered that there were objectionsraised to the Australian and Canadian credentials. The

DANIEL DE LEON


Congress had been in session three days and I had notbeen notified as decorum required. I stated that,unsolicited by myself or my party, the Socialist LaborParties of Australia and Canada had selected the S.L.P.of America to represent them. I recognized the obviousimpropriety of any one delegate or nationality castingproxy votes. I claimed no such extraordinary privilege.All I claimed for the Socialist Labor Parties of Australiaand Canada was the right of an official place on the listof the parties present in the Congress. And I placed mycredentials before the Bureau.

Mr. H. Meyer Hyndman raised objections to that. Hisfirst objection was, how can a single delegate verify hisown credentials? He was knocked out by my showingthat Katayama, the delegate of Japan, was a singledelegate; that as such he had verified his owncredentials, and that no objection was raised. Driven outof that ditch the next he leaped into was that Australiaand Canada were colonies, like Poland, that they werepart of the “British Empire,” and could not receiveseparate recognition. I met that, first, by illustrating theabsurdity of placing Australia and Canada alongside ofPoland in the colonial scale, and, secondly, by pointing tothe fact that the utterly dependent Poland had not onlya separate seat, but actually a SEPARATE VOTE INTHAT CONGRESS. When Mr. Hyndman recovered hisbreath from that knock-out blow, he fell back upon“courtesy.” He pleaded with the Bureau that the matterbe first brought up before the British delegation, and seeif they had any objection. I made it clear that I would notgo in session with that delegation. You, Australian andCanadian Comrades, must know that the young,brilliant and aggressive Socialist Labor Party of Great



Britain, although implored to by Mr. Hyndman andothers of the British delegation to join them in theverification of credentials, justly refused. The Britishdelegation was a bogus delegation whose membersissued credentials to one another at the Congress;moreover, in that delegation was the notorious “laborleader” and capitalist placeman Shackleton, who openlyadvocates child-labor, to say nothing of Mr. Hyndmanhimself, whose false comprehension of Socialism causeshim to look to the middle class for the overthrow ofcapitalism. Rather than associate with such elements,the responsible factors for the backward state of theLabor Movement in Britain, the delegation of the BritishSocialist Labor Party stayed out of the Congress. For thesame reasons I refused to associate the Socialist LaborParties of Australia and Canada with the Hyndman-Shackleton outfit. I yielded to the extreme point ofcourtesy by accepting that action be deferred until Mr.Hyndman had consulted his delegation. But I insistedthat Mr. Hyndman was to consult his delegation thatsame day and notify me forthwith. Before the Bureau hegave his word that he would. I made him repeat thepledge twice. I was through. The Congress adjournedwithout my receiving any notification. Mr. Hyndmanproved himself a peanut politician, a man who did notrespect his own word. He seemed happy at what, in thesmallness of his mind, he took for a move that out-manoeuvred me. In point of fact I had but given himrope for him to hang himself. If the matter of keepingout the Socialist Labor Parties of Australia and Canadawas of importance, it deserved honorable andstraightforward handling; if it was unimportant it waspeanut politics to indulge in the duplicity that Mr.

DANIEL DE LEON


Hyndman did.For the rest all such manoeuvres fell short of real

effect. The only matter of importance before theCongress was the attitude on international politics. Thissubject was threshed out in the committee, which inpoint of fact was the real Congress. Before thatcommittee I presented the following resolution in thename of the S.L.P. of America:

Whereas, The struggle between the working class andthe capitalist class is a continuous and irrepressibleconflict, a conflict that tends every day rather to beintensified than to be softened;

Whereas, The existing governments are committees ofthe ruling class, intended to safeguard the yoke ofcapitalist exploitation upon the neck of the workingclass;

Whereas, At the last International Congress, held inParis, in 1900, a resolution generally known as theKautsky Resolution was adopted, the closing clauses ofwhich contemplate the emergency of the working classaccepting office at the hands of such capitalistgovernments, and also, especially, presupposes thepossibility of impartiality on the part of the ruling classgovernments in the conflicts between the working classand the capitalist class; and

Whereas, The said clauses—applicable, perhaps, incountries not yet wholly freed from feudalinstitutions—were adopted under conditions both inFrance and in the Paris Congress itself, that justifyerroneous conclusions on the nature of the classstruggle, the character of capitalist governments and thetactics that are imperative upon the proletariat in thepursuit of its campaign to overthrow the capitalistsystem in countries, which, like the United States ofAmerica, have wholly wiped out feudal institutions;therefore be it



Resolved, First, That the said Kautsky Resolution beand the same is hereby repealed as a principle of generalSocialist tactics;

Second, That, in fully developed capitalist countrieslike America, the working class cannot, without betrayalof the cause of the proletariat, fill any political officeother than such that they conquer for and bythemselves.

Offered by Daniel De Leon, Delegate of the SocialistLabor Party of the United States of America withcredentials from the Socialist Labor Parties of Australiaand of Canada.

The resolution was printed and circulated in thecommittee and the Congress. As you will notice, it bearsmy signature, not merely as the delegate of the S.L.P. ofAmerica, but also as the carrier of the mandates of theSocialist Labor Parties of Australia and Canada. Defacto, accordingly, these two organizations remaininscribed as participants in the transactions of theCongress on no less a subject than the one embodied inthe resolution.

You will ere this have seen my first report to my ownParty on this particular subject. I beg you to incorporatethat report in this. I shall here only add that thesituation was this: At Paris the Kautsky Resolution wasadopted amid cheers for Jaures-Millerand; inAmsterdam, the Dresden Resolution, which smuggles inthe endorsement of the Kautsky Resolution, was adoptedamid curses for Jaures-Millerand. My own resolutionbeing defeated, I wheeled in line with the DresdenResolution. I deliberately refused to abstain from voting.The only thing to do was by my vote to add swing to thecrack over the head administered to the Jaures party,

DANIEL DE LEON


and in that way give all the aid possible to the Guesdistparty in France—the only S.L.P. body of continentalEurope.

For a further and detailed report on many othermatters of interest concerning the Congress, I beg torefer you to the serial of articles which I shall presentlypublish in The People.

Yours fraternally,DANIEL DE LEON.


L.

REVIEW OF DRESDEN CONVENTION.

For reasons, scores of times enlarged upon in thesecolumns, the Social Democracy of Germany has ceased tobe a pace-setter for the Socialist Movement of the world.For the reasons so often analyzed, the SocialistMovement of Germany has been compelled to deflect itscourse, and face and solve the issues left unfaced andunsolved by the nation’s bourgeoisie. This,notwithstanding, aye, for that very reason, the acts ofthe German Social Democracy are well worth the closeattention of the militant Socialism of this country. Asthe native land of Marx, Engels and Lassalle, and thatin which the Socialist Movement first took tangibleshape nearly forty years ago, the forced evolution, thatthat Socialist Movement has undergone in Germany, isof more than historic interest. The late DresdenConvention typifies the leading features of thatevolutionary process, which the sooner they aregenerally understood the better.

BIRD’S EYE VIEW.

The Dresden Convention met on September 13 andadjourned on September 20, 1903. Altogether it was insession eight days. Subtracting from these eight days thefirst day and a half, spent in general oratory, in whichforeign “visiting delegations” took a part, and about aday given to minor matters, such as Bebel’s complaintsagainst the V o r w a e r t s , the Polish question,parliamentary activity, the Amsterdam Congress, etc.,there were about five days given to the real issues before

DANIEL DE LEON


the body. These were two, at least they were presentedunder distinct heads and culminated in the adoption oftwo distinct resolutions—a resolution on the activity ofparty members in the bourgeois press, and one on thetactics of the party. In point of fact, the two issues wereone, the first only serving as a prelude to the second. Theissue underlying both was a practical one of tactics. Onthis subject the debate consumed all the actual workingtime of the Congress.

