(1) Materialistic conception of the world and of history.(2) Dialectic method of investigation.(3) The economic order is the basis of all social order; the entire legal and political structures of society, religion, and philosophy are to be explained in accordance with the economic basis.(4) The historic evolution of capitalism; how, from the fifteenth century onwards, the capitalist class was developed, and how a corresponding proletariat was created.(5) The capitalist class grows by the appropriation and accumulation of the surplus value contained in the product of labour, whilst the proletariat is reduced to a subsistence wage. It is social production and capitalistic appropriation.(6) Organisation in the factory; anarchy in society as a whole.(7) This anarchy is intensified, especially in the great commercial crises, showing that the middle class are no longer able to control the productive forces.(8) All these contradictions can be solved only by an explicit recognition of the social character ofproduction. The proletariat seizes political power and transforms the means of production into social property.(9) The State, which has hitherto been an arrangement for holding the producing class in subjection, will become superfluous, and die a natural death. Henceforward, government will consist simply in the control of industrial processes.
(1) Materialistic conception of the world and of history.
(2) Dialectic method of investigation.
(3) The economic order is the basis of all social order; the entire legal and political structures of society, religion, and philosophy are to be explained in accordance with the economic basis.
(4) The historic evolution of capitalism; how, from the fifteenth century onwards, the capitalist class was developed, and how a corresponding proletariat was created.
(5) The capitalist class grows by the appropriation and accumulation of the surplus value contained in the product of labour, whilst the proletariat is reduced to a subsistence wage. It is social production and capitalistic appropriation.
(6) Organisation in the factory; anarchy in society as a whole.
(7) This anarchy is intensified, especially in the great commercial crises, showing that the middle class are no longer able to control the productive forces.
(8) All these contradictions can be solved only by an explicit recognition of the social character ofproduction. The proletariat seizes political power and transforms the means of production into social property.
(9) The State, which has hitherto been an arrangement for holding the producing class in subjection, will become superfluous, and die a natural death. Henceforward, government will consist simply in the control of industrial processes.
The work of Marx is a natural history of capital, especially in its relation to labour, and in its most essential features is a development of two of the leading principles of the classic economics—that labour is the source of value, but that of this value the labourer obtains for himself merely a subsistence wage, the surplus being appropriated by the exploiting capitalist. Marx’s great work may be described as an elaborate historical development of this glaring fundamental contradiction of the Ricardian economics, the contradiction between the Iron Law of Wages and the great principle that labour is the source of wealth. Marx’s conception of labour is the same as that of Ricardo, and as a logical exposition of the historic contradiction between the two principles, on the basis of Ricardo, the work of Marx is quite unanswerable. It is obvious, however, that the definition of labour assumed both in Ricardo and Marx is too narrow. The labour they broadly posit as the source of wealth is manual labour. In the early stages of industry, when the market was small and limited, and the technique was of the simplest and rudestdescription, labour in that sense might correctly enough be described as the source of value. But in modern industry, when the market is world-wide, the technique most complex, and the competition most severe, when inventiveness, sagacity, courage, and decision in initiative, and skill in management, are factors so important, no such exclusive place as has been claimed can be assigned to labour. The Ricardian principle, therefore, falls to the ground.
And it is not historically true to maintain, as Marx does, that the profits of the capitalist are obtained simply by appropriating the products of unpaid labour. In initiating and managing, the capitalist is charged with the most difficult and important part of the work of production. As a natural consequence, it follows that Marx is also historically inaccurate in roundly explaining capital as the accumulation of unpaid labour appropriated by the capitalist. In past accumulation, as in the control and management of industry generally, the capitalist has had the leading part. Capital, therefore, is not necessarily robbery, and in an economic order in which the system of free exchange is the rule and the mutually beneficial interchange of utilities, no objection can be raised to the principle of lending and borrowing of money for interest. In short, in his theory of unpaid labour as supplying the key to his explanation of the genesis and development of the capitalistic system, Marx is not true to history. It is the perfectly logical outcome of certain of the leading principles of the Ricardian school, but it does notgive an adequate or accurate account of the facts of economic evolution.
In his theory of unpaid labour Marx is not consistent with the general principles of his own philosophy of social evolution. With him history is a process determined by material forces, a succession of orderly phenomena controlled by natural laws. Now we may waive the objection suggested by the principle enunciated in the Marx school itself, that it is not legitimate to apply ethical categories in judgment on economic processes that are merely natural; which, however, Marx does with revolutionary emphasis throughout some hundreds of pages of his great work. It is more important to point out, in perfect consistency with the principles of the school, that the energy and inventiveness of the early capitalists especially were the most essential factors in determining the existence and development of a great economic era, and that the assertion of freedom was an indispensable condition in breaking the bonds of the old feudal order, which the new system displaced. Instead, therefore, of living and growing rich on the produce of unpaid labour, the capitalist had a great social and industrial function to perform, and played a great part in historic evolution. The position and function of the workman was subordinate.
In short, Marx has not sufficiently recognised the fact that the development of the new social forces brought with it a new set of functions: that of initiating and directing industrial enterprise. These functions arenot comprehended in the narrow definition of labour, but they are, nevertheless, most essential to progress; and the men that performed them have a most complete historical reason for their existence and a share in the results of industry. We need not add that such an argument does not justify all they did as the heads of the new industry. There is ample evidence that they were often rough, hard, cruel, and unscrupulous in the prosecution of their industrial enterprises. Nor does it prejudice the question whether the like direction of industry must and should continue in the future.
