HILFERDING
(Hilferding), Rudolf (Aug. 10, 1877 - February 10, 1941) - one of the leaders of the German. S.-D-Tii and the 2nd International, theorist of Austro-Marxism, who switched to the positions of social reformism. In 1906–15 he was the editor of the center. german organ. Social-Democrats "Vorwärts", took a centrist, Kautskian position, defending unity with the social chauvinists. After the October Revolution G. was an enemy of the Soviets. power, the proletarian dictatorship. Hiding behind leftist phrases, he contributed to the strangulation of the revolutionaries. movements in Germany. Being factual. German leader. "Independent Social-Democratic Party" and the editor of its center. organ "Freiheit" (1918-22), G. supported the tactics of agreement with the Scheidemanns. After the unification in 1922 of the "independents" with the party of the Scheidemanns, G. was twice min. finance in coalitions. bourgeois pr-wah. In 1933 he emigrated to France.
In their theoretical G.'s works were performed by Ch. arr. as. economist. In the work "Böhm-Bawerk, as a critic of Marx" ("Böhm-Bawerks Marx - Kritik", in the book: Marx-Studien, Bd 1, 1904, Russian translation 1920, 1923), G. criticized the bourgeois. economists who tried to refute Marx's system, but he "defended" Marx as a neo-Kantian, often replacing the materialist. dialectics, Kantianism and Machism.
After World War I G. became an apologist for the theory of the so-called. "organized capitalism" and "economic" democracy. He wrote about the growth of "peaceful" tendencies in imperialist politics. state-in. G. absolutely groundlessly believed that the imperialist. the war destroyed the possibility of further wars and at the same time created an internal. conditions eliminating the danger of revolution; that the concentration and centralization of capital, the growth of trusts and cartels lead to the elimination of competition, anarchy of production, crises; that "organized capitalism" means the transition of the capitalists to the socialist. the principle of planned production. Therefore, G. saw the task in that, with the help of consciousness. societies. regulation to transform the capitalist. x-in x-in, led by a "democratic state", which G., ignoring the class nature of the state, portrayed as an organ for the implementation of socialism. To do this, according to G., you only need to win the majority through propaganda and resort to coalitions. politics with the bourgeoisie. G.'s "theories" justified "business cooperation" with the bourgeoisie and contributed to the onset of the monopoly. capital for the working class. Opportunistic Germany's theory of "organized capitalism" was taken up by the revisionists of the Second International, the Trotskyists, the Bukharinites, and others.
Lenin subjected G.'s "theories" to devastating criticism. People of the G. type exercise "the influence of the bourgeoisie on the proletariat and from inside the labor movement and from inside the socialist parties ..." (V. I. Lenin, Soch., 4th ed., vol. 31, p. 256).
Lit.: VI Lenin, Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Soch., 4th ed., vol. 22 (Foreword to the French and German editions and chapters 1, 3, 8 and 9); his own, the Third International and its place in history, ibid., vol. 29; his own, Heroes of the Berne International, ibid.; its the same as. the bourgeoisie uses renegades, ibid., vol. 30; his own, Notebooks on imperialism, [M.], 1939.
A. Myslivchenko. Moscow.
- - , one of the leaders of the Austrian and German social democracy, theorist of the so-called. Austro-Marxism. Born August 10, 1877 in Vienna in the family of a wealthy businessman...
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Starting from the remarks made in the late works of Marx and Engels, Hilferding studied the structural changes of capitalism in the last quarter of the 19th century. He began with questions of concentration of capital, more specifically, the concentration of banks and the increased role that banks began to play in the establishment of joint-stock companies and mergers of enterprises.
In 1910 Hilferding published a great work "Financial Capital". This theoretical work of Hilferding was a typical example of centrism. On the one hand, the work contained "an extremely valuable theoretical analysis of the 'recent phase in the development of capitalism'; on the other hand, Hilferding showed in it 'a certain inclination to reconcile Marxism with opportunism'."
Hilferding's work was essentially the first attempt to investigate from a Marxist standpoint the new phenomena in capitalism connected with its entry into the imperialist stage. Hilferding summarized a great deal of theoretical material connected with the emergence of joint-stock companies, the formation of fictitious capital, and founders' profits; examined the financial technique by means of which big capital mobilizes small capitals and dominates them; described the exchange and stock speculation, the process of combining, etc. Hilferding even ended his book by proclaiming the need to transform the dictatorship of the magnates into the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nevertheless, Hilferding was no longer a consistent Marxist in this work. "Financial Capital" paved the way for the reformist "theories" of peaceful and organized capitalism, of the growth of capitalism into socialism.