A bird’s-eye view of the debate presents a paradox.Feeling ran high. Hard words were exchanged. Indeed, ithas been said by those who should know that never wasa German Social Democratic Convention so heated. Andyet not a disputant on either side, none of any account atany rate, but declared that “at no time was the party sounited as it is now.” As if this were not enough of aparadox, the resolutions were adopted with virtualunanimity (283 to 24 on the first, 288 to 11 on thesecond). Were these men children, who quarreled overnothing? Or were they hysterical school girls, whoscratch one another’s faces and as readily kiss and makeup? They were none of that. Then, there was an issue?Indeed, there was, and a serious one. To complete theseries of paradoxes in the bird’s-eye view of the debate,the serenest of the disputants, the most good-natured,those who, with greatest moderation, and dignity withal,retorted to the vehement onslaughts against them, werethat nominally trivial minority. Indeed, whateverbrilliancy of satire, of wit or ridicule flashed through theConvention Hall, proceeded from that quarter. And wellit might. All the facts, hence all the argumentsapplicable to the situation, were with that side. Theyknew themselves victors. Hence, why ill-nature? Like a



traveler, overtaken by a sudden squall on the road, good-naturedly, though perhaps critically, watches thestorm’s excesses, taking only simple measures to keepthe wet off, and knowing the storm is bound to abate,when he will again regain the mastery, and tranquillyresume the even tenor of his route, so did the nominallytrivial minority at the Dresden Convention deport itself.It revealed the aplomb of habitual, certain andinevitable ascendancy. What with the superficial pressreports and interested journalistic commentaries, theimpression conveyed of the Convention is exactly theopposite. To the extent that this false impressionprevails the instruction conveyed by the DresdenConvention is lost.

HISTORY OF TACTICS.

The history of the German Social Democracy on theparty’s tactics, sketched step by step by the nominalminority, and left uncontradicted by the nominalmajority, has traversed the following leading episodes:

—At an early date, on the motion of Liebknecht, thesmall Socialist delegation in the Reichstag decided uponthe tactics they were to adopt. These were to utilizeevery opportunity in that body to assert their negativeand protesting principles, and to keep strictly aloof fromparliamentary transactions, proper. And the point wasemphasized by Liebknecht in a pamphlet in which therule of conduct was explained thus:

“This negative position may not be given up, else theparty would give up its principle. Under nocircumstances, and on no field may the SocialDemocracy negotiate with the enemy. Negotiations can

DANIEL DE LEON


be conducted only where there is a common ground tostand on. To negotiate with forces, that are hostile onmatters of principle, means to sacrifice principle itself.Principle is indivisible. It is either wholly kept, or whollysacrificed. The slightest concession on matters ofprinciple infers the abandonment of principle.Whosoever parliamentarizes log-rolls; who log-rolls isbound by purchase.”—This indisputable norm for theparliamentary posture of the Socialist Revolution, onceaccepted, was later given up, despite the cry of “treason!”and “Parliamentary Quagmire!” The party since pursuedthe course of parliamentarizing with its opponent.

—In 1875, when the then two Socialist wings ofGermany—the Marxists and the Lassalleans—wereabout to unite, Marx issued a circular letter, intendedespecially for some of the leaders of the Marxist wing. Inthis letter Marx analyzes and condemns the programme,under which the fusion was to be perfected, as“bourgeois,” “objectionable,” “demoralizing,” a “dickeringin principles,” a proof that “Socialist ideas were onlyskin-deep with the party;” and he warned that“everybody knows how pleased workingmen are with thefact of a union, but you are mistaken if you believe thatthis momentary success is not bought too dearly.” AndBebel, then in prison for his revolutionary attitude,issued from his confinement a letter of protest declaring“he could not join in the fusion, and when his ninemonths were out, he would raise the banner of revoltagainst it.”—The warning was disregarded: thebourgeois-labeled programme was adopted: the fusionwas perfected: the threatened revolt never set in.

—In 1884, energetic protests were raised against therepresentation of the Social Democratic Reichstag



delegation in the “Senioren Konvent”—a convention of“captains of industry,” without official functions orpower, and intended for the interchange of views onLabor and kindred matters. Participation in such bodieswas pronounced “a violation of the revolutionaryprinciple,” “a disgrace to the dignity of the freeman,” “acomedy,” “a diplomatic flank-move looking toreconciliation,” “a fly in the ointment of the late electionsuccesses,” and the “Proletariat was to awake andwinnow the chaff from the wheat.” Bebel, reporting theFrankfort meeting that started the protest, wrote of it:“It is not true that the meeting consisted of furiousAnarchists. It consisted of the best and oldest comrades,and was animated by the best of spirits.”—“Since then,”said Vollmar in Dresden, “we have grown accustomed tothe matter; much is not to be gained from theseconventions, but they are valuable sources ofinformation.”

—At the time of the Cologne Congress a bitter debatetook place on the subject of the so-called equitable laboror employment bureaus, which had just started,especially in South Germany, and at the first conventionof which bourgeois and Social Democraticrepresentatives took a part. It was again Bebel who ledthe assault. He declared such acts a “prancing in knee-breeches” and a “lowering of tone;” to appeal to the“general philanthropy of the bourgeois classes” was in“direct opposition to the idea of the class struggle.”—Twoyears later, Bebel and other Social Democrats joined justsuch a convention of bourgeois philanthropists in Zurich;and their participation in such conventions has sincecontinued in regular order, as a matter of course.

—The attitude of subserviency to the Government,

DANIEL DE LEON


struck by the Trades Unions, notably by the compositors,was at first hostilized by the party as an attitude that“dulled the edge of the class struggle.” It was ridiculed.The Typograhical Union was dubbed “His PrussianMajesty’s Union.”—The party gave up that policy.

—The caucuses of the Reichstag delegation of theparty are frequently convulsed with heated debates onthe attitude to be taken on the bourgeois reformmethods, introduced in the Reichstag, especially withregard to the deceptive, but seemingly favorable, “labor”bills. At such caucuses the argument had been made: “Itis quite impossible for us to abandon our position andvote for these bills. Who of us would dare appear afterthat at the labor meetings? The very edge of ouragitation and the traditional posture of the party wouldbe dulled and sacrificed.”—The bills were regularlysupported.

—The election laws for the Prussian Landtag are suchthat, to participate in them, the Social Democracy wouldhave to enter into deals with bourgeois parties. At theCologne Congress of 1893 the question of going into thePrussian Landtag elections was raised and thunderinglyvoted down. Bebel again led. “A compromise with thehostile parties,” he declared, “cannot choose but lead tothe demoralization of the party.” The proposed step waspronounced “a compromise in the worse sense of theword,” and it was laid down, as a matter of duty, thatthe party was to abstain from the suffrage at theLandtag elections.—At the Mainz Congress of 1900,Bebel himself ceased to see any objection to the “cattle-trade” (Kuhhandel); he declared he had changed hisviews; he regretted the strong expressions used atCologne; and he announced a new principle:



“Compromise is an agreement with another for mutualsupport, to the end of reaching that which cannot bereached with unaided effort. Why raise such a howlagainst that!”—The Cologne decision was, accordingly,formally reversed, and the new principle was pursued.