There can be no doubt that in his theory of surplus value obtained from unpaid labour, Marx, as agitator and controversialist, has fallen into serious contradiction with himself as scientific historian and philosopher. The theory that labour is the source of value was widely accepted among economists during his early life, and by its justice and nobleness it was well adapted to the comfortable optimism prevalent among so many of the classical school. The economists, however, did not follow the principle to its obvious conclusion: that if labour is the source of wealth, the labourer should enjoy it all. It was otherwise with the socialists, who were not slow to perceive the bearing of the theory on the existing economic order. In his controversial treatise against Proudhon, Marx gives a list of writers (beginning with the political economy of Hopkins,[8]published in 1822, only five years after the appearanceof Ricardo’s great work), by whom the principle was applied to revolutionary purposes. Its simplicity and seeming effectiveness must have made it most attractive. As posited by the classic economy, and applied by the socialists, Marx accepted the principle. It was an unanswerableargumentum ad hominemwhen addressed to an economist of the Ricardian school; but it should have broken down when confronted with historical fact. Nevertheless it was made, and continued to be, the foundation-stone of the system of Marx, and is really its weakest point. His doctrine of surplus value is the vitiating factor in his history of the capitalistic system. The most obvious excuse for him is that he borrowed it from the classic economists.
Fr. Engels sums up the achievement of his friend Marx in the two great discoveries—the materialistic conception of history, and the revelation of the secret of the capitalistic method of production by means of surplus value. Materialism is a very old theory of the world. It is now given up by competent thinkers, and we need not discuss it here. Nor need we say that it is a grave exaggeration to maintain that all social institutions, including philosophy and religion, are to be explained by reference to the economic factors. History is a record of the activity of the human mind in very many directions. Men have had various interests, which have had a substantive, and so far, an independent value, though they must also be regarded as an organic whole. It is absolutely impossible to account for all by reference to any one.
Nevertheless, it is a great merit of Marx that he has so powerfully called attention to the vast importance of the economic side of history. The economic factors in the life of mankind have been sadly neglected, even by philosophic historians. Such neglect has been partly due to the scarcity of material relating to this aspect of their subject, partly owing to false conceptions of the function of the historian, chiefly because their public was a high-bred class, which had no particular wish to read about such unfashionable topics as those connected with the daily toil of the lower orders. In this way the true causation of history has often been overlooked, or totally misconceived, and results have, in thousands of instances, been traced to conventional and imaginary agencies, when the real origin lay deep down in the economic life of the people. We are now beginning to see that large sections of history will need to be rewritten in this new light.
To proceed with our criticism of Marx. It is a feature of his materialistic conception of history that his language respecting the inevitable march of society would sometimes suggest a kind of fatalism. But this is more than counterbalanced by his strong assertion of the revolutionary will. On both sides we see overstatement. The most prominent feature of his teaching, however, in this reference, is the excessive stress which he lays on the virtues and possibilities of the revolutionary method of action. The evolution he contemplates is attended and disturbed by great historic breaks, by cataclysm and catastrophe. These and otherfeatures of his teaching, to which objection must be made, were most pronounced in his early writings, especially in the Manifesto of the Communist League, but they continue to be visible throughout his life. According to his latest teaching, a great revolutionary catastrophe is to close the capitalistic era; and this must be regarded as a very bad preparation for the time of social peace which is forthwith to follow. The proletariat, the class which is to accomplish the revolution, he described as oppressed, enslaved, and degenerate. How can such a class be expected to perform so great an historic function well and successfully?
But the main defect of his teaching lies in the arbitrariness and excessive abstractness that characterise his method of investigation and presentation; and this defect particularly attaches to the second great discovery attributed to him by Fr. Engels—his theory of surplus value.
We shall better understand the position of Marx if we recall some of the important circumstances in his life and experience. As we have seen, his family passed from the profession of Judaism to Christianity when he was six years of age, and he thus lost the traditions of the faith of his ancestors without living into the traditions of the new faith. Like many Jews in a similar position the traditions of the past therefore had little influence on Karl Marx, and he was so far well fitted to take a wide and unprejudiced view of human affairs. With his great endowments and vast knowledge he should have been one of the freest heads in Europe.His practical energy was not inferior to the range of his intelligence.
All the more regrettable, therefore, is it that Marx should have adopted such a narrowing system of philosophy as materialism. It is also remarkable that he, the severest of critics, should have adopted, at so early an age and without due scrutiny, the theory of value set forth by Adam Smith and Ricardo, and that he should have applied it without question during the remainder of his life to the building up of a vast system of thought, and to a socialistic propaganda which was meant to revolutionise the world. Another instance of the premature dogmatism which has so often exercised a great and not seldom a mischievous influence on human thought.
In this connection it may not be altogether fanciful to observe that his heredity derived from rabbinical ancestors may account for much that is peculiar in his way of thinking. The excessive acumen, the relentless minuteness with which he pursues his course through details which often seem very unreal, the elaboration which he bestows upon distinctions which are often abstract and artificial, may well be regarded as alien to Western modes of thought. Revolutionary materialism was a strange sphere in which to exercise a logic after the manner of the rabbi.
However this may be, we know that when his mind was being formed the Hegelian philosophy was supreme in Germany; and it can hardly be said that the study of Hegel is a good training for the study of history,according to the freest and purest conception of the subject. The study of history, in the highest sense of the word, requires a modest attitude towards objective fact which is not easily attained in the philosophy of the schools.
Marx was a German, trained in the school of Hegel; and he passed most of his life in laborious seclusion, in exile and revolt against dominant ideas and institutions. Though a materialist, he does not show sufficient respect for facts, for history. In reading his great work we feel that the facts are in chronic rebellion against the formulas to which he seeks to adapt them.