In Finance Capital, capitalism is presented in a distorted mirror of the concept of exchange, so characteristic of the bourgeois vulgar political economy. Hilferding stated that social relations "are formed through the exchange of goods", and "the task of theoretical economy is to find the law of exchange ... From this law the regulation of production in a society of commodity producers should follow." He persistently diverted readers from the production process... “Our path does not lead to a capitalist factory with its wonders of technology; our attention must turn to the monotony of eternally similar acts of the market, where, in the same form, money is constantly transformed into a commodity and a commodity into money. Hilferding begins his analysis of imperialism not with production, but with an analysis of money, which he considers exclusively as a category of circulation. In Finance Capital, Hilferding revised Marx's theory of money and credit. He distorted the nature of money, attributed to paper money the ability to directly reflect the value of goods. Regulation in the sphere of monetary circulation, according to him, eliminates anarchy, and credit is a force that "obtains dominance over social relations."
The vicious course of Hilferding's theoretical reasoning is based on anti-scientific methodology. He retreated from materialism and tried to reconcile Marxism with the idealistic philosophy of Kant. His idealism was reflected in the fact that he tore apart theory and practice, interpreted a number of categories of Marxist political economy, and above all the category of value, as logical, meaningful only for theoretical analysis. The second major methodological error of Hilferding is the exaggeration of the role of exchange and the misunderstanding of the primacy of production in economic life.
The recognition of the primacy of circulation over production led Hilferding to distort the essence of imperialism. Monopolies, according to Hilferding, appear not as a result of a high concentration of production, but as a result of the creative power of banks and credit. Hilferding portrays finance capital one-sidedly, and therefore incorrectly, as the dominance of banks over industry, and not as a coalescence of banking and industrial monopolies.
Hilferding in his work systematically obscured the dominant role of the monopolies and kept silent about monopolistic competition. He spoke of all these phenomena timidly, so as not to say too much, not to expose the growth of antagonistic contradictions in the epoch of imperialism.
With the advent of monopolistic enterprises, according to the views of Hilferding, the chances for regulating the economy increase. “What the blind law of prices used to lead to, which, by lowering prices, caused the suspension and bankruptcy of a number of enterprises,” we read in Finance Capital, “this blessed limitation of production is now carried out incomparably more quickly and painlessly by the associated mind of the cartelized leaders of production.” Hilferding's conclusions were in close contact with Kautsky's: monopolies lead to leveling, eliminate uneven development, and are the cells of organized capitalism. Later, in the era of the general crisis of capitalism, Hilferding took the position of openly defending and preaching the theory of the growth of capitalism into socialism.
The revisionist conceptions of Bernstein, Kautsky and Hilferding fundamentally contradict the scientific principles of historical materialism. Instead of a materialistic understanding of the process of development of society, revisionists present idealism or vulgar materialism. Their idealism is manifested in the reassessment of politics and its separation from the economic basis. In cases where they link the progress of society directly with the growth of the productive forces and ignore the role of production relations, their views acquire a vulgar materialistic character.
The entire system of capitalist production relations is presented in a distorted light in revisionist economic theories. The revisionists do not understand the dialectics of the process of social development. They do not know how or do not want to see the main thing in the process and build temporary, transient, random phenomena into regularity. The revisionists tear out distributional relations from the complex of production relations, exaggerate the role of circulation, and find themselves in positions of the exchange concept. Revisionist theories distort the essence of imperialism and the path of transition to socialism, and thereby disorientate the workers' movement.
In the brilliant conclusion of Finance Capital, Hilferding actually predicted the rise of fascism as a merciless political dictatorship, protecting the interests of big capital, and associated with a new stage in the development of capitalism, just as political liberalism corresponded in the previous era to capitalism of free competition. Faced with the threat of such a dictatorship, concludes Hilferding, the proletariat must fight for the establishment of its own proletarian dictatorship.
The recognition of the primacy of circulation over production led Hilferding to distort the essence of imperialism. Monopolies, according to Hilferding, appear not as a result of a high concentration of production, but as a result of the creative power of banks and credit. Hilferding shows finance capital in a one-sided, and therefore incorrect way, as the dominance of banks over industry, and not as a coalescence
e banking and industrial monopolies.
Hilferding in his work systematically obscured the dominant role of the monopolies and kept silent about monopolistic competition. He spoke of all these phenomena timidly, so as not to say too much, not to expose the growth of antagonistic contradictions in the epoch of imperialism.
With the advent of monopolistic enterprises, according to the views of Hilferding, the chances for regulating the economy increase. “What the blind law of prices used to lead to, which, by lowering prices, caused the suspension and bankruptcy of a number of enterprises,” we read in Finance Capital, “this blessed limitation of production is now carried out incomparably more quickly and painlessly by the associated mind of the cartelized leaders of production.” Hilferding's conclusions were in close contact with Kautsky's: monopolies lead to leveling, eliminate uneven development, and are the cells of organized capitalism. Later, in the era of the general crisis of capitalism, Hilferding took the position of openly defending and preaching the theory of the growth of capitalism into socialism.
The revisionist conceptions of Bernstein, Kautsky and Hilferding fundamentally contradict the scientific principles of historical materialism. Instead of a materialistic understanding of the process of development of society, revisionists present idealism or vulgar materialism. Their idealism is manifested in the reassessment of politics and its separation from the economic basis. In cases where they link the progress of society directly with the growth of the productive forces and ignore the role of production relations, their views acquire a vulgar materialistic character.