—The election laws for municipal elections are open toobjections similar to those for the Landtag. Theelectorate is divided into property classes. In 1884, theBerlin party adopted a resolution against participationin the election for municipal officers on the ground that:

“Participation in class elections is a violation of theparty’s platform, and it nowise promotes thedevelopment of the workingman’s party. On thecontrary, it promotes the opportunities for self-seekingpoliticians, and this has a corrupting influence.”—TheBerlin party shortly after gave up its stand. Closing theargument on this head, and alluding to the anti-Vice-Presidential arguments, which condemned the idea ofSocial Democrats putting on knee-breeches on Courtoccasions, as required of the Vice-Presidents, Vollmarremarked:

“The municipal officers of Berlin proudly carry a chainof office from which hangs the image of FrederickWilliam III. Think of it! Knee-breeches will burn one’sthighs; but the royal image may be carried on thebreast!”

There still remains an episode, the crowning one ofall. But this is not yet the place to cite it. This, however,is a place of sufficient elevation where to pause for amoment, look backward and take a preliminarycomprehensive view of the lay of the land.

For one thing, sufficient facts have been cited towarrant the summary with which Vollmar introduced

DANIEL DE LEON


his sketch of the history of the party’s tactics, and toquote it here as one of the characterizations of thesituation. He said:

“The thought has been recently expressed that it wasa pity we had not yet a ‘History of Tactics.’ It might berather called a ‘History of the Stagnation of the GermanSocial Democracy.’ It would be in no small degreeinteresting to learn from it what all has been condemnedamong us as ‘watering,’ as ‘repudiation of principles,’ as‘violation of traditions,’ as ‘abandonment of the principleof the class struggle,’ etc.; how, regularly after each suchsentence, the Social Democracy quaffed down theingredients of the alleged poisoned chalice, and likedthem; and how, thereupon, the old ‘poison’ label wasspeedily transferred to some new cup.”

For another thing, the outlines of two conflictingstreams are in plain sight. Leaping forward for aninstant, to the field of the Dresden Convention, the twogroups may be described by their leadingexponents—Bebel and Vollmar.

VON VOLLMAR.

Whether Vollmar is equipped with the requisiteerudition to consciously steer his course by theconstellations that preside over the German socio-political waters, and sails “by chart,” aware of thecurrents he navigates and the soundings of the shallows,or whether only instinct guides him, matters not.Vollmar is a Socialist—in the sense that he foresees theultimate breakdown of capitalism, and is readyenthusiastically to lend a helping hand towards theraising of the Socialist Republic, as the only ultimate



goal yet in sight worthy of man’s efforts. But he is not arevolutionary Socialist. Whatever else Vollmar might beelsewhere, he can be none in Germany. Intelligent orsentient, he has adapted his conduct to local exigencies.In a country still so feudal that the organic law of theland can be changed only with the consent of the Kaiser;in a country still so far back politically that institutionalimprovements have, as of olden days, to be virtuallyoctroyed from above; in a country still so politicallyprimitive that, by constitutional enactment, theMonarch’s sword can outweigh in the balance thecombined will of the people and parliament;—in such acountry there are still tall and wide mountain ranges tobe tunnelled by the drill of bourgeois reform, and ofuseful reform generally. There the season for the SocialRevolution is not yet.

With guile, or innocent purpose, the effort is oftenmade to blur “Revolution” into “Reform,” and “Reform”into “Revolution;” and, with innocent purpose, or withguile, the attempt is not infrequently made to stampedethe argument into an acceptance of the blur by holdingup “cataclysm” as the only alternative. Dismissing the“argument” of cataclysm as unbecoming, and the“cataclysmic threat” for the mere phrase-bogey that it is,the point of contact between “Reform” and “Revolution”—meaning by the latter the Socialist Revolution—liestoo far back to here merit attention. They are “horses ofdifferent color,” or, dropping slang, children of differentparents. The line that separates them is sharp. “Reform”infers a common ground between contestants;“Revolution” the absence of such ground. The two termsare mutually repellent in social science. Socialism isnothing if not Revolution. There is no common ground

DANIEL DE LEON


between the contestants. With Socialism, on the onehand, and the system of private ownership in naturaland social opportunities, or class rule, on the other, eachstands on ground that is mutually abhorrent. The twocan not deal, barter or log-roll. They can meet only toclash, and for extermination.

It does not alter the principle here laid down that, at atime, in England, and even now, in Germany, bona fidereform could and can be wrung from the possessingclasses for the working class. On the contrary, wheresuch reforms are possible, they are so just because a trueSocialist Movement is not yet possible,—a feudal class,still mighty, though crowded by its upstart rival, thecapitalist, and just because of being thus crowded, willlend a helping hand to what instinctively it feels to be itsrising rival’s predestined slayer. SO LONG AS SUCHREFORMS ARE TO BE GAINED, THEY SHOULD BESTRIVEN FOR; but so long as they are to be gained, thestruggle is not yet between Socialism and privateproperty in natural and social opportunities, that is,between two foes standing upon irreconcilable ground:the struggle still is between capitalism and feudalism,that is, foes standing on the common ground of classrule: the reign of the bourgeois is not yet absolute: thepath is still barred by feudalism: the season is not yet fora Socialist Movement. Per contra, the moment feudalismis swept aside, and capitalism wields the scepteruntrammeled, as here in America,—from that momentthe ground is ready for Revolution to step on; what ismore, from that moment Reform becomes a snare and adelusion. It virtually is no more to be had. As shown inthe second of the Two Pages from Roman History,reforms then become palliatives, and these are but



palliations of wrong; or it is sops, and these are banana-peels under foot—in either case destructive of therevolutionary fibre and directness, a bane to its allegedbeneficiaries. Where the thought of “Socialism” rises inconjunction with that of “Reform,” or of “Reform” withthat of “Socialism,” the Socialism can only be, either—asis happening here in America in the instance of the so-called Socialist, alias Social Democratic party—amanifestation of puerility doused with peculativeschemes; or—as one time in England, and now inGermany,—a latter-day adaptation of the “Christianity”of Clovis, that is, an aspiration after an ideal, too ideal,however, to be seriously contemplated, and,consequently, is decorously put away in a niche, to bereverenced, while serious, practical thought is turned tothe hard, practical reality.

The group in the German Social Democracy, of whichVollmar is the leading exponent, sentient or intelligent,strained for the only field of vantage that the backwardconditions of the land provided. Seeing the absence ofthe field for revolutionary Socialism to deploy on, itstrained and carried the Movement to take its stand onthe field of radical bourgeoisism, that is, of Reform. Withthe common ground among the contestants, implied inReform, the Socialist Vollmar parliamentarizes—withall that that implies. Nor does such conduct at all inferintellectual obliquity. Nothing more natural, aye,unavoidable, than that a belated radical bourgeoismovement in our days should be strongly flavored withrevolutionary Socialist feeling and terminology,—least ofall when, as in this instance, it started Socialist.Accordingly, as sketched above, the early and wisewarning of Marx against fusion at Gotha was reverently

DANIEL DE LEON


niched; Liebknecht’s masterly apophthegm on theparliamentary attitude of the Socialist Movement wasdecorously shelved, by himself excluded; and one afteranother, despite opposition and condemnation, thosetactics were successively taken up and enthusiasticallypursued, which denoted the gradual placing of itself bythe German Social Democracy on that common ground ofbattle where the contestants may, are expected to andmust barter.

BEBEL.