Adam Smith, the founder of Political Economy, was also academic at the outset of his life; but he was a Scotsman of a period when the ablest Scotsmen were trained by French clearness and common sense. And he was not in revolt, like Marx, but in full sympathy with a cause whose time had come, whereas Marx represented a cause which had not yet attained to any considerable degree of clearness. In learning and philosophic power, Marx will compare favourably with Adam Smith; but in historic reasonableness, in respect for fact and reality, Smith is decidedly his superior. In Smith’s great work we see philosophy controlled by fact, by historic knowledge and insight. The work of Marx, in many of its most important sections, is an arbitrary and artificial attempt to force his formulas on the facts of history. Whether the fault lay in the Hegelian philosophy, or in Marx’s use of it, there can be no doubt that its influence has inflicted most seriousdamage on what might otherwise have been a splendid historical work.
We are therefore obliged to say that the historical work of Marx does not by any means rise to the highest conception of history. It is deficient in the free outlook, in the clear perspective, in the sympathy and impartiality which should characterise the best historical achievements. The historical work of Marx is placed at the service of a powerful and passionate propaganda, and of necessity is disturbed and troubled by the function which it is made to serve.
In dealing with history we must accept facts and men as we find them. The facts are as they are; and the men of history are not ideal men. Like other men Marx had to work under human limitations. The great task of his life was to rouse the proletariat of the world to a sense of its position, its mission, and destiny, to discover the scientific conditions under which a new era in the evolution of the human race could be inaugurated and carried on by the working classes of all lands. It was a mixed task in which science and practice were combined, and in which the purely scientific study of history naturally suffered in the partnership with a very strenuous revolutionary practice.
We need not say that it was not the fault of Marx that he adopted the revolutionary career. He was born at a time and in a country where men of independence and originality of character of necessity became revolutionists. In face of the European reactionMarx never made any concession or compromise. He never bowed himself in the house of Rimmon. Seldom in the history of human thought has there been a man who travelled right ahead in so straightforward a path, however formidable the opposition and however apparently hopeless surrounding circumstances might be. Public opinion had no weight with him; neither idle sentiment nor amiable weaknesses found any place in his strongly-marked individuality.
In view of such a career spent in the unflinching service of what he regarded to be truth, and in the greatest of human causes, it would be mean and disgraceful not to speak of Marx in terms of profound respect. His sincerity, his courage, his self-abnegation, his devotion to his great work through long years of privation and obloquy, were heroic. If he had followed the broad and well-beaten highway of self-interest, Marx, with his exceptional endowments both for thought and action, might easily have risen to a foremost place in the Prussian State. He disdained the flesh-pots of despotism and obscurantism so much sought after by the average sensual man, and spent forty hard and laborious years almost wholly in exile as the scientific champion of the proletariat. Many men are glad to live an hour of glorious life. Few are strong and brave enough to live the life heroic for forty years with the resolution, the courage, and consistency of Karl Marx.
In the combination of learning, philosophic acumen, and literary power, he is second to no economic thinkerof the nineteenth century. He seems to have been master of the whole range of economic literature, and wielded it with a logical skill not less masterly. But his great strength lay in his knowledge of the technical and economic development of modern industry, and in his marvellous insight into the tendencies in social evolution determined by the technical and economic factors. Whether his theories in this department are right or wrong, they have suggested questions that will demand the attention of economic thinkers for a long time to come. It is in this department, and not in his theory of surplus value, that Marx’s significance as a scientific economist is to be found.
Notwithstanding all that may justly be said in criticism of Marx, it remains, then, that his main achievement consists in the work he has done as scientific inquirer into the economic movement of modern times, as the philosophic historian of the capitalistic era. It is now admitted by all inquirers worthy of the name that history, including economic history, is a succession of orderly phenomena, that each phase in the line of succession is marked by facts and tendencies more or less peculiar to itself, and that laws and principles which we now condemn had formerly an historical necessity, justification, and validity. In accordance with this fundamental principle of historical evolution, arrangements and institutions which were once necessary, and originally formed a stage in human progress, may gradually develop contradictions and abuses, and thus become more or less antiquated.
The economic, social, and political forms which were the progressive and even adequate expressions of the life of one era, become hindrances and fetters to the life of the succeeding times. This, the school of Karl Marx says, is precisely the condition of the present economic order. The existing arrangements of landlord, capitalist, and wage-labourer under free competition are burdened with contradiction and abuse. The life of society is being strangled by the forms which once promoted it. They maintain that the really vital and powerful tendencies of our time are towards a higher and wider form of social and economic organisation—towards socialism. Here, as we believe, is the central point of the whole question. The place of Marx in history will depend on how far he has made a permanent contribution towards the settlement of it.
During his lifetime the opinions of Marx were destined to find expression in two movements, which have played a considerable part in recent history—the International and the Social Democracy of Germany. Of the International, Marx was the inspiring and controlling head from the beginning; and the German Social Democracy, though originated by Lassalle, before long fell under Marx’s influence. Marx wrote the famous inaugural address of the International and drew up its statutes, maintaining a moderation of tone which contrasted strongly with the outspoken vigour of the communist manifesto of 1847. But it was not long before the revolutionary socialism which underlaythe movement gained the upper hand. The International no doubt afforded a splendid opportunity for the propaganda of Marx. The fortunes of the International and of the German Social Democracy will be sketched in subsequent chapters.
[1]Franz Mehring,Geschichte der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie, part i. p. 156.
[1]
Franz Mehring,Geschichte der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie, part i. p. 156.
[2]An English translation of vol. i. by Messrs. Moore and Aveling has appeared, Engels being editor. There are translations also of vols. ii. and iii.
[2]
An English translation of vol. i. by Messrs. Moore and Aveling has appeared, Engels being editor. There are translations also of vols. ii. and iii.