The entire system of capitalist production relations is presented in a distorted light in revisionist economic theories. The revisionists do not understand the dialectics of the process of social development. They do not know how or do not want to see the main thing in the process and build temporary, transient, random phenomena into regularity. The revisionists tear out distributional relations from the complex of production relations, exaggerate the role of circulation, and find themselves in positions of the exchange concept. Revisionist theories distort the essence of imperialism and the path of transition to socialism, and thereby disorientate the workers' movement.
In the brilliant conclusion of Finance Capital, Hilferding actually predicted the rise of fascism as a merciless political dictatorship, protecting the interests of big capital, and associated with a new stage in the development of capitalism, just as political liberalism corresponded in the previous era to capitalism of free competition. Faced with the threat of such a dictatorship, concludes Hilferding, the proletariat must fight for the establishment of its own proletarian dictatorship.
2. Description of the theory of imperialism by the Western European thinker J. Hobson (on the example of the book "Imperialism")
J. Hobson considers imperialism as a policy of territorial expansion determined in a certain way.
The desire of a state to expand its territory may be caused by the need to relocate a part of the people to free or sparsely populated foreign lands, where emigrants organize life in the image and likeness of their homeland. This kind of expansion "may be regarded as a natural advancement of the nationality, as a territorial expansion of its land holdings, language and institutions." And against such a "normal expansion of nationality" Hobson has no essential objections. Another thing is the modern frenzied pursuit of land, which is practiced by all the major capitalist powers. Almost all of the modern expansion of European states has been expressed in the political absorption of tropical and subtropical countries in which whites cannot settle with their families. Lands unsuitable for colonization are being occupied, and this occupation is expressed in the fact that a handful of white people-officials, merchants and industrialists subject millions of people of the "lower race" to political and economic enslavement.
But, perhaps, the seizure of land is practiced in the interests of developing trade? Turning over the piles of digital material, the author rejects this assumption as well. The statistics "deal a decisive blow to the claim that trade follows the flag." Trade with the colonies is "an infinitesimal addition to the commercial resources of our country"; qualitatively, the tropical trade is extremely low. The cheapest textile and metal products are sold here, plus large quantities of gunpowder, alcohol and tobacco. In addition, trade with new tropical possessions is the least progressive and the most fluctuating.
This means that the newly acquired lands are not suitable for either settlement or trade. Meanwhile, the "production costs" of this operation are enormous: the increasing pressure of the tax press; huge waste of material and human resources on military and naval installations; "prudent and greedy Machiavellianism" in politics; hitherto unknown "vindictive nationalism" in the colonies; finally, the “strong displeasure” of other peoples, which every minute threatens with diplomatic and military complications, etc.
What is all this in the name of, and how could the British people allow themselves to be drawn into such a bad deal? The answer to this question is given by the first part of Hobson's work. Obviously, if the "British people" are involved in enterprises from which they have no profit, except for a lot of trouble, then here we must assume a "conspiracy" of some groups, the real interests of the "nation" are sacrificed to the private interests of which. And the author begins to count on his fingers:
1) Entrepreneurs engaged in the production of weapons and supplies for the maritime and military departments. “These people are imperialists by conviction; they benefit from an offensive policy.”
2) Large manufacturers, representatives of the export trade, working in the colonies and for the colonies. factories, mines, railways and other enterprises organized in the colonies "interest in a certain way key industries factory industry and inspire their owners with a firm belief in imperialism.
3) Military personnel who are imperialists both by virtue of their convictions and "by virtue of their professional interest."
4) People seeking service in the colonies and protectorates. Colonies are convenient places "for failed careers and ruined reputations." England has long suffered from overproduction in all professions from diplomats to priests, and the question is how to get "a fresh market ... for our young people, who are also a surplus commodity these days."
The conclusion is that there is a "mercenary bias" towards imperialism in all the "educated classes". But all this is only a petty fish of imperialism, playing for the most part a subordinate role. The main actor is the capitalist who is looking for markets to allocate his capital, and) in particular, the financier who is the main businessman in this area. “It will not be an exaggeration if I say that the current foreign policy of Great Britain consists mainly in the struggle for profitable markets for capital investors. Every year Great Britain becomes more and more a country living on foreign tribute, and those classes who enjoy this tribute strive to use public funds, public purses, public forces to expand the sphere of application of their private capitals and to protect those of them that are already were invested before, as well as to improve the conditions of their premises.
Lev Davidovich Trotsky
Problems of the international proletarian revolution. Basic questions of the proletarian revolution
Problems of the international proletarian revolution. Basic questions of the proletarian revolutionLev Davidovich Trotsky
Combining in this volume the two different time published books ("Terrorism and Communism") and "Between Imperialism and Revolution"), is justified by the fact that both books are devoted to the same main topic, and the second, written in the name of an independent goal (defending our policy towards Menshevik Georgia), is at the same time only a more concrete illustration of the main provisions of the first book on a particular historical example.