The struggler with the Vollmar stream is the streamtypified by Bebel. Bebel’s Dresden speeches which havethrilled the hearts of the militant Socialists the worldover and will be translated for the readers of The Peopleas a type of the revolutionary lyric—vigorous, unsparing,elevating, uncompromising and pure—is the most fervidof the series that has yet proceeded from his side of thehouse, at the various stages in the above-recordedevolutionary process of his party’s tactics. “All the worldloves a lover.” Infinitely more sympathetic than thepractical Vollmar, Bebel, it must, nevertheless, beconceded, has failed to subordinate his ideal to thecircumstances. His fires proved proof against facts.Though banked, they never have been extinguished.Always heating the mass, that, in the end, everprevailed against them, and thus ever imparting aglamor to his party, they periodically would break andleap forth in tongues of lambent flame,—soul-stirring,warning. But their language could be none other thanthat of protest. Periodically, when a new shootdownward was shot in its course by the current that



Bebel was constrained to drift with, a new shock wasfelt. Ever at such recurring periods, the reminiscencesand ideals of his own and his party’s youth would re-assert themselves. They would then win the upper handof their latest enforced silence, as they now did atDresden, and carry the day. Then—as happenedregularly before, and poetically expressed byVollmar—the ingredients of the alleged poisoned chalicewould be quaffed anew and found palatable, and the“poison” label transferred to some fresh cup; the Bebel-swollen flood of the nominal majority would againrecede; the Vollmar ebb of the nominal minority wouldreturn and resume control.

A THIRD ELEMENT.

None who ever studied history closely, none who everwatched the actions of large masses of men, will fail toscent from the preceding sketch the existence of a third,not stream, but body, besides the two leading streamsabove outlined. With the flux and reflux of such streamsof human action, there must be a third—not stream,because it has no life of its own, but—group, or pool; agroup, not made up of the shadings of the two mainstreams, but of distinct physiognomy, a physiognomy suigeneris . Indeed, there is such a group. Devoid ofconvictions, devoid of the practical sense of a Vollmarthat tends to solidify ideals, devoid of the moral andmental exaltation of a Bebel that tends to idealize thepractical, the group in question consists of theorickers,who riot in theory. Their delight is to turn out suchmerchandise according as occasion and the mostcontradictory, at that, may demand, in phrasessymmetrically rounded. The type of this group is

DANIEL DE LEON


Kautsky: its feature “to run with the hares and barkwith the hounds.” Here is the place to cite that latestand crowning episode, merely referred to above, in thetactical history of the German Social Democracy asfurnished by the Dresden Convention itself, and fromthe elevation of which the eye will be enabled to embracea full view of the lay of the land.

MILLERANDISM.

The Socialist Movement of France held its breath inamazement when, in 1898, Millerand, a member of oneof its organizations, accepted a cabinet portfolio at thehands of the bourgeois government, and took his seat inthat executive body, beside General Gallifet, the butcherof the Commune. Whatever hope against hope may haveat first lingered in the minds of the serious FrenchSocialists was soon dispelled by Millerand’s placidcontinuance in the cabinet, after the orders issued thatprovoked the military butcheries of the strikingworkingmen at Chalon and that upheld the militarybutcheries of the striking workingmen at Martinique.That which, based upon a long uninterrupted series offacts, theory had before then established, was butconfirmed in the instance of Millerand. It is no longer amatter open to discussion. The Socialist Revolution hasno common ground with class rule. Despite the bugaboosof “Clericalism!” and “The Republic in Danger!”periodically gotten up by the French Bourgeoisie,France, though not advanced to the capitalist height ofAmerica, is well out of her feudal swaddling clothes.There, like here, “Reform” is now a snare and a delusion;there, like here, the ground is solid for the Revolutionary



Movement to step on, and proceed from: to tread thepath of barter, as Millerand did, is there, as it is here,when not visionary, corrupt. The Millerand barter rentthe French Socialist Movement in twain. The earnestSocialists, headed by Guesde, repudiated Millerand; theReformers, headed by Jaures, upheld him. TheInternational Socialist Congress met when thediscussion was at its height. The two factions (if theJaures element can, except in scorn, be termed aSocialist faction) rushed into the hall, the latter seekinginternational justification, the former the internationalcondemnation of the theory—to say nothing of thepractical betrayers of Socialism. It is enough of acommentary on the structure of these internationalSocialist congresses that such an issue could at all risein their midst. It did. It was the one issue before thebody; and it took shape in a resolution, since known tofame as the

“KAUTSKY RESOLUTION.”

The “Kautsky Resolution” is a product typical of itssource. It is a panel, painfully put together, ofsymmetrically rounded theses and antitheses on theministerial question, in which “the head eats up thetail.” This feature of the resolution is so markedthat—despite the closing sentence distinctly enoughgives up the class struggle by conceiving the possibilityof “impartiality on the party of a capitalist governmentin the struggles between Capital and Labor”—they gaverise to a verbose controversy as to whether or not theyfavored Millerandism. The Dresden Convention shed,however, such a light upon the matter that further

DANIEL DE LEON


controversy is now more than ever vain, and in the lightthat it shed, the crowning episode, so far, in theconsistent history of the German Social Democracy, isfully illumined.

In the course of his speech, Auer, the gifted lieutenantof Vollmar, deliberately let fall a pregnant scrap ofinformation. Said he:

“I went along as a delegate to the InternationalCongress at Paris. It devolved upon me to speak in thename of the German delegation. And to what motion didI speak? To the Kautsky Resolution on the ministerialquestion. Kautsky and others had framed the resolution.It contains not a syllable of my own. I do not tackle suchdangerous experiments, when I know there arecomrades who are better hands at such matters. ISPOKE AMID THE PLAUDITS OF ALL OUR DELEGATES,OF K AUTSKY INCLUDED, who was the father of thewhole affair, and who had furnished me with the line ofargument for my speech. Kautsky was then delighted tosee ‘Old Auer’ again pull through so well. There was notone among us German delegates in Paris, who, at thattime, took upon this question the stand that, for reasonswhich I care not here to enlarge upon, shaped itselflater. And it has come to the pass that now a fellow isactually looked upon as a very questionable comradewho does not consider the ministry of Millerand an act ofturpitude, and does not see in Jaures a man, who, as aresult of his revisionist inclinations, means to lead theparty away from class-consciousness and into thebourgeois camp. Gentlemen, THAT SHOULD HAVE BEENSTATED AT THE TIME, IN PARIS. In that case I would,probably, not have spoken, and the charge could not nowbe made. If Kautsky was then of an opinion different



from that he holds to-day, he surely has no right toblame those who to-day are still of the same opinion ashe was then.”

And Kautsky, who spoke after, left these statementsof fact uncontradicted, and, taken off his guard, evensupplemented them with the information:

“Auer said in Paris: ‘True enough, a Millerand casehas not yet arisen among us [in Germany]: we are notyet so far: but I hope we may reach the point at theearliest day possible.’” ! ! !

Thus, the gory spectre of the traitor Millerandstalking across the floor of the International Congress atParis, and the very window-panes of the hall stillrattling to the musketry that butchered the workers ofChalon and Martinique, the “Kautsky Resolution” wasintroduced, was recommended by such language and wascarried, the German delegation voting solid for it,and—typical of the modern international status, and tothe lasting glory of the Socialist Labor Party—the rankand file of its delegation forced the wabbly Lucien Sanialto stand straight, and cast the solid vote of thedelegation against it.