[3]This book of Engels,Eugen Dühring’s Revolutionising of Science, is better known in its much shorter form,Entwickelung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft. Eng. tr.Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
[3]
This book of Engels,Eugen Dühring’s Revolutionising of Science, is better known in its much shorter form,Entwickelung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft. Eng. tr.Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
[4]See Fr. Engels’Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, p. 253, andpassim.
[4]
See Fr. Engels’Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, p. 253, andpassim.
[5]Das Kapital, i. 48.
[5]
Das Kapital, i. 48.
[6]Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, pp. 267, 268.
[6]
Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, pp. 267, 268.
[7]See Preface to second edition of theKapital, p. xix.
[7]
See Preface to second edition of theKapital, p. xix.
[8]This, however, must be a mistake for T. Hodgskin, who in 1825 published a pamphlet,Labour defended against the Claims of Capital, in which such views are set forth.
[8]
This, however, must be a mistake for T. Hodgskin, who in 1825 published a pamphlet,Labour defended against the Claims of Capital, in which such views are set forth.
It is an inevitable outcome of the prevalent historic forces that the labour question has become international.
From the dawn of history there has been a widening circle of communities with international relations. Civilisation had its earliest seats on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates. The Greeks and Phœnicians carried it round the shores of the Mediterranean. The Romans received it from the Greeks, and, after adding to it a valuable contribution of their own, handed it on to the nations of Western and Central Europe. The Christian Church spread over the countries in which the Roman peace prevailed, but did not confine itself to the limits of the empire.
Amidst the group of nations who thus participated in the Greco-Roman culture and in the Christian life, there has always been a special degree of international sympathy: ideas and institutions have been largely common to them all. Feudalism and the Church, chivalry and the Crusades, all these were international in their influence.
Then, as now, great ideas and great movements could not be confined within national barriers. In the expansive and progressive epochs of history, particularly, supreme interests have raised men above the prejudices of race, and have united them by wider and deeper principles than those by which they are separated into nations.
At the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century, Germans combined with the Swedes and the French against their own countrymen. The Catholic Church, as its name implies, has always been, and still continues to be, a great international institution.
The enlightenment of the eighteenth century had an international influence, and at the French Revolution high concerns of political and social freedom for a time broke through the conventional feelings of patriotism. Germans, Italians, and even Englishmen, were in many cases ready to receive the boon of a better order of things at the price of French victory over their own countrymen. Only for a time, till the enthusiasm of the Revolution was made subservient to the selfishness of the new France—an instrument for the colossal egotism of a single man.
In our time, steam and the electric telegraph have become the bearers of a widening international movement. All the great human interests are cultivated and pursued on a wider scale than ever—religion, science, literature, art.
Commerce and industry have naturally shared in the general expansion. We have only to scan the operationsof the great markets and exchanges in any daily paper as a proof of this. In a small space round the Bank of England, financial transactions are carried on which powerfully affect the entire world. Even the very simple breakfast of an ordinary citizen is a great international function, in which the productions of the most diverse countries combine to appease his wants.
The methods and appliances of this modern industry have been developed in England since the middle of the eighteenth century. Not many years ago England was still the supreme, almost the exclusive, representative of the new industry; now it is becoming the common possession of all countries dominated by European culture, and is rapidly gaining ground in the long-isolated nations of the East. The competition for business among the capitalists of various countries grows more intense every year. Once carried on chiefly or entirely for local needs, production has now to work for a market of wide and often incalculable extent.
Under these circumstances, we need not be surprised that labour, the prime factor in industry, has international interests and relations of the most serious importance. Its antagonism to capitalism must declare itself on the international arena. In the competitive struggles of the last sixty years, the cheap labour of one nation has not seldom been thrown into the scale to weigh down the dear labour of another. Irishmen, Germans, Belgians, and Italians have often rendered unavailing the efforts of English and French workmen for a higher standard of living. Continuous emigrationfrom Europe depresses American labour. The Chinese and other Eastern races, habituated to a very low standard of subsistence, menace the workmen of America and Australia. The great industry which is now being established in the East will be a most serious danger alike to workmen and capitalists in the Western World.
The capitalists of most countries have long sought to shield themselves against the consequences of competition by protection, by combinations tacit or avowed among themselves, of wide and frequently international magnitude. In view of the facts that we have indicated, in view of the example thus set them, why should not the working men seek to regulate their international interests?
Efforts towards the international organisation of labour have proceeded chiefly from men who, banished from their own country by reactionary governments, have carried to other lands the seeds of new thought, and, meeting abroad those of like mind and like fate with themselves, have naturally planned the overthrow of their common oppressors. The origin of the famous International Association of Working Men was largely due to such a group of exiles.
In 1836, a number of German exiles at Paris formed themselves into a secret society, under the name of theLeague of the Just, the principles of which were communistic.[1]Being involved in a rising at Paris in 1839,they removed to London. Here they met with workmen belonging to the nations of Northern Europe, to which German is a common speech, and the League naturally began to assume an international character.
This was not the only change which the League underwent. Its members began to understand that their real duty under the present circumstances was not conspiracy or the stirring up of revolutionary outbreaks, but propaganda. The basis of the League had been a sentimental communism, based on their motto that ‘all men are brothers.’ From Marx they learned that the emancipation of the proletariat must be guided by scientific insight into the conditions of its own existence and its own history; that their communism must indeed be a revolutionary one, but it must be a revolution in harmony with the inevitable tendencies of social evolution. The cardinal point in the theory worked out by Marx and now impressed upon the League, was the doctrine that the economic conditions control the entire social structure, therefore the main thing in a social revolution is a change in economic conditions.
The group of exiles put themselves into communication with Marx, and a Congress was held in London in 1847, with the result that the association was reorganised under the name of the Communist League.
