(known as the Lettish Social-Democratic League), the Armenian Social-Democrats and the Dashnaktsutyuns,[51] etc. The Russian delegation in Stuttgart also at once divided into two sections. The figure eleven is quite arbitrary and misleads the workers. From standpoint of principle Plekhanov is wrong because the struggle between proletarian and petty-bourgeois socialism in Russia is inevitable everywhere, including the trade unions. The British delegates, for example, never thought of opposing the resolution, although they, too, have two contending socialist parties -- the Social-Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party.
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That the idea of neutrality, which was rejected in Stuttgart, has already caused no little harm to the labour movement is clearly borne out by the example of Germany. There, neutrality has been advocated and applied more than anywhere eIse. As a result, the trade unions of Germany have deviated so obviously towards opportunism that this deviation was openly admitted even by Kautsky, who is so cautious on this question. In his report to the Leipzig workers he bluntly stated that the "conservatism" displayed by the German delegation in Stuttgart "becomes understandable if we bear in mind the composition of this delegation. Half of it consisted of representatives of the trade unions, and thus the "Right wing" of the Party appeared to have more strength than it actually has in the Party."
The resolution of the Stuttgart Congress should undoubtedly hasten a decisive break of Russian Social-Democracy with the idea of neutrality so beloved by our liberals. While observing the necessary caution and gradualness, and without taking any impetuous or tactless steps, we must work steadily in the trade unions towards bringing them closer and closer to the Social-Democratic Party.
Further, on the question of emigration and immigration, a clear difference of opinion arose between the opportunists and the revolutionaries in the Commission of the Stuttgart Congress. The opportunists cherished the idea of limiting the right of migration of backward, undeveloped workers -- especialIy the Japanese and the Chinese. In the minds of these opportunists the spirit of narrow craft isolation, of trade-union exclusiveness, outweighed the consciousness of socialist tasks: the work of educating and organising those strata of the proletariat which have not yet been drawn into the labour movement. The Congress rejected everything that smacked of this spirit. Even in the Commission there were only a few solitary votes in favour of limiting freedom of migration, and recognition of the solidarity of the workers of all countries in the class struggle is the keynote of the resolution adopted by the International Congress.
The resolution on women's suffrage was also adopted unanimously. Only one Englishwoman from the semi-bourgeois Fabian Society defended the admissibility of a
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struggle not for full women's suffrage but for one limited to those possessing property. The Congress rejected this unconditionally and declared in favour of women workers campaigning for the franchise, not in conjunction with the bourgeois supporters of women's rights, but in conjunction with the class parties of the proletariat. The Congress recognised that in the campaign for women's suffrage it was necessary to uphold fully the principles of socialism and equal rights for men and women without distorting those principles for the sake of expediency.
In this connection an interesting difference of opinion arose in the Commission. The Austrians (Viktor Adler, Adelheid Popp) justified their tactics in the struggle for universal manhood suffrage: for the sake of winning this suffrage, they thought it expedient in their campaign not to put the demand for women's suffrage, too, in the foreground. The German Social-Democrats, and especially Clara Zetkin, had protested against this when the Austrians were campaigning for universal suffrage. Zetkin declared in the press that they should not under any circumstances have neglected the demand for women's suffrage, that the Austrians had opportunistically sacrificed principle to expediency, and that they would not have narrowed the scope of their agitation, but would have widened it and increased the force of the popular movement had they fought for women's suffrage with the same energy. In the Commission Zetkin was supported whole-heartedly by another prominent German woman Social-Democrat, Zietz . Adler's amendment, which indirectly justified the Austrian tactics, was rejected by 12 votes to 9 (this amendment stated only that there should be no abatement of the struggle for a suffrage that would really extend to all citizens, instead of stating that the struggle for the suffrage should always include the demand for equal rights for men and women). The point of view of the Commission and of the Congress may be most accurately expressed in the following words of the above mentioned Zietz in her speech at the International Socialist Women's Conference (this Conference took place in Stuttgart at the same time as the Congress):
"In principle we must demand all that we consider to be correct," said Zietz, "and only when our strength is in
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adequate for more, do we accept what we are able to get. That has always been the tactics of Social-Democracy. The more modest our demands the more modest will the government be in its concessions. . . ." This controversy between the Austrian and German women Social-Democrats will enable the reader to see how severely the best Marxists treat the slightest deviation from the principles of consistent revolutionary tactics.