Was it an accident that Auer was chosen by Kautskyto make the speech of the German delegation at Paris?“Do you imagine,” asked Kautsky at Dresden, affectinghorror, “that I approved these utterances of Auer’s?” Ifhe disapproved, yet he held his tongue there where, asAuer well observed, disapproval should have beenexpressed, and he indulged in applause only. But nine-tenths of the European Movement is either caught in theidentical trammels of belated and now necessary radicalbourgeois reform, that the German Social Democracy iscaught in; or its representatives, as happened with the

DANIEL DE LEON


English Social Democratic Federation, were stage-strutters, seeking notoriety. At the Paris Congress ananti-Millerandist attitude was decidedly unpopular;there Kautsky was “running with the hares.”Subsequently, when the reaction set in; when the standtaken by the trivial minority at Paris began to operate;when the baneful effect of the “Kautsky Resolution”upon the French Socialist movement was realized, thenfollowed a series of excuses, dodgings and hedgings, tothe extent that Iskra, the organ of the Russian SocialDemocratic Labor Party, wittily satirized both authorand resolutions as the “Caoutchouc (india rubber)resolutions.” The situation in Germany was, moreover,aggravated by the top-heavy and irritating pranks ofBernstein—a gentleman whose measure The People tookat an early date and exposed—and of other “free speech”intellectuals of his ilk. The fires of Bebel (who wasabsent from Paris) long dormant, leaped forth again intongues of flame, until the landmark of Dresden wasreached and passed, with Kautsky again to the fore, now“barking with the hounds.”

VIRTUAL UNANIMITY DESPITE SEEMINGDIFFERENCES.

If the Marxian-Morgan law of social evolution holdsgood; if the attestation of their soundness—as recordedin the sketch of the history of the German SocialDemocracy on the party’s tactics, culminating with the“Kautsky Resolution” and Auer’s speech hoping for aGerman Millerand, both enthusiastically supported bythe German delegation at Paris, together with thedocument, published last year in The People, with which



the Social Democratic Reichstag delegation opened thelate campaign—points to any conclusion, then theconclusion is that the Dresden Convention turned nonew leaf, and could turn none, but, mutatis mutandis ,rehearsed a scene often periodically rehearsed before inthe party’s course—the scene of the revolutionary spiritof Socialism being conjured up by Bebel at periodicallyarising new departures, then melting away again, andthe resumption of the practical course. Some essentiallyrotten branches of the brigade of “free thought”intellectuals may have been cracked in the Dresdenstorm and be sawed off to be cast away:—that hashappened before. The vanities that prompted in somebreasts the panting after the hollow honor of a vice-presidency, even if it had to be log-rolled for, may havebeen, probably were, cauterized:—even seriousmovements have a way of occasionally squelching trifleswith a great display of strength, in order to pursue theirprescribed path with all the freer hand. All this may be.But the principle, now christened “revisionism” andwhich, as shown in the debates, had previouslyundergone a series of equally damaging christenings,and survived them all, and in the end asserted itself, isin the nature of things un-uprootable—so long as thefeudal soil lasts. Conditions, still peculiar to Germany,have forced the Social Democracy to come down from theair and place itself upon the only field there was to takea stand on—the field of reform. On that field thecontestants have a common ground. On common groundcontestants can deal, and barter may there be ahandmaid of progress—such as is possible.

Thus the fury of the Dresden debates, the paradoxthey presented, is explained. Unconsciously, one set of

DANIEL DE LEON


the delegates, the Vollmar element, were in nervousapprehension lest the party was rhetorized from theground that all agreed it had made stupendous progresson; unconsciously, another set, the Bebel element, wereunder a nervous strain lest the party’s beloved Socialisthalo was dimmed. THESE WERE THE ISSUES, and quitemomentous they were. Upon them depends the downfallof the German Empire, that is, the completion of thebourgeois revolution for Germany. Under suchapprehensions, mutually affecting the contestants,ultimate unanimity and good will were assured. Indeed,almost puerile were the measures taken toward thatend. After a violent discussion had convulsed the party’spress and public meetings, before the gathering of theCongress, upon the issue of ACCEPTING THE OFFICE OFVICE-PRESIDENT OF THE REICHSTAG, and after theoriginal resolution on the subject, truthfully reflectingthe sentiment of the preceding discussion, expresslydisapproved the acceptance of such an office, a wateredresolution was subsequently substituted, approving theacceptance of the office, but emphatically repudiating itsaccessories, of which the wearing of knee-breeches atcourt is one—a turn-about, that gave the whole pre-congress violent discussion the aspect of having been allabout gala knee-breeches only! Hence the mentalplacidity of the nominal minority, amidst the intenseearnestness of all. Hence the virtual unanimity at thefinal vote.

A candle having been burnt to St. Michael, his dragoncould continue to be worshipped.


M.

REPORT OF THE AUSTRALIAN SOCIALISTLEAGUE TO THE AMSTERDAM CONGRESS.

AUSTRALIAN SOCIALIST LEAGUE, GENERALEXECUTIVE HEADQUARTERS.

To the International Socialists, in Congress Assembled:Comrades:—We, members of the Australian Socialist

League, located in the City of Sydney, State of NewSouth Wales, Australia, being unable on account ofdistance and lack of funds to send delegates to theCongress, forward by letter greetings to all organizedSocialists in Congress met, and a brief history andstatement of the Socialist Movement here as we see andknow it since Congress last met.

The Australian Socialist League is the only politicalorganization—with its party, the Socialist LaborParty—standing definitely for uncompromisingSocialism, having within the last three years contestedtwo Federal and one State election, and, at time ofwriting, preparing for a coming State election.

In 1901 the first elections under the Federalconstitution were held, and under the constitution theStates were one electorate, each returning to the Senatesix Senators, and it being mandatory for each voter torecord a vote for six of the candidates or his vote wouldbe informal. The League placed six candidates in thefield with the following result: A. Thomson, 5,823; J.O.Moroney, 4,257; H.E. Holland, 4,771; J. Neill, 5,952; J.J.Monish, 3,109; T. Melling, 3,495.

The State of New South Wales was, until 1904,divided into 125 electorates, each electorate returning

DANIEL DE LEON


one member to its State Parliament. The Leaguecontested five electorates with this result: J. Neill, 30; A.Thomson, 24; H.E. Holland, 33; J. Monish, 58; J.O.Moroney, 189.

In December of last year—1903—the Federal electionstook place and the League placed three candidates in thefield for the Senate, the conditions being similar, theState one electorate, and mandatory on the part of thevoter to record his or her vote for three of the candidatesto render his or her vote formal.

But the first Federal [Parliament] had passed anelectoral act which contained a penalising clausecompelling each candidate to deposit with his or hernomination paper a sum of £25 to be forfeited in theevent of the candidate not polling one-fifth of the votespolled by the lowest successful candidate. This to usmeant a fine of £75 for placing our candidates in thefield to uphold Socialist principles.

The Socialist Labor Party’s vote was: A. Thomson,25,976; J.O. Moroney, 25,924; F.H. Drake, 17,870; andafter making deductions it is safe to assert that fully8,000 of the votes polled by our lowest candidate werethose of convinced Socialists. The Capitalist Classnominees polled: First, 192,987; second, 191,170; third,188,860; so that we forfeited our £75 deposit.

The Australian Socialist League owns and issuesweekly a four-page newspaper, The People, which is theonly Socialist paper published in the AustralianCommonwealth.

In the other Australian States there existorganizations more or less socialistic, under such namesas International Socialist, Vanguard, Fellowship, andSocial-Democratic clubs. None of them take definite



political action, being mere adherents of the existingParliamentary Labor Parties of the different States, whoendeavor not to overthrow the capitalist system, but tomake such system bearable, being destitute of anyrevolutionary aim.

