Hochland, Munich, No. 8, 1914–15, May 1915.
[[BOX: A Roman Catholic, aristocratic organ of the Austro-Munich clericalists ]]
Th. Brauer, War and Socialism.
...“The war is more than just an episode in the development of socialism: it leads (at least as a possibility) to a definite end of this development” (176)....
...(The “story” of Marx, Engels, Bebel....)
...“Theoretical ‘annihilation’ does not prevent ‘opportunism’ from living merrily on and winning respect. As the masses flocking to the socialist banner grow, so also, but to a much greater degree, grows their desire with regard to the present, and there is no preventing them, in their aspirations, from turning their eyes to the present-day state” (179–80)....
...Precisely in this (revolutionary) ideology, against which Bernstein fought—“precisely in this ideology the European war plays a great part as the prelude to the social revolution” (180).
...“immediately before the war there was also a formal approximation between trade union socialism and ‘bourgeois’ social reform” (181).
“The volte-face of German Social-Democracy at the outbreak of the war, seen in its purely external aspect, came as a sudden sharp break. Right up to the eve of the war, the press carried exhortations, ||| N.B. warnings and appeals in the old agitational jargon. Views were even expressed which, by referring to what allegedly happened in France after 1870, sounded like eulogy of defeat. Then, however, a single day brought about ... a turn which could not be more complete. The official explanations do not even remotely justify it. As everyone knows—and there is no need therefore to dwell on this—they can be easily refuted by previous official statements” (181).
...(The socialist masses, we are told, came into contact with the “full” reality of life)....
...“The far-seeing socialists, especially from the revisionist camp” (182) ... long ago pointed out the danger of such an [old-socialist] education of the people....
...“Now, at last, the reformists can hope to find a strong, impregnable basis for the new socialist and Social-Democratic programme they have so ardently desired” (183)....
...“If one wanted to describe briefly the practical success of revisionist activity, one would have to say that it has shattered faith in Marxism, both among ||| N.B. the leaders and the upper stratum of practical organisers, and that, in default of an adequate substitute, they have made tactics their ‘credo’” (184).
[[BOX-ENDS: and in general (188) let us first have the opinion of those who will come back from the trenches. ]]
|| N.B. N.B. Report of Swiss Factory and Mining Inspectors on Their Work in 1912 and 1913—Aarau, 1914 (265 pp., 3 marks).
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