In both works, the main questions of the revolution are closely intertwined with the wickedness of the political day, with specific military, political and economic measures. In this case, minor errors in estimates or partial violations of perspective are quite natural, completely inevitable. It would be wrong to correct them retrospectively, if only because certain stages of our Soviet work and Party thought were reflected in individual errors. The main provisions of the book retain, from my point of view, their entire force today. Since the first book deals with the methods of our economic development during the period of war communism, I advised the publishing house to attach to the publication, in the form of an appendix, my report at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern on a new economic policy Soviet power. In this way, those chapters of the book "Terrorism and Communism", which are devoted to the economy from the point of view of our experience in 1919-1920, are introduced into the necessary perspective.
Leon Trotsky
Problems of the international proletarian revolution. Basic questions of the proletarian revolution
FOREWORD
The combination in this volume of two books published at different times ("Terrorism and Communism") and "Between Imperialism and Revolution") is justified by the fact that both books are devoted to the same main topic, and the second, written in the name of an independent goal (defense our policy towards Menshevik Georgia), is at the same time only a more concrete illustration of the main provisions of the first book on a particular historical example.
In both works, the main questions of the revolution are closely intertwined with the wickedness of the political day, with specific military, political and economic measures. In this case, minor errors in estimates or partial violations of perspective are quite natural, completely inevitable. It would be wrong to correct them retrospectively, if only because certain stages of our Soviet work and Party thought were reflected in individual errors. The main provisions of the book retain, from my point of view, their entire force today. Since the first book deals with the methods of our economic development during the period of war communism, I advised the publishing house to attach to the publication, in the form of an appendix, my report at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern on the new economic policy of Soviet power. In this way, those chapters of the book "Terrorism and Communism", which are devoted to the economy from the point of view of our experience in 1919-1920, are introduced into the necessary perspective.
The two books put together here, directed primarily against the Russian Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, did not, as far as I know, meet with any semblance of a theoretical assessment on their part. And no wonder: the petty-bourgeois parties, brought into circulation by the revolution, have lost all interest in the theoretical formulation of the fundamental questions of the revolution. What is left of these parties lives on insinuation, slander, petty chivalry, petty servility and petty handouts.
German Menshevism, which possesses a much greater force of historical inertia—the cast-iron skating rink of the proletarian revolution has not yet run down its spine—responded with a number of critical and polemical works, among which Kautsky’s learned phrases occupy the first place in hopeless vulgarity. Those of his arguments which gave at least some basis for revolutionary criticism were duly appreciated by Comrade Radek in his time. There is absolutely no reason to return to these questions here. German Menshevism, like world Menshevism, is doomed; it will pass its path of disintegration and decay to the end.
This does not mean at all, however, that in the theoretical realm we can live in the future, like a rentier, on interest from old capital. Vice versa. The theoretical elaboration of the questions of revolution—not only its methods (to which this book is chiefly devoted), but its material foundations—is now more urgent and obligatory for us than ever before. In its complexity, the epoch we are living through has no equal in the past. The immediate revolutionary prospects, as they stood before us in 1918-1920, seem to have moved away, the struggle of the main social forces has taken on a more protracted character, and at the same time, tremors do not stop for a minute, threatening either the military or the class then a national explosion. The intense theoretical work of revolutionary thought on understanding and evaluating the internal forces of the world process and their often contradictory tendencies is the key, first of all, to the principled and effective self-preservation of the Communist Party, and then to its victory.
The degeneration of revolutionary parties occurs imperceptibly, but is revealed catastrophically. The German Social Democracy, under the leadership of Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, entered into life with completely different feelings and thoughts with which 50 years later, under the leadership of Scheidemann and Ebert, it entered the world war. Generations over half a century were gradually renewed, and what was only temporary and private for the old, was laid aside in the minds of the young as a basis. The base practicality of the young, in turn, influenced the old, moving the party lower and lower from the revolutionary position. The first Russian revolution (1905) was reflected in Germany primarily by disrupting the automatic process of belittling the party, causing the best part of the younger generation to rise in revolutionary moods and - as always, at the same time! - theoretical interests. Elements of the radical wing of the German Social Democracy, and later the Spartacists, fed from this source. But on the whole, the party of W. Liebknecht and A. Bebel met the war and revolution completely reborn and raised the executioner Noske on its shield.
The tactics of the united front and the struggle for transitional demands now pursued by the Comintern is a necessary policy for the Communist Parties of the bourgeois states in the present preparatory period. But we must not close our eyes to the fact that this policy is fraught with at the same time the undoubted danger of the crushing and even complete degeneration of the communist parties, if, on the one hand, the preparatory period is too long, and if, on the other hand, the daily work of the Western parties is not will be fertilized by an active theoretical thought, covering the dynamics of the main historical forces in full.