The aim of the League is very comprehensively stated in the first article of its constitution: ‘The aim of the League is the overthrow of thebourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old society restingon class antagonisms, and the founding of a new society without classes and without private property.’
Marx and Engels were commissioned by the League to set forth its principles in a manifesto, which, as the manifesto of the communistic party, was published shortly before the Revolution of February 1848. We shall best illustrate the spirit and aim of the treatise by quoting Fr. Engels’ Preface to the edition of 1883:—
‘The Preface to the present edition I must, alas! sign alone. Marx, the man to whom the entire working class of Europe and America owes more than any other—Marx rests in the cemetery at Highgate, and the grass already begins to grow over his grave. Since his death nothing further can be said of a revisal or completion of the manifesto. It is therefore the more necessary expressly to make the following statement.
‘The pervading thought of the manifesto: that the economic production with the social organisation of each historical epoch necessarily resulting therefrom forms the basis for the political and intellectual history of this epoch; that accordingly (since the dissolution of the primitive common property in land) the entire history is a history of class struggles—struggles between exploited and exploiting, ruled and ruling, classes at different stages of social development; but that this struggle has now reached a stage when the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no more free itself from the exploiting and oppressing class (thebourgeoisie) without at the same time delivering thewhole of society for ever from exploitation, oppression, and class struggles—this pervading thought belongs exclusively and alone to Marx.’
‘The history of all society hitherto has been the history of class struggles’; such is the keynote of the manifesto. ‘But it is a distinguishing feature of the present time that it has simplified class antagonisms; the entire human society more and more divides itself into two great hostile camps, into two great conflicting classes,bourgeoisieand proletariat.’ The manifesto is for the most part an exposition and discussion of these two classes, the historical conditions under which they have grown up, their mutual relations, past, present, and future.
It would not be easy to give a brief analysis of the manifesto, nor is it necessary, as we have, in our chapter on Marx, already given an account of the same views in their maturer and more philosophic expression. The manifesto is a treatise instinct with the fiery energy and enthusiasm of a young revolutionary party, and its doctrines are the doctrines of Marx in a crude, exaggerated, and violent form. In such a pamphlet, written for propaganda, we must not expect the self-restraining moderation of statement, the clear perspective, or the high judicial charity which should characterise a sober historical exposition.
The Iron Law of Wages is stated in its hardest and most exaggerated form. To the charge that they desire to abolish private property, its authors reply that individual property, the produce of a man’s own labour, isalready abolished. What they desire to abolish is the appropriation of other men’s labour by the capitalist. To the charge that they wish to abolish the family, they reply to thebourgeoisiewith atu quoque: ye have already abolished it by the exploitation of women and children in the factories, which has broken up the family ties, through the prevalence of prostitution and the common practice of adultery. The charge of abolishing patriotism they repudiate in the same manner: the workman has no country.
We cannot understand the manifesto unless we remember that it was drawn up by young men living in exile, and that it was written in 1847, shortly after some of the earliest inquiries into the condition of labour both in England and the Continent had revealed facts which ought to fill every human heart with sorrow and indignation.
As the manifesto of the first international combination of workmen, it has a special historical importance, and claims special attention. And apart from that, it is one of the most remarkable utterances of the nineteenth century.
‘The manifesto,’ says Fr. Engels, ‘was sent to the press at London a few weeks before the February Revolution. Since then it has made the tour of the world. It has been translated into almost every tongue, and in the most different countries still serves as the guiding-star of the proletarian movement. The old motto of the League, “All men are brethren,” was replaced by the new battle-cry, “Proletarians of all lands unite,”which openly proclaimed the international character of the struggle. Seventeen years later this battle-cry resounded through the world as the watchword of the International Working Men’s Association, and the militant proletariat of all lands has to-day written it on its banner.’[2]
The Revolution of 1848, as we have already seen,[3]was a rising of the people in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Hungary against antiquated political arrangements and institutions. It was partly an interruption to the operations of the League, as it was far too weak to exercise any great influence on the course of events; but it was also an opportunity, as its members found access to the land of their birth, and in many parts of Germany formed the most resolute and advanced wing of the struggling democracy during that troubled period.
After the triumph of the reaction it became clear that the hope of effective revolutionary activity had again for a time passed away. A period of unexampled industrial prosperity set in. Capitalism was about to enter a far wider phase of development than it had yet seen, a fact which abundantly showed that the time was not favourable for an active propaganda in the interests of the proletariat. When capitalism has become a hindrance to progressive social development, when it is obviously too weak and narrow a framework for further evolution, only then is there hope of successful effort against it. So reasoned Marx and his associates. Hewithdrew, therefore, from the scene of action to his study in London. In 1852 the first international combination of working men came to a close. Observers who could not reasonably be considered superficial, thought that the movement had died without hope of resurrection.
But the triumph of reactionary governments in 1849 was not a settlement of the great questions that had been raised during that period of revolution; it was only a postponement of them. Before many years had passed, the peoples of Europe again began to move uneasily under the yoke of antiquated political forms. The rising of Italy against Austria in 1859; the struggle of Prussian Liberals against the Ministry; the resolve of Bismarck and his Sovereign to have the Prussian army ready for action in the way of reconstituting a united Germany on the ruins of the old Federation—these were only different symptoms of a fresh advance. They were ere long to be followed by similar activity in France, Spain, and Eastern Europe, all proving that the history of European communities is an organic movement, the reach and potency of which often disturb the forecast of the politician. In the generation after 1848 the governments were everywhere constrained to carry out the political programme which the people had drawn out for them during the revolution.
The social question may seem to have only a remote connection with the political movements just mentioned, and yet the revival of the social question was but another sign of the new life in Europe, which could not berepressed. The founding of the Social Democracy of Germany by Lassalle, and the appearance of the International on a wider and worthier scale under the auspices of Marx, were a clear proof that the working classes of the most advanced countries of Europe now meant to claim a better share in the moral and material inheritance of the human race. We have now to sketch the growth of the movement, which is properly styled the International.
