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Rosa Luxemburg
Reform or Revolution
Part Two
Chapter IX: Collapse
Bernstein began his revision of the Social–Democracy by
abandoning the theory of capitalist collapse. The latter, however, is
the corner–stone of scientific socialism. By rejecting it Bernstein also
rejects the whole doctrine of socialism. In the course of his
discussion, he abandons one after another of the positions of socialism
in order to be able to maintain his first affirmation.
Without the collapse of capitalism the expropriation of the
capitalist class is impossible. Bernstein therefore renounces
expropriation and chooses a progressive realisation of the “co–operative
principle” as the aim of the labour movement.
But co–operation cannot be realised without capitalist production.
Bernstein, therefore, renounces the socialisation of production and
merely proposes to reform commerce and to develop consumers’
co–operatives.
But the transformation of society through consumers’ co–operatives,
even by means of trade unions, is incompatible with the real material
development of capitalist society. Therefore, Bernstein abandons the
materialist conception of history.
But his conception of the march of economic development is
incompatible with the Marxist theory of surplus–value. Therefore,
Bernstein abandons the theory of value and surplus–value and, in this
way, the whole economic system of Karl Marx.
But the struggle of the proletariat cannot be carried on without a
given final aim and without an economic base found in the existing
society. Bernstein, therefore, abandons the class struggle and speaks of
reconciliation with bourgeois liberalism.
But in a class society, the class struggle is a natural and
unavoidable phenomenon. Bernstein, therefore, contests even the
existence of classes in society. The working class is for him a mass of
individuals, divided politically and intellectually but also
economically. And the bourgeoisie, according to him, does not group
itself politically in accordance with its inner economic interest but
only because of exterior pressure from above and below.
But if there is no economic base for the class struggle and, if
consequently, there are no classes in our society, not only the future
but even the past struggles of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie
appear to be impossible and the Social–Democracy and its successes seem
absolutely incomprehensible or they can be understood only as the
results of political pressure by the government – that is, not as the
natural consequence of historic development but as the fortuitous
consequences of the policy of the Hohenzollern
not as the legitimate offspring of capitalist society but as the
legitimate offspring of capitalist society but as the bastard children
of reaction. Rigorously logical, in this respect, Bernstein passes from
the materialist conception of history to the outlook of the Frankfurter Zeitung and the Vossische Zeitung.
After rejecting the socialist criticism of capitalist society, it is
easy for Bernstein to find the present state of affairs satisfactory –
at least in a general way. Bernstein does not hesitate. He discovers
that at the present time reaction is not very strong in Germany, that
“we cannot speak of political reaction in the countries of western
Europe,” and that in all the countries of the West “the attitude of the
bourgeois classes toward the socialist movement is at most an attitude
of defence and not one of oppression,” (Vorwörts, March
26, 1899). Far from becoming worse, the situation of the workers is
getting better. Indeed, the bourgeoisie is politically progressive and
morally sane. We cannot speak either of reaction or oppression. It is
all for the best in the best of all possible worlds…
Bernstein thus travels in logical sequence from A to Z. He began by abandoning the final aim
and supposedly keeping the movement. But as there can be no socialist
movement without a socialist aim he ends by renouncing the movement.
And thus the Bernstein’s conception of socialism collapses entirely.
The proud and admirable symmetric construction of socialist thought
becomes for him a pile of rubbish in which the debris of all systems,
the pieces of thought of various great and small minds, find a common
resting place. Marx and Proudhon, Leon von Buch and Franz Oppenheimer, Friedrich Albert Lange and Kant, Herr Prokopovich and R. Ritter von Neupauer, Herkner, and Schulze–Gävernitz, Lassalle
and Professor Julius Wolff: all contribute something to Bernstein’s
system. From each he takes a little. There is nothing astonishing about
that. For when he abandoned scientific socialism he lost the axis of
intellectual crystallisation around which isolated facts group
themselves in the organic whole of a coherent conception of the world.
His doctrine, composed of bits of all possible systems, seems upon
first consideration to be completely free from prejudices. For Bernstein
does not like talk of “party science,” or to be more exact, of class
science, any more than he likes to talk of class liberalism or class
morality. He thinks he succeeds in expressing human, general, abstract
science, abstract liberalism, abstract morality. But since the society
of reality is made up of classes which have diametrically opposed
interests, aspirations and conceptions, a general human science in
social questions, an abstract liberalism, an abstract morality, are at
present illusions, pure utopia. The science, the democracy, the
morality, considered by Bernstein as general, human, are merely the
dominant science, dominant democracy and dominant morality that is,
bourgeois science, bourgeois democracy, bourgeois morality.
When Bernstein rejects the economic doctrine of Marx in order to
swear by the teachings of Bretano, Böhm–Bawerk, Jevons, Say and Julius
Wolff, he exchanges the scientific base of the emancipation of the
working class for the apologetics of the bourgeoisie. When he speaks of
the generally human character of liberalism and transforms socialism
into a variety of liberalism, he deprives the socialist movement
(generally) of its class character and consequently of its historic
content, consequently of all content; and conversely, recognises the
class representing liberalism in history, the bourgeoisie, as the
champion of the general interests of humanity.
And when he wars against “raising of the material factors to the rank
of an all–powerful force of development,” when he protests against the
so–called “contempt for the ideal” that is supposed to rule the
Social–Democracy, when he presumes to talk for idealism, for morals,
pronouncing himself at the same time against the only source of the
moral rebirth of the proletariat, a revolutionary class struggle – he
does no more than the following: preach to the working class the
quintessence of the morality of the bourgeoisie, that is, reconciliation
with the existing social order and the transfer of the hopes of the
proletariat to the limbo of ethical simulacra.
When he directs his keenest arrows against our dialectic system, he
is really attacking the specific mode of thought employed by the
conscious proletariat in its struggle for liberation. It is an attempt
to break the sword that has helped the proletariat to pierce the
darkness of its future. It is an attempt to shatter the intellectual arm
with the aid of which the proletariat, though materially under the yoke
of the bourgeoisie, is yet enabled to triumph over the bourgeoisie. For
it is our dialectical system that shows to the working class the
transitory nature of this yoke, proving to workers the inevitability of
their victory and is already realising a revolution in the domain of
thought. Saying good–bye to our system of dialectics and resorting
instead to the intellectual see–saw of the well known “on the one hand –
on the other hand,” “yes – but,” “although – however,” “more – less,”
etc., he quite logically lapses into a mode of thought that belongs
historically to the bourgeoisie in decline, being the faithful
intellectual reflection of the social existence and political activity
of the bourgeoisie at that stage. The political “on the one hand – on
the other hand,” “yes – but” of the bourgeoisie today resembles, in a
marked degree, Bernstein’s manner of thinking which is the sharpest and
surest proof of the bourgeois nature of his conception of the world.
But, as it us used by Bernstein, the word “bourgeois” itself is not a
class expression but a general social notion. Logical to the end he has
exchanged, together with his science, politics, morals and mode of
thinking, the historic language of the proletariat for that of the
bourgeoisie. When he uses, without distinction, the term “citizen” in
reference to the bourgeois as well as to the proletarian intending,
thereby, to refer to man in general, he identifies man in general with
the bourgeois and human society with bourgeois society.
Next: Chap.10: Opportunism in Theory and Practice
Last updated on: 28.11.2008
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