To a certain extent, the same danger confronts our Party, in the country of the proletarian dictatorship. Our work is necessarily specialized and goes into detail. Issues of state thrift, scientific organization labor, lowering the cost of industrial products, profits and accumulation must now occupy a central place in the life of the Party. Without correct, systematic work and without real and lasting successes in this field, everything else will be belated agitation, i.e., pathetic and vulgar chatter. But, on the other hand, even our undoubted economic successes would threaten to weaken and undermine the Party, giving rise in it to narrow practicality, departmental and business narrow-mindedness, pettiness, if the theoretical thought of the Party does not continue to take more and more new positions with a fight. , fertilizing all our work with a correct world and internal orientation. Short-sighted practicality at one pole, agitation gliding over the surface of all questions at the other—these are two undoubted dangers, or two polar expressions of one and the same danger, lying in wait for us on our difficult road.
This danger would be fatal if we allowed a break in the theoretical tradition of the Party. In the field of material culture, we have seen and continue to see how difficult it is to restore when the continuity of work is disrupted - but here the disruption was inevitable, stemming from the very nature of the class struggle and its revolutionary culmination. In the ideological realm, we, as a party, least of all need a revolution; on the contrary, the maintenance of ideological continuity is now the most imperative demand of revolutionary thought. The line of our further theoretical development is sufficiently determined by two points in the realm of thought: one of them is Marx, the other is Lenin.
Synthetic coverage of the situation on the basis of a materialistic, deeply boring analysis of its main elements represents the essence of Marxism (with a bias towards historical foresight) and Leninism (with a bias towards effective conclusions). The peculiarities of both arise not from the difference of methods, but from the difference of epochs. Leninism can be defined as Marxism translated into the language of the era of the imperialist agony of bourgeois society.
Although Lenin the theoretician himself always gave a generalized expression to what Lenin the politician did, nevertheless—and it is even better to say precisely because— theoretical study and the generalization of Lenin's revolutionary work over the course of a third of a century is an independent and enormous task, the work on which in itself can and should become a school for the theoreticians of the new draft party. From this point of view, the creation by our Moscow Party organization of the Lenin Institute is an undertaking of first-class importance. The entire Party must come to the aid of Moscow here, for the entire Party will in the future quench its spiritual thirst from this source...
Capitalist society is dying. However, his agony acquired a prolonged character, in accordance with the powerful vital inertia of the organism. We see how, after desperate post-war convulsions, a relative “calm” sets in, a certain semblance of balance is established between the vital functions of the capitalist organism, revolutionary prospects seem to blur and fade, the bourgeoisie is filled with arrogance, and in its weakest, Apennine, sector, establishes the dictatorship of a pea jester. On the scale of great historical foresight, a jester is a jester. But for today's revolutionary struggle, the jester armed with the apparatus of the imperialist state is a great political factor. On this interval - between the bloody dictatorship of imperialism and the buffoonish mask of the harlequin and charlatan - history fits all the variety of means and methods of the exploiting class that has outlived itself. Our time is always fraught with surprises: a bloody threat can be resolved by buffoonery, but the buffoonery of the imperialist bourgeoisie is always fraught with bloody crimes.
The protracted present epoch is fraught with the possibility of sharp disruptions in tempo and profound upheavals. Our sober, cautious, weighing policy must therefore preserve the capacity for sharp turns. Otherwise, a new revolutionary wave, catching the Communist Party by surprise, could put it out of action. And this would almost certainly mean a new defeat for the revolution. The intense theoretical work of the Party, linking yesterday with tomorrow, is necessary condition maintaining the party's ability to make sharp turns.
From questions of "politics", in the narrow sense of the word, the Party's theoretical attention must once again descend deeper, to questions of the economy - not only of our Soviet economy, but also of the world capitalist market. In this main historical laboratory, a regrouping and preparation of forces for new era open civil war. Already the Third Congress of the Comintern, as soon as changes in the pace of development were outlined, reminded the headquarters of the communist parties of the need to lower the probe of analysis more deeply in order to determine the future path. If at that time some comrades were ready to see this as almost "economism" (!), now such an assessment is unlikely to meet with anyone's support. In his report on the situation of the Communist International at the Twelfth Congress of our Party, Comrade Bukharin devoted a significant place, and not by accident, to an analysis of the economic state of the most important countries. The time for summary revolutionary generalizations has passed. It will come again when the current semi-stable balance will be blown up by the contradictions that are constantly accumulating inside it. But so far this explosion is only being prepared. Attention to the economy! This is what the present period demands of Party thought, and demands strictly. For if in pure politics much can be grasped by the nose and on the fly, then in economics the matter is more difficult: here serious and conscientious work is needed to study the facts in their quantitative and qualitative ratios. But only such a collective scientific work capable of preserving the freshness and elasticity of the Party consciousness.
Automatic movement along the same track is not, of course, following tradition, for precisely the greatest and most glorious tradition of our party consists in its incomparable ability to maneuver, from the point of view of which retreat, like offensive, are only links of one and the same plan. A sharp turn requires great effort and thought, and will: you need to understand the need for a turn, you need to want and - to make it. Narrow practicality is just as incapable of this as agitation blown by the wind: both types are equally prone to confusion, cowardice and panic in moments that require a particularly high concentration of consciousness and will. The preservation of the Party tradition, i.e., in essence, the preservation of the Party itself, is conceivable only by introducing the brightest of the younger generation to the independent theoretical elaboration of questions of the revolution in close connection with all our domestic and international activities.