Appropriately enough, the event which gave the first occasion for the founding of the International Association of Working Men was the International Exhibition of London in 1862. The workmen of France sent a deputation to visit the Exhibition. This visit had the approval and even pecuniary support of the Emperor; and it was warmly commended by some of the leading Parisian journals as a means not only of acquainting the workmen with the industrial treasures of the Exhibition, but of removing from the relations of the two countries the old leaven of international discord and jealousy. In the course of their visit the French delegates were entertained by some of their English brethren at the Freemasons’ Tavern, where views as to the identity of the interests of labour, and the necessity for common action in promoting them, were interchanged.
In the following year a second deputation of French workmen crossed the Channel. Napoleon was interested in the Polish insurrection of 1863, and it was part of his policy to encourage the expression of opinion in favour of an intervention in Poland by the WesternPowers. At this visit wishes for the restoration of Poland and for general congresses in the interest of labour against capital were expressed. Nothing decisive, however, was done till 1864, when on the 28th September a great public meeting of working men of all nations was held in St. Martin’s Hall, London. Professor Beesly presided, and Karl Marx was present. The meeting resulted in the appointment of a provisional committee to draw up the constitution of the new association. This committee consisted of fifty representatives of different nations, the English forming about half of its number. At the first meeting of the committee the sum of three pounds was collected, a humble beginning of the finances of an association which was designed to shake the world.
The work of drafting the constitution was first of all undertaken by Mazzini, but the ideas and methods of the Italian patriot were not suited to the task of founding an international association of labour. The statutes he drew up were adapted to the political conspiracy, conducted by a strong central authority, in which he had spent his life; he was strongly opposed to the antagonism of classes, and his economic ideas were vague. Marx, on the other hand, was in entire sympathy with the most advanced labour movement—had indeed already done much to mould and direct it; to him, therefore, the duty of drawing up a constitution was transferred. The inaugural address and the statutes drawn up by him were unanimously adopted by the committee.
In the inaugural address[4]three points were particularly emphasised. First, Marx contended that, notwithstanding the enormous development of industry and of national wealth since 1848, the misery of the masses had not diminished. Secondly, the successful struggle for the ten-hours working-day meant the break-down of the political economy of the middle classes, the competitive operation of supply and demand requiring to be regulated by social control. Thirdly, the productive association of a few daring ‘hands’ had proved that industry on a great scale, and with all the appliances of modern science, could be carried on without the existence of capitalist masters; and that wage-labour, like slave-labour, was only a transitory form, destined to disappear before associated labour, which gives to the workman a diligent hand, a cheerful spirit, and a joyful heart.
The numbers of the workmen gave them the means of success, but it could be realised only through union. It was the task of the International to bring about such an effective union, and for this end the workmen must take international politics into their own hands, must watch the diplomacy of their Governments, and uphold the simple rules of morality in the relations of private persons and nations. ‘The struggle for such a policy forms part of the struggle for the emancipation of the working class; proletarians of all lands, unite!’
The preamble to the statutes contains implicitly theleading principles of international socialism. The economic subjection of the workmen to the appropriator of the instruments of labour—that is, of the sources of life—is the cause of servitude in all its forms, of social misery, of mental degradation and political dependence; the economic emancipation of the working class is the great aim to which every political movement must be subordinated; the emancipation of the working class is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, to be solved only by the combined effort of the most advanced nations.
‘For these reasons the International Association of Working Men has been founded. It declares:
‘That all societies and individuals who adhere to it recognise truth, justice, and morality as the rule of their conduct towards one another, and to all men without distinction of colour, faith, or nationality. No duties without rights; no rights without duties.’
Such are the leading ideas of the preamble; we have only to develop them, and we have the programme of international socialism. Whatever opinion we may hold of the truth and practicability of the theories set forth in it, we must respect the lucid and masterly form in which Marx has presented them. It is seldom in the history of the world that talents and learning so remarkable have been placed at the service of an agitation that was so wide and far-reaching.
The International Association was founded for the establishment of a centre of union and of systematic co-operation between the working-men societies, whichfollow the same aim—viz. the protection, the progress and the complete emancipation of the working class. It would be a mistake to regard its organisation as one of excessive centralisation and dictatorial authority. It was to be a means of union, a centre of information and initiative, in the interests of labour; but the existing societies which should join it were to retain their organisation intact.
A General Council, having its seat in London, was appointed. While the president, treasurer, and general secretary were to be Englishmen, each nation was to be represented in the Council by a corresponding secretary. The General Council was to summon annual congresses and exercise an effective control over the affairs of the Association, but local societies were to have free play in all local questions. As a further means of union, it was recommended that the workmen of the various countries should be united in national bodies, represented by national central organs, but no independent local society was to be excluded from direct correspondence with the General Council. It will be seen that the arrangements of the Association were so made as to secure the efficiency of the central directing power on the one hand, and on the other to allow local and national associations a real freedom and abundant scope for adapting themselves to the peculiar tasks imposed on them by their local and national position.
As in founding, so in conducting the International, Marx took the leading part. The proceedings of the various congresses might be described as a discussion,elucidation, and filling up of the programme sketched by him in the inaugural address and in the statutes of the Association. Men representing the schools of Proudhon (who died in 1865), of Blanqui, and of Bakunin also exercised considerable influence; but the general tendency was in accordance with the views of Marx.