In Australia, notwithstanding what newspaper menand others have written about the socialistic nature ofthe laws, there IS NO SOCIALISM. We are faced withexactly the same economic conditions as obtain in allcapitalist countries. Thousands lack employment, andpoverty with its attendant misery and degradation isalways with us.

In most of the Australian States the railways, and insome the tramways, are owned and managed by thegovernment on strictly commercial principles. In otherdirections the State has extended its functions andemploys labor direct. But the worker remains inAustralia, whether employed by the State government orthe individual private employer, an exploited wageslave, as is his exploited fellow wage slave in othercountries.

In conclusion, the appended manifesto sets out clearlyour economic, industrial and political attitude. For yearsto come our primary work must be the making ofSocialists, and, isolated as we are, to some extent wemust carry on that work in our own way. In other words,we must “develop the capacity to abolish Australiancapitalism,” aided by the experience of our comrades inother countries when that experience fits Australianindustrial, economic and political conditions.

On behalf of the General Executive Committee,JAMES O. MORONEY,

General Secretary.

DANIEL DE LEON


May 14, 1904.

MANIFESTO OF THE AUSTRALIAN SOCIALIST LEAGUE.

To the mental and manual Working Class and allother honest Citizens of the Australian Commonwealth,we Socialists ask you to organize with us in theAustralian Socialist League, because we are face to facewith conditions that require the united action of ourclass at the ballot box. It is to point out those conditionsthat we have prepared this Manifesto, and we hope thatevery member of the Working Class into whose hands itmay fall {will} read it carefully. For it is only by carefulreading and close investigation that we (the WorkingClass) can learn the cause of our industrial and economicenslavement and how to free ourselves.

THE PRESENT FORM OF SOCIETY.

The present form of Society rests on {private}ownership of the land and the tools of production.

The owners of most of the land and the tools ofproduction constitute what are economically known asthe Capitalist Class. Hence the use of the term: TheCapitalist form of Society.

TWO CLASSES IN THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH.

Ownership divides Society in the AustralianCommonwealth as in all capitalistic countries into twodistinct classes.

One is the class of Employers, and the other is theclass of Wageworkers.

The employers are the Capitalist Class; and the Wage



Workers are the Working Class.

THE WORKING CLASS SUSTAIN SOCIETY.

While the Working Class, by their labor, produce to-day—as in the past—the wealth that sustains Society,they lack economic and industrial security, suffer fromoverwork, enforced idleness, and their attendantmiseries, all of which are due to the present Capitalistform of Society.

THE CAPITALIST CLASS.

The Capitalist Class, through the ownership of mostof the land and the tools of production—which arenecessary for the production of food, clothing, shelterand fuel—hold the Working Class in complete economicand industrial subjection, and thus live on the labor ofthe Working Class.

THE WORKING CLASS.

The Working Class{,} in order to secure food, clothing,shelter and fuel, must sell their labor-power to theowning Capitalist Class—that is to say, they must workfor the Capitalist Class. The Working Class do all theuseful work of Society, they are the producers of all thewealth of the world, while the Capitalist Class are theexploiters who live on the wealth produced by theWorking Class.

CLASS INTERESTS.

As the Capitalist Class live out of the product of theWorking Class, the interest of the Working Class is

DANIEL DE LEON


diametrically opposed to the interest of the CapitalistClass. The Capitalist Class—owning as they do, most ofthe land and the tools of production—employ theWorking Class, buy their labor-power, and return tothem in the form of wages, only part of the wealth theyhave produced. The rest of the wealth produced by theWorking Class the Capitalist Class keep; it constitutestheir profit—i.e., rent, interest and dividends.

Thus the Working Class produce their own wages aswell as the profits of the Capitalist Class. In otherwords, the Working Class work a part only of each day toproduce their wages, and the rest of the day to producesurplus (profits) for the owning Capitalist Class.

The interest of the Capitalist Class is to get all thesurplus (profits) possible out of the labor of the WorkingClass. The interest of the Working Class is to get the fullproduct of their labor.

THE CLASS STRUGGLE.

Hence there is a struggle between these two classes.This struggle is called the “Class Struggle.” It is astruggle between the owning Capitalist Class—whichmust continue to exploit the Working Class in order tolive—and the non-owning Working Class, who, in orderto live must work for the owners of the land and thetools of production. To win Economic Freedom the non-owning Working Class must force this struggle into thepolitical field and use their political power (the ballot) toabolish Capitalist Class ownership, and thusrevolutionize in the interests of the Working Class theentire structure of Industrial Society.



THE USE OF POLITICAL POWER.

The Capitalist Class who own most of the land andthe tools of production, own the Government and governthe Working Class, not for the well-being of the WorkingClass but for the well-being and profit of the CapitalistClass.

It is only by using their political power that theCapitalist Class make their exploitation of the WorkingClass legal and the oppression of their systemconstitutional. And it is only by using their politicalpower that the Working Class can make their ownexploitation illegal and their own oppressionunconstitutional. It is only by the use of their politicalpower that the Working Class can abolish CapitalistClass rule and privilege, and establish a planful form ofSociety based on the Collective Ownership of all the landand the tools of production, in which equal industrialrights shall be the share of all.

THE MIDDLE CLASS.

There exists between the Capitalist Class and theWorking Class a number of small farmers, smallmanufacturers, small storekeepers, and self-employedworkers, who together constitute what is called theMiddle Class; all of whom do business on a small scale,generally with out-of-date machinery, or no machinery,and who are therefore unable to compete with theCapitalist Class whose gigantic factories, farms, andshops are equipped with the best labor-and-wage-savingmachinery, which lowers the cost of their production andthus forces the small Middle Class outside the margin of

DANIEL DE LEON


profit. The Capitalist Class system of concentration inCompany, Syndicate, Combine and Trust absorbs a fewof the small Middle Class, but thrusts by far the greaterpart of them into the ranks of the Wageworking Class, tothere intensify the existing struggle. As a class, theMiddle Class are being annihilated by the evolution ofthe Capitalist System.

THE FUTURE.

We, Socialists, organized in the Australian SocialistLeague declare, that to the Working Class belongs thefuture. Organized in the political party of theLeague—the Socialist Labor Party—the Working Class(and all other honest persons in the Commonwealth)can, through the ballot box, abolish the CapitalistSystem of Ownership with its accompanying Class Ruleand Class Oppression, and establish in its placeSocialism—an Industrial Democracy—wherein all theland and the tools of production shall be the Collectiveproperty of the whole people, to be operated by the wholepeople for the production of commodities for use and notfor profit. We ask the Working Class of the AustralianCommonwealth to organize with us and the Socialistforces of the world to end the domination of PrivateOwnership—with its poverty-breeding system ofplanless production—and substitute in its place theSocialist Co-operative Commonwealth in which everyworker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of hisor her faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors ofcivilization.

The following is the Australian Socialist Labor Party’sfull ticket for the Senate:



DRAKE, F.H.;MORONEY, J.O.;THOMSON, A.

If you believe in Socialism VOTE the FULL Ticket.

Presented to the International Socialist Congress ofAmsterdam, August 14, 1904, by the delegate of theSocialist Labor Party of the United States of America,with credentials from the Australian Socialist Leagueempowering him to act in its behalf.

DANIEL DE LEON,Delegate of the Socialist Labor Party

of the United States of America.


N.