There is no and cannot be any reason to doubt that we will cope with this task, as well as with all others!
P.S. Present volume consists of works that more or less generalized ("theoretically") shed light on various questions of the revolution. The works included in this volume, however, were written not as theoretical studies, but as militant political works, which left a defining stamp on them. In the very form in which they were created, under the pressure of a certain need of the day, they are printed on these pages.
The entire volume has been prepared for publication and annotated by Comrade. E. Kaganovich, to whom I express my sincere gratitude here.
L. Trotsky. Terrorism and communism
FOREWORD
The reason for this book was Kautsky's learned libel of the same name
(#litres_trial_promo). Our work was begun during the period of fierce battles with Denikin and Yudenich and was interrupted more than once by events on the fronts. In those most difficult days, when the first chapters were being written, all the attention of Soviet Russia was concentrated on purely military tasks. First of all, it was necessary to defend the very possibility of socialist economic creativity. We were able to engage in industry a little more than what was necessary to serve the fronts. We were compelled to expose Kautsky's economic slander, mainly by analogy with his political slander. Kautsky's monstrous assertions that the Russian workers are incapable of labor discipline and economic self-restraint, at the beginning of this work - almost a year ago - we could refute mainly by indications of the high discipline and fighting heroism of the Russian workers on the fronts of the civil war. This experience was more than enough to refute petty-bourgeois slanders. But now, after a few months, we can turn to the facts and arguments drawn directly from economic life Soviet Russia.
As soon as military pressure weakened - after the defeat of Kolchak and Yudenich and the decisive blows delivered by us to Denikin, after the conclusion of peace with Estonia and the start of negotiations with Lithuania and Poland - a turn took place throughout the country in the direction of the economy. And this fact alone of a quick and concentrated transfer of attention and energy from one task to another, profoundly different, but requiring no less sacrifice, is indisputable evidence of the mighty vitality of the Soviet system. Despite all political trials, physical disasters and horrors, the working masses are infinitely far from political decay, moral decay or apathy. Thanks to the regime, which, although it imposed great hardships on them, but made sense of their life and gave it a high goal, they retain exceptional moral resilience and an ability unparalleled in history to concentrate attention and will on collective tasks. An energetic struggle is now going on in all branches of industry to establish strict labor discipline and raise labor productivity. The organizations of the party, the trade unions, the boards of factories and factories compete in this field with the undivided support of the public opinion of the working class as a whole. Plant after plant voluntarily, by decision of their general meetings, lengthen the working day. St. Petersburg and Moscow set an example, the province is equal to St. Petersburg. Saturdays and Sundays, i.e. voluntary and unpaid work during leisure hours is becoming more and more widespread, drawing into its circle many, many hundreds of thousands of workers and working women. The intensity and productivity of labor on subbotniks and Sundays is, according to experts and according to figures, exceptionally high.
Voluntary mobilizations for labor tasks in the party and in the youth union are carried out with the same enthusiasm as before for combat tasks. Labor volunteering complements and spiritualizes labor service. The recently established labor service committees cover the entire country with their network. Involvement of the population in mass work (clearing snow off the tracks, repairing the railway track, felling trees, harvesting and transporting firewood, simple construction work, mining shale and peat) is becoming more and more widespread and systematic. The ever expanding involvement of military units in labor would be completely unrealizable in the absence of a high labor upsurge ...
True, we live in a situation of severe economic decline, exhaustion, poverty and hunger. But this is not an argument against the Soviet regime: all transitional epochs were characterized by similar tragic features. Each class society (slave, feudal, capitalist), having exhausted itself, does not simply leave the stage, but is forcibly swept away by intense internal struggle, which directly inflicts often more hardships and suffering on the participants than those against which they rebelled.
The transition from feudal to bourgeois economy—an upsurge of tremendous progressive significance—is a monstrous martyrology. No matter how hard the serf masses suffered under feudalism, no matter how hard the proletariat lived and is living under capitalism, the hardships of the working people have never reached such acuteness as in the epochs when the old feudal system was forcibly broken down, giving way to a new one. The French Revolution of the eighteenth century, which reached its gigantic scope under the pressure of the suffering masses, itself, for a long period, deepened and aggravated their misfortunes to the extreme. Could it be otherwise?
Palace coups ending in personal shuffling at the top can be carried out in short term almost no effect on the economic life of the country. Another thing is revolutions that draw millions of working people into their whirlpool. Whatever the form of society, it rests on labor. Tearing the masses of the people away from work, drawing them into struggle for a long time, thereby disrupting their production ties, the revolution thereby strikes blows at the economy and inevitably lowers the economic level that it caught at its doorstep. The deeper the social upheaval, the larger the masses it involves, the longer it lasts, the more destruction it does in the production apparatus, the more it devastates the social reserves. From this follows only the conclusion, which does not require proof, that a civil war is harmful to the economy. But blaming this on the Soviet economic system is the same as blaming a new human being for the birth pangs of the mother who brought him into the world. The task is to reduce the civil war. And this is achieved only by decisiveness of action. But it is precisely against revolutionary decisiveness that Kautsky's entire book is directed.