It was intended that the first congress for finally arranging the constitution of the Association should be held at Brussels in 1865, but the Belgian Government forbade the meeting, and the Council had to content itself with a conference in London. The first congress was held at Geneva in September 1866, sixty delegates being present. Here the statutes as drafted by Marx were adopted. Among other resolutions it decided on an agitation in favour of the gradual reduction of the working day to eight hours, and it recommended a most comprehensive system of education, intellectual and technical, which would raise the working people above the level of the higher and middle classes. Socialistic principles were set forth only in the most general terms. With regard to labour the International did not seek to enunciate a doctrinaire system, but only to proclaim general principles. They must aim at free co-operation, and for this end the decisive power in the State must be transferred from capitalists and landlords to the workers.
The proposal of the French delegates for the exclusion of the intellectual proletariat from the Association led to an interesting discussion. Was this proletariat to be reckoned among the workers? Ambitious talkersand agitators belonging to this class had done much mischief. On the other hand, their exclusion from socialistic activity would have deprived the labourers of the services of most of their greatest leaders, and the intellectual proletariat suffered from the pressure of capital quite as much as any other class of workers. The proposal for their exclusion was rejected.
The second congress, held at Lausanne in 1867, made considerable progress in the formulating of the socialistic theories. It was resolved that the means of transport and communication should become the property of the State, in order to break the mighty monopoly of the great companies, under which the subjection of labour does violence to human worth and personal freedom. The congress encouraged co-operative associations and efforts for the raising of wages, but emphatically called attention to the danger lest the spread of such associations should be found compatible with the existing system, thus resulting in the formation of a fourth class, and of an entirely miserable fifth. The social transformation can be radically and definitely accomplished only by working on the whole of society in thorough accordance with reciprocity and justice.
In the third congress, held at Brussels in September 1868, the socialistic principles which had all along been implicitly contained in the aims and utterances of the International received most explicit statement. Ninety-eight delegates, representing England, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland, assembled atthis congress. It resolved that mines and forests and the land, as well as all the means of transport and communication, should become the common property of society or of the democratic State, and that they should by the State be handed over to associations of workers, who should utilise them under rational and equitable conditions determined by society. It was further resolved that the producers could gain possession of the machines only through co-operative societies and the organisation of the mutual credit system, the latter clause being a concession apparently to the followers of Proudhon. After proposing a scheme for the better organising of strikes, the congress returned to the question of education, particularly emphasising the fact that an indispensable condition towards a thorough system of scientific, professional, and productive instruction was the reduction of the hours of labour.
The fundamental principle, ‘to labour the full product of labour,’ was recognised in the following resolution: ‘Every society founded on democratic principles repudiates all appropriation by capital, whether in the form of rent, interest, profit, or in any other form or manner whatsoever. Labour must have its full right and entire reward.’
In view of the struggle imminent between France and Germany, the congress made an emphatic declaration, denouncing it as a civil war in favour of Russia, and calling upon the workers to resist all war as systematic murder. In case of war the congress recommended a universal strike. It reckoned on thesolidarity of the workers of all lands for this strike of the peoples against war.
At the Congress of Basel in September 1869, little remained for the International to accomplish in further defining the socialistic position. The resolution for transforming land from private to collective property was repeated. A proposal to abolish the right of inheritance failed to obtain a majority, for while thirty-two delegates voted for the abolition, twenty-three were against it, and seventeen declined to vote.[5]
If we now turn from the congresses of the International to consider the history of its influence in Europe, we shall see that its success was very considerable. A conference of delegates of English Trade Unions which met at Sheffield in 1866 most earnestly enjoined the unions to join the International; and it repeatedly gave real help to the English trade unionists by preventing the importation of cheap labour from the Continent. It gained a substantial success in the effectual support of the bronze-workers at Paris during their lock-out in 1867. At the beginning of 1868 one hundred and twenty-two working men’s societies of South Germany, assembled at Nuremberg, declared their adhesion to the International. In 1870 Cameron announced himself as the representative of 800,000 American workmen who had adopted its principles.
It soon spread as far east as Poland and Hungary; it had affiliated societies, with journals devoted to itscause, in every country of Western Europe. The leading organs of the European press became more than interested in its movements; theTimespublished four leaders on the Brussels Congress. It was supposed to be concerned in all the revolutionary movements and agitations of Europe, thus gaining a world-historic notoriety as the rallying-point of social overthrow and ruin. Its prestige, however, was always based more on the vast possibilities of the cause it represented than on its actual power. Its organisation was loose, its financial resources insignificant; the Continental unionists joined it more in the hope of borrowing than of contributing support.
In 1870 the International resolved to meet at the old hearth of the revolutionary movement by holding its annual congress in Paris. This plan was rendered abortive by the Franco-German war. The war, however, helped to bring the principles of the Association more prominently before the world. During the Austro-German struggle of 1866 the International had declared its emphatic condemnation of war; and now the affiliated societies of France and Germany, as well as the General Council at London, uttered a solemn protest against a renewal of the scourge. Some of its German adherents likewise incurred the wrath of the authorities by venturing to protest against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine.
All will agree that it is a happy omen for the future that the democracy of labour as represented by the International was so prompt and courageous in itsdenunciation of the evils of war. It gives us ground to hope that as the influence of the democracy prevails in the council of nations the passion for war may decline. On this high theme no men have a better right to speak than the workers, for they have in all ages borne the heaviest of the burden of privation and suffering imposed on the world by the military spirit, and have had the least share in the miserable glories which victory may obtain.