REPORT OF THE SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY OFGREAT BRITAIN

To the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam:Greeting:—There is little wonder that the Continental Socialist

should view with perplexity the developments in Britishpolitics of the present day. To the British worker himselfthe situation is full of difficulty and uncertainty. It isperfectly true that the last few years have seen thegrowth and steady increase of class sentiment amongthe workers, of dissatisfaction with their erstwhileleaders and guides in politics. The feeling that labormust stand alone and work out its own salvation isgaining in intensity day by day. Such a condition ofaffairs is undoubtedly of advantage to the SocialistLabor Party, and where we can reach the minds of theworkers who are passing through this phase of thought,we are generally successful in changing their crude anduntutored discontent into intelligent and educatedrevolutionary thought and action. But many are thetraps and side-tracks that lie between the awakenedBritish worker and Socialism. The worker is dazzled bya bewildering variety of professed friends. Among the“orthodox” political parties, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain,the former radical Republican, at present the real headand guide of the Conservative Party, professes greatsolicitude for the laboring classes, and calls upon themto improve their lot by supporting his tariff scheme. Inthe Liberal Camp, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman callson the toilers to reject the schemes of the Conservatives



and support the existing system of free trade, whileadmitting that, under this system, 12,000,000 of theworking class live on the verge of starvation. Inindustrial constituencies, where the influence ofcapitalist Liberalism is waning, the party organizersseek to exploit the nascent class sentiment of theworkers, by introducing chosen lackeys who callthemselves “Liberal Labor” Members of Parliament.Latest of all we have the establishment of aConservative Labor Party and the selection of LaborApostles to indoctrinate the proletariat with Mr.Chamberlain’s latest nostrum.

THE SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY AND POLITICAL TRADEUNIONISM.

Much of the present ferment in the Labor world hasbeen caused by recent decisions in the Highest Courts ofJustice, which have rendered the Trade Unionsbankrupt by making their funds liable for all financiallosses caused by strikes. The British Trade Union isbased on the false assumption (often explicitly stated intheir constitutions) that the interests of capitalists andworkers are identical. This being so, they have (evenduring the Chartist agitation) opposed all independentworking class political action. The efforts of the TradeUnion leaders in inducing the rank and file to adhere tothis policy have, in many cases, been rewarded by seatsin Parliament as “Liberal Labor” members. “Labor”members of Parliament defended Asquith, the LiberalHome Secretary, after he had sent down troops to shootthe striking miners at Featherstone, and “LaborLeaders” helped him at the next parliamentary contestto delude the Fifeshire miners into re-electing him to

DANIEL DE LEON


power. The legal decisions to which we have referredhave somewhat altered circumstances. When the fundsare menaced, the salaries of the Trade Union leaders areexposed to danger. The Labor Leaders saw no need for,and strongly opposed political action for working classinterests even in face of Featherstone massacres. Now,however, when their salaries are menaced, they haveformed a political organization, called the LaborRepresentation Committee, supported and financed bythe Trade Unions, and to which the Independent LaborParty is affiliated. If this were a bona fide Labor Party,however crude; if it even contained such a party in thegerm, it would be the duty of all honest Socialists to giveit the utmost support. Such, however, is not the case.The members, leaders, and parliamentaryrepresentatives are hopelessly at variance in their views,containing among their number Liberals, Conservatives,Single Taxers, tame Socialists and Individualists. Evenon Labor politics they are divided. Some support childlabor in factories, others oppose it. Some advocate anEight Hour Bill, others do not. Some profess belief in asort of watered down Socialism; others regard Socialismas anathema, etc., etc. The single point on which thisparty is united is the necessity to safeguard the funds ofthe trade unions. As Mr. John Burns, a Labor Member ofParliament, said: “We simply want the status quo anteFarwell”—that is, the conditions existing before JusticeFarwell gave his decision against the unions. Let theofficials’ salaries be safe and all else, includingFeatherstone massacres, can be tolerated. Another oftheir leaders, who recently sold out to the radicals, said,“We want to get ourselves firmly planted in the House ofCommons and I believe we are not particular about the



way in which we do it.” In other words, the Trade UnionLeader looks upon his office as an institution existing inand bound up with capitalist society, and in truebourgeois fashion claims parliamentary representation,not to emancipate the workers, but to defend his ownspecial interests. So innocuous is this movement tocapitalism, that during the last week or two, while acandidate of this organization has been offering himselffor the suffrages of the workers of Lanarkshire, thecapitalists have actually, in certain cases, admitted himinto their factories and built platforms from which hemight address the workers and solicit their votes.

This party has sprung up like a mushroom in a night,and has excited the jealousy of a section of the radicals,who, both through their press and their orators, areplaying off against it a small quasi-Socialist body calledthe Social Democratic Federation, an organization whichstrives to hide its pronounced revisionist tendenciesbehind a mask of high-sounding Marxian phraseology.Led and directed mainly by middle class men who havenever divested themselves of bourgeois habits ofthought, it is characterized by distrust of and contemptfor the working class, a state of mind which naturallyhas given rise to opportunism and trimming. At oneelection its policy is to support Tories, at another tosupport Liberals, still later to oppose Imperialistcapitalists and support anti-war capitalists. Its wholehistory is full of instances of intrigues with capitalistparties, and of the acceptance of capitalist bribes. It is,in short, the party of English revisionism.

The Socialist Labor Party came into existence as aprotest against the treachery and incompetence of theclass-unconscious political and economic leaders of the

DANIEL DE LEON


working class, to take up the work previously neglectedby the soi-disant “Socialist” parties, of fighting boldly,not only the old capitalist parties, but also the variouspseudo-“Labor” movements which are sidetracking theworkers in the interests of capitalism. We maintain thata Socialist Party which does not possess completeconfidence in itself and in its power to lead the workingclass to emancipation, is a misnomer. We believe in thepolitical and economic organization of the workers, butwe also contend that this organization is useless unlessit is based upon intelligent and class-conscious lines, andtakes the shape of an uncompromising revolutionarySocialist political party and of federated Socialist tradeunions which will work in harmony with the politicalforces of labor. With these ends before us the SocialistLabor Party of Great Britain was founded about a yearago. It has met with success which has surpassed ourhighest expectations. Our official organ, The Socialist, isincreasing in circulation with every issue, and has beenenlarged to more than double its former size. At thepresent day our organization is in evidence in all theindustrial and populous centers of England andScotland: London, Southampton, Manchester,Birmingham, Bournemouth, Wimbledon, Gravesend,Reading, Newcastle, Whitehaven, Middleborough,Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greenock, North Berwick, Leith,Falkirk, Dundee, Aberdeen, Kirkcaldy, etc. Last year,although the party had only been a few months inexistence, we nominated candidates for the municipalelections in five constituencies, and, in spite ofdisadvantageous circumstances, we met with a mostgratifying measure of support from the working class. Atthe next municipal elections we shall take action on a



much larger scale, and when the parliamentary electioncomes around the Socialist Labor Party will undoubtedlygive a good account of itself. Every prospect promises aglorious future to the only party in Britain that keeps tothe narrow path of revolutionary Socialism. As theefficiency of the class-unconscious pure and simple tradeunions decreases, and as the corruption of the leadersincreases, the thinking working class are becomingdisillusioned, and are joining our ranks in ever greaternumbers. Having as its single object the politicalsupremacy of Labor, the expropriation of the capitalistclass and the establishment of the Socialist Republic, theSocialist Labor Party of Great Britain marches steadilyon to that goal, turning aside neither for the sops ofrevisionism nor the bribes of corruptionists.