The last day of the Congress was devoted to the question of militarism in which everyone took the greatest interest. The notorious Hervé tried to defend a very untenable position. He was unable to link up war with the capitalist regime in general, and anti-militarist agitation with the entire work of socialism. Hervé's plan of "answering" any war by strike action or an uprising betrayed a complete failure to understand that the employment of one or other means of struggle depends on the objective conditions of the particular crisis, economic or political, precipitated by the war, and not on any previous decision that revolutionaries may have made.
But although Hervé did reveal frivolity, superficiality, and infatuation with rhetorical phrases, it would be extremely short-sighted to counter him merely by a dogmatic statement of the general truths of socialism. Vollmar in particular fell into this error (from which Bebel and Guesde were not entirely free). With the extraordinary conceit of a man infatuated with stereotyped parliamentarism, he attacked Hervé without noticing that his own narrow-mindedness and thick-skinned opportunism make one admit the living spark in Hervéism, despite the theoretically absurd and nonsensical way in which Hervé himself presents the question. It does happen sometimes that at a new turning-point of a movement, theoretical absurdities conceal some practical truth. And it was this aspect of the question, the appeal not to prize only parliamentary methods of struggle, the appeal to act in accordance with the new conditions of a future war and future crises, that was stressed by the revolutionary Social-Democrats, especially by Rosa Luxemburg in her speech. Together with the Russian Social-Democratic delegates (Lenin and Martov -- who here spoke in full harmony) Rosa Luxemburg
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proposed amendments to Bebel's resolution, and these amendments emphasised the need for agitation among the youth, the necessity of taking advantage of the crisis created by war for the purpose of hastening the downfall of the bourgeoisie, the necessity of bearing in mind the inevitable change of methods and means of struggle as the class struggle sharpens and the political situation alters. In the end Bebel's dogmatically one-sided, dead resolution, which was open to a Vollmarian interpretation, became transformed into an altogether different resolution. All the theoretical truths were repeated in it for the benefit of the Hervéists, who are capable of letting anti-militarism make them forget socialism. But these truths serve as an introduction not to a justification of parliamentary cretinism, not to the sanction of peaceful methods alone, not to the worship of the present relatively peaceful and quiet situation, but to the acceptance of all methods of struggle, to the appraisal of the experience of the revolution in Russia, to the development of the active creative side of the movement.
This most outstanding, most important feature of the Congress resolution on anti-militarism has been very aptly caught in Zetkin's journal, to which we have already referred more than once.
"Here too," Zetkin says of the anti-militarist resolution, "the revolutionary energy [Tatkraft ] and courageous faith of the working class in its fighting capacity won in the end, winning, on the one hand, over the pessimistic gospel of impotence and the hidebound tendency to stick to old, exclusively parliamentary methods of struggle, and, on the other hand, over the banal anti-militarist sport of the French semi-anarchists of the Hervé type. The resolution, which was finally carried unanimously both by the Commission and by nearly 900 delegates of all countries, expresses in vigorous terms the gigantic upswing of the revolutionary labour movement since the last International Congress; the resolution puts forward as a principle that proletarian tactics should be flexible, capable of developing, and sharpening [Zuspitzung ] in proportion as conditions ripen for that purpose."
Hervéism has been rejected, but rejected not in favour of opportunism, not from the point of view of dogmatism
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and passivity. The vital urge towards more and more resolute and new methods of struggle is fully recognised by the international proletariat and linked up with the intensification of all the economic contradictions, with all the conditions of the crises engendered by capitalism.
Not the empty Hervéist threat, but the clear realisation that the social revolution is inevitable, the firm determination to fight to the end, the readiness to adopt the most revolutionary methods of struggle -- that is the significance of the resolution of the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart on the question of militarism.
The army of the proletariat is gaining strength in all countries. Its class-consciousness, unity, and determination are growing by leaps and bounds. And capitalism is effectively ensuring more frequent crises, which this army will take advantage of to destroy capitalism.