Since the publication of the book we are considering, not only in Russia, but all over the world, and above all in Europe, major events have taken place or significant processes have advanced, undermining the last foundations of Kautskyism.
In Germany, the civil war took on an increasingly violent character. Far from creating the conditions for a more peaceful and "humane" transition to socialism, which follows from Kautsky's current theory, the outward organizational might of the old party and trade-union democracy of the working class has, on the contrary, served as one of the main reasons for the protracted nature of the struggle, despite its ever-increasing bitterness. The more conservative the German Social-Democracy has become, the more strength, life and blood the German proletariat, betrayed by it, is forced to expend in a series of successive attacks on the foundations of bourgeois society in order to create for itself, in the course of the struggle itself, a new, truly revolutionary organization capable of leading it to final victory. The conspiracy of the German generals, their fleeting seizure of power, and the bloody events that followed showed again what a pitiful and worthless masquerade the so-called democracy is in the conditions of the collapse of imperialism and civil war. A democracy that has outlived itself does not resolve a single issue, does not mitigate a single contradiction, does not heal a single wound, does not prevent uprisings either from the right or from the left - it is powerless, insignificant, deceitful and serves only to confuse the backward sections of the people especially the petty bourgeoisie.
The hope expressed by Kautsky in the final part of his book that Western countries The "old democracies" of France and England, moreover, crowned with victory, will give us a picture of a healthy, normal, peaceful, truly Kautskyian development towards socialism, is one of the most absurd illusions. The so-called republican democracy of victorious France is at the present time the most reactionary, bloody and corrupt government that has ever existed in the world. His domestic politics built on fear, greed and violence as much as his foreign policy. On the other hand, the French proletariat, more deceived than any other class has ever been deceived, is more and more passing over to the path of direct action. The repressions that the government of the Republic has brought down on the General Confederation of Labor show that even syndicalist Kautskyism, that is, hypocritical conciliation, has no legal place within the framework of bourgeois democracy. The revolutionization of the masses, the exasperation of the proprietors, and the collapse of intermediate groupings - three parallel processes that determine and foreshadow the imminence of a fierce civil war - have been in full swing before our eyes in recent months in France.
In England events, different in form, follow the same basic path. In this country, ruling class which now, more than ever, oppresses and plunders the whole world, the formulas of democracy have lost their significance even as an instrument of parliamentary quackery. The most qualified specialist in this field, Lloyd George, is now appealing not to democracy, but to an alliance of conservative and liberal property owners against the working class. Not a trace of the democratic vagueness of the "Marxist" Kautsky remained in his arguments. Lloyd George stands on the ground of class realities and that is why he speaks in the language of civil war. The English working class, with its ponderous empiricism that distinguishes it, is approaching that chapter of its struggle before which the most heroic pages of Chartism will fade, just as the Paris Commune will pale before the victorious uprising of the French proletariat is at hand.
Precisely because historical events have developed their revolutionary logic with severe energy during these months, the author of this book asks himself: is there still a need for its publication? Is it still necessary to theoretically refute Kautsky? Is there a theoretical need to justify revolutionary terrorism?
Unfortunately yes. Ideology plays an enormous role in the socialist movement, by its very essence. Even for empirical England, a period has come when the working class must present an ever-increasing demand for a theoretical generalization of its experience and its tasks. Meanwhile, psychology, even proletarian psychology, contains within itself the terrible inertia of conservatism, all the more so since in this case the point at issue is nothing else than the traditional ideology of the parties of the Second International, which awakened the proletariat and until recently were so powerful. After the collapse of official social patriotism (Scheidemann, W. Adler, Renaudel, Vandervelde, Henderson, Plekhanov, etc.), international Kautskyism (the headquarters of the German Independents, Friedrich Adler, Longuet, a significant number of Italians, the English "Independents", Martov's group, etc. ) is the main political factor on which the unstable equilibrium of capitalist society rests. It can be said that the will of the working masses of the entire civilized world, directly spurred on by the course of events, is at present incomparably more revolutionary than their consciousness, over which the prejudices of parliamentarism and conciliation still weigh. The struggle for the dictatorship of the working class means for the present moment a fierce struggle against Kautskyism within the working class. The lies and prejudices of conciliation, which still poison the atmosphere even in parties gravitating toward the Third International, must be cast aside. This book must serve the cause of the irreconcilable struggle against the cowardly, half-hearted and hypocritical Kautskyism of all countries.