In the name of the Executive Committee of theSocialist Labor Party of Great Britain,

NEIL MACLEAN,National Secretary.

Glasgow, August 4, 1904.

Presented to the International Socialist Congress byThomas Drummond, Delegate of the ExecutiveCommittee of the Socialist Labor Party.


O.

REPORT FROM LILLE, FRANCE.

French Socialists Meet at Lille and Express the Hope thatIt Will Turn a New Page—De Leon Addresses theAssemblage in French—Lafargue, Guesde, and OthersMake Inspiring and Uncompromising Speeches—TheOutlook As To What Will Be Done at Amsterdam.

Lille, France, August 9, 1904.—The AmsterdamInternational Congress is not yet officially opened. Thatwill happen on the 14th instant. But the precursorthereto is now under way in this city. It is this year’snational congress of the “Parti Socialiste deFrançais”—the Socialist Party of France, which is thename adopted by the bona fide Socialist groups of Francesince the Millerandist confusionists forced these groupsto consolidate. The congress, or convention, hasimportant questions in hand, not the least of which isthe demand that is to be made at Amsterdam on thefatal Kautsky Resolution of four years ago. Theconvention will open this morning. Last evening amagnificent demonstration greeted the occasion.

A monster procession of workingmen of this city,preceded by a band and torches, met the assembleddelegates before the railway station and led them to thespacious hall of the workingmen’s headquarters (Hoteldes Syndicats). Invited by Paul Lafargue to assist at thesessions of the convention, I came down from Antwerpand marched beside Lafargue in the procession. Thecheers of the multitude, that lined the line of march atthe sight of their delegates told volumes in favor of the



“narrow” and “impossibilist” propaganda, agitation andorganization of the P.S. de F. It was a truly inspiringsight. Needless to say, both the processionists and themasses along the route sang continuously; it is theFrench style. The principal songs were l’Internationaleand endless varieties of the Carmagno l e.25 Theprocession wended its way, on purpose, I suspect, by thehouses of leading party members and objectionablecapitalists. Need I add that deafening were the cheerswith which the former were greeted, and the howls andcat calls bestowed upon the latter? I noticed that themotormen on the tramways along the line joined in thesemanifestations.

The meeting hall at the workingmen’s headquarters isarranged like a theatre with two tiers of balconies. Thedelegates had seats on the platform. The meeting wasopened with song, in which the whole closely packedmass in the audience joined.

The chairman, Henri Ghesquiere, opened the meetingwith a review of the situation in France, and thenintroduced in succession the following speakers:

Delory, former Socialist mayor of Lille, and nowmember of the Chamber of Deputies.

Dubreuilh, the National Secretary of the party.Greffier, delegate from Isere.Walter, delegate from St. Louis.26

Cachin, delegate from Gironde.Mrs. Sorgue, delegate from Avignon.Piger, delegate from Loire.Groussier, of Paris, former deputy.

25 [A song from the French Revolution.]26 [Probably “St. Denis.”—Editor]

DANIEL DE LEON


Lafoul, delegate from Lorraine.Daniel De Leon, delegate to the International

Congress of Amsterdam from the Socialist Labor Partyof America. Rubanovitch, delegate to the International Congressof Amsterdam from the Revolutionist party of Russia.

Bouveri, deputy of Montceau.Bracke, Secretary of the Exterior of the party.Roussel, present Mayor of Ivry.De la Porte, present deputy of Sevres.Dryfus , delegate of Belfort.Paul Lafargue, of Paris.Faure, of Dordogne.Myrhens, of Haute Vienne.Constans, present deputy for Allier.Jules Guesde, delegate of Paris.The delegates were introduced in the order given and

with a few fitting words. The speeches were generallyshort. So was mine. I found it advisable to speak inFrench, and I said:

“Mr. President and you, revolutionary Socialistproletariat of the North of France—

“On my way to the International Congress ofAmsterdam, as the delegate of the Socialist Labor Partyof the United States of America, I received from theillustrious Paul Lafargue an invitation to assist at yournational convention, the convention of the PartiSocialiste de Français, here in Lille. I have come. Hadmy party in America known of this opportunity, I knowit would have instructed me to greet you in its name. Iknow I act agreeable to its wishes, in greeting you, therevolutionary Socialists of France, as now I do; and inthe name of the Socialist Labor Party to assure you that,



when the hour shall have struck, America will do herduty. Perchance, on that day, this generation maywitness the spectacle witnessed by the generation of1776—France side by side with America. In 1776, theoncoming capitalist revolution forced the hand of thethen feudal government of France, compelling it tomarshal itself with America when America rang thetocsin for the downfall of feudalism. I, for one, among mycomrades in America, cast my eyes in Europe uponrevolutionist France. Perchance, when the Americanrevolutionary generation of to-day will, in its turn, ringthe tocsin for the downfall of capitalism, this generationwill see the spectacle of revolutionary France, therevolutionary Socialist proletariat of France, risingsimultaneously beside us.

“But I have not come to Lille to speak. I have come tosee and to hear. And when I return to America I shall beable to report to my party the French shading of thatcentral principle upon which both the Parti Socialiste deFrançais and the Socialist Labor Party of America arefounded, labor, struggle, and are bound to triumph.”

It would take too long to sum up the short and thelong speeches of the delegates giving interesting thoughlocal accounts of the movement. Two of thesespeeches—those of Lafargue and of Guesde—I think itwell to sum up.

After having described the recent setback received bythe Parti Socialiste de Français, Lafargue said insubstance:

“Now look at the Social Democratic party of Germany.For the last fifteen years it has steadily grown in votes.How is that? The reason is that while the German partyis a Socialist party, yet it is especially a ‘party of

DANIEL DE LEON


opposition.’ Within that party are found all the reformaspirations of the German Empire. There is no otherparty for them to go to. Consequently all the intelligenceof Germany is in that party. It is otherwise in France.The reform bourgeois aspirations here have theirparties. We are, consequently, not a party of ‘opposition,’but a party of ‘revolution.’ With such a party ups anddowns are inevitable. But every seeming defeat is asignal for renewed efforts; while every single victory ofour enemies wounds them in their vitals.”

Guesde, who closed the meeting, said in substance:“There is but one Socialism. Behind it alone is

organized and can be organized the proletariat.Socialism knows no compromise. Whoever deals with theenemy betrays the workingman. In this struggle we arehit hard, it is true. But thus, we, who were iron, nowhave become steel. An international congress is about tobe held. We shall see whether elsewhere also suchprogress has been made, whether the music of thephrase has at last been silenced by experience. I hopethat at Amsterdam a new page will be turned, that nonebut revolutionary Socialism will be recognized.”

Guesde’s speech was punctuated with an applausethat was of unmistakable tone.

In connection with his utterances I should alsomention the speech of Marcel Cachin, the delegate fromGironde. He climaxed his arguments with the expressionof the hope that at Amsterdam all the fusionists andconfusionists will be fired out, and the internationalmovement cleanse itself, the same as the Parti Socialistede Français did.

Nevertheless, from several other delegates I learnthat there is little hope of a straight stand being taken



at Amsterdam. The reason they give for this is thatneither Austria, nor part of Italy, nor Holland, norBelgium would be disposed to go so far. A majority of theCongress of Amsterdam, it is claimed, will do everythingto avoid a rupture. Some few admit that eventually arupture is bound to take place.

Last night’s demonstration looked essentially like anS.L.P. demonstration.

DANIEL DE LEON.

FLASHLIGHTS - Socialist Labor Party

Documents

Transcript of FLASHLIGHTS - Socialist Labor Party