P.S. Now (May 1920) clouds have gathered again over Soviet Russia. Bourgeois Poland, by its attack on the Ukraine, opened a new offensive of world imperialism against Soviet Russia. The greatest dangers, which again arise before the revolution, and the enormous sacrifices imposed by the war on the toiling masses, again impel the Russian Kautskyites onto the path of open opposition to the Soviet power, i.e., in fact, on the path of helping the world stranglers of socialist Russia. The fate of the Kautskyites is to try to help the proletarian revolution when it is doing well enough, and to throw all sorts of obstacles at it when it needs help most. Kautsky has more than once predicted our doom, which should be the best proof of his, Kautsky's, theoretical correctness. In his downfall, this "heir to Marx" went so far that his only serious political program was to speculate on the collapse of the proletarian dictatorship.
He's wrong this time too. The rout of bourgeois Poland by the Red Army, led by the communist workers, will be a new manifestation of the might of the proletarian dictatorship and, precisely in this way, will deal a crushing blow to petty-bourgeois skepticism (Kautskyism) in the labor movement. Despite the insane confusion of external forms, slogans and colors, modern history has extremely simplified the main content of its process, reducing it to the struggle of imperialism against communism. Pilsudski fights not only for the lands of the Polish magnates in the Ukraine and Belarus, not only for capitalist property and the Catholic Church, but also for parliamentary democracy, for evolutionary socialism, for the Second International, for Kautsky's right to remain a critical apprentice of the bourgeoisie. We are fighting for the Communist International and the international revolution of the proletariat. The stakes are high on both sides. The fight will be hard and hard. We hope for victory, because we have all the historical rights to it.
I. RELATION OF FORCES
An argument that is invariably repeated in criticism of the Soviet regime in Russia, and especially in criticism of revolutionary attempts to transition to it in other countries, is the argument from the balance of power. The Soviet regime in Russia is utopian, because "it does not correspond to the balance of forces." A backward Russia cannot set itself tasks that would have been in the time of an advanced Germany. But it would also be folly for the proletariat of Germany to seize political power into its own hands, since this would upset the correlation of forces “at the present time”. The League of Nations is not perfect, but it corresponds to the balance of forces. The struggle to overthrow imperialist domination is utopian—the demand for amendments to the Treaty of Versailles meets the balance of forces. When Longuet hobbled after Wilson, it was not because of Longuet's political flabbiness, but for the glory of the law of the correlation of forces. The Austrian President Seitz and Chancellor Renner, in the opinion of Friedrich Adler, should exercise their petty-bourgeois vulgarity in the central posts of the bourgeois republic, otherwise the balance of power would be upset. About two years before the World War, Karl Renner, then not yet a chancellor, but a "Marxist" advocate for opportunism, explained to me that the June 3 regime, i.e. crowned by the monarchy, the union of landlords and capitalists will inevitably hold out in Russia for a whole historical era, since it corresponds to the balance of forces.
What is this correlation of forces, a sacramental formula that should determine, direct and explain the entire course of history, wholesale and retail? Why does the actual formula of the correlation of forces in the present school of Kautsky invariably appear as a justification for indecisiveness, inertia, cowardice, betrayal and betrayal?
Anything can be understood by the correlation of forces: the level of production achieved, the degree of class differentiation, the number of organized workers, the cash balance of the trade unions, sometimes the result of the last parliamentary elections, often the degree of compliance of the ministry or the degree of impudence of the financial oligarchy - most often, finally, then the total political impression that is created by a half-blind pedant or a so-called real politician who, although he has mastered the phraseology of Marxism, is in fact guided by the most vulgar combinations, philistine prejudices and parliamentary "signs" ... After joking with the director of the police department, the Austrian Social Democratic politician good and not so old years, he always knew with accuracy whether a peaceful street demonstration on May Day was permissible in Vienna “according to the balance of forces”. For the Eberts, Scheidemanns and Davids, the balance of power was not so long ago measured with complete accuracy by the number of fingers that Bethmann-Hollweg or Ludendorff himself held out to them when they met in the Reichstag.
According to Friedrich Adler, the establishment of a Soviet dictatorship in Austria would be a disastrous violation of the balance of power: the Entente would doom Austria to starvation. As proof, at the July Congress of Soviets, Friedrich Adler pointed to Hungary, where at that time the Hungarian Renners had not yet succeeded, with the help of the Hungarian Adlers, in overthrowing the power of the Soviets. At first glance, it might really seem that Friedrich Adler was right about Hungary: the proletarian dictatorship there was soon overthrown, and the ministry of the obscurantist Friedrich took its place. But it is quite permissible to ask whether this latter corresponded to the balance of power? In any case, Frederick and his Hussar could not have been temporarily in power if not for the Romanian army. From this it is clear that, in explaining the fate of Soviet power in Hungary, one has to take into account the "correlation of forces" at least within two countries: Hungary itself and neighboring Rumania. But it is not difficult to understand that we must not stop there: if the dictatorship of the Soviets had been established in Austria before the onset of the Hungarian crisis, the overthrow of Soviet power in Budapest would have turned out to be an incomparably more difficult task. Consequently, we have to include Austria, together with the treacherous policy of Friedrich Adler, in the balance of forces that determined the temporary fall of Soviet power in Hungary.