The relation of the International to the rising of the Commune at Paris in 1871 is often misunderstood. It is clear that the International, as such, had no part either in originating or conducting the Commune; some of the French members joined it, but only on their individual responsibility. Its complicity after the event is equally clear. After the fall of the Commune, Karl Marx, in the name of the General Council, wrote a long and trenchant manifesto commending it as substantially a government of the working class, whose measures tended really to advance the interests of the working class. ‘The Paris of the workers, with its Commune, will ever be celebrated as the glorious herald of a new society. Its martyrs will be enshrined in the great heart of the working class. History has already nailed its destroyers on the pillory, from which all the prayers of their priests are impotent to deliver them.’[6]
The Commune was undoubtedly a rising for the autonomy of Paris, supported chiefly by the lower classes. It was a protest against excessive centralisation raisedby the democracy of Paris, which has always been far in advance of the provinces, and which found itself in possession of arms after the siege of the city by the Germans. But while it was prominently an assertion of local self-government, it was also a revolt against the economic oppression of the moneyed classes. Many of its measures were what we should call social-radical.
In two important points, therefore, the communal rising at Paris had a very close affinity with socialism. In the first place, it was a revolutionary assertion of the Commune or local unit of self-government as the cardinal and dominating principle of society over against the State or central government. That is to say, the Commune was a vindication of the political form which is necessary for the development of socialism, the self-governing group of workers. And in the second place, the Commune was a rising chiefly of the proletariat, the class of which socialism claims to be the special champion, which in Paris only partially saw the way of deliverance, but was weary of oppression, and full of indignation against the middle-class adventurers that had on the fall of the Empire seized the central government of France.
It would, however, be a mistake to assume for the Commune a clearness and comprehensiveness of aim which it did not really possess. We should not be justified in saying that the Commune had any definite consciousness of such an historical mission as has been claimed for it. The fearful shock caused by the overwhelming events of the Franco-German war had naturallyled to wide-spread confusion and uncertainty in the French mind; and those who undertook to direct it, whether in Paris or elsewhere, had painfully to grope their way towards the renovation of the country. At a time when it could hardly be said that France had a regular government, the Commune seized the opportunity to make a new political departure. The true history of its doings will, we hope, be written after passion and prejudice have sufficiently subsided to admit of it. The story of its rise and fall was only one phase of a sad series of troubles and disasters, which happily do not often overtake nations in so terrible a form.
From this point the decline and fall of the Association must be dated. The English trades unions, intent on more practical concerns at home, never took a deep interest in its proceedings; the German socialists were disunited among themselves, lacking in funds, and hampered by the police.
It found its worst enemies perhaps in its own household. In 1869, Bakunin, with a following of anarchists, had joined the International, and from the first found themselves at variance with the majority led by Marx. It can hardly be maintained that Marx favoured a very strongly centralising authority, yet, as his views and methods were naturally entirely repugnant to the anarchists, a breach was inevitable.
The breach came at the Hague Congress in September 1872. Sixty-five delegates were present, including Marx himself, who with his followers, after animated discussion, expelled the anarchist party, andthen removed the seat of the General Council to New York. The congress concluded with a meeting at Amsterdam, of which the chief feature was a remarkable speech from Marx. ‘In the eighteenth century,’ he said, ‘kings and potentates used to assemble at the Hague to discuss the interests of their dynasties. At the same place we resolved to hold the assize of labour’—a contrast which with world-historic force did undoubtedly mark the march of time. ‘He could not deny that there were countries, like America, England—and, as far as he knew its institutions, Holland also—where the workmen could attain their goal by peaceful means; but in most European countries force must be the lever of revolution, and to force they must appeal when the time came.’ Thus it was a principle of Marx to prefer peaceful methods where peaceful methods are permitted, but resort to force must be made when necessary. Force also is an economic power. He concluded by expressing his resolve that in the future, as in the past, his life would be consecrated to the triumph of the social cause.
The transfer of the General Council of the Marx International from London to New York was the beginning of the end. It survived just long enough to hold another congress at Geneva in 1873, and then quietly expired. The party of destruction, styling themselvesautonomistsand led by Bakunin, had a bloodier history. The programme of this party, as we shall see in our chapter on Anarchism, was to overturn all existing institutions, with the view to reconstructingthem on a communal basis. This it endeavoured to realise by the great communal risings in Southern Spain in 1873, when its adherents set up their special form of government at Barcelona, Seville, Cadiz, and Cartagena—at the last-mentioned place also seizing on part of the iron-clad fleet of Spain. The risings were suppressed, not without difficulty, by the national troops. The autonomists had a lingering existence till 1879.
In its main practical aim, to serve as a common centre for the combined efforts of working men of all nations towards their universal emancipation, the International had only a moderate and transitory success. It was a great idea, for which the times were not ripe. How effectually organise so many millions of working men, of different countries, at different stages of social development—men ignorant of each other’s language, with little leisure, without funds for travelling and purposes of propaganda? It was inevitable that some such effort should be made; for we need not repeat that labour has international interests of vital and supreme importance. And men might have expected that the attempt would be renewed. But on the vast scale contemplated by the International it was at least premature, and inasmuch as it drew the attention of the workmen from practical measures to far-distant and perhaps utopian aims, and engaged them in revolutionary schemes for which the times were not ready, even if they were otherwise desirable, its influence was not salutary.
In a movement so momentous, however, it is important to have taken the first step, and the International took more than the first step. It proclaimed a great cause in the face of the world—the cause of the poor man, the cause of the suffering and oppressed millions of labour. As an instrument of propaganda, as a proclamation of a great cause with possibilities of vast and continual growth, it has had a world-historic significance, and teaches lessons from which all governments and all men may learn. Its great mission was propaganda, and in that it has succeeded marvellously. Largely by means of it, the ideas of Marx and his associates are making the tour of the world. The governments most menaced by the social revolution, and most antagonistic to its principles, must perforce have regard to the questions raised by the International. It is a movement that will not rest, but will in many ways, and for many a year, claim the attention of the world.
Though the International was dead, the forces which gave it birth were still alive. The principles it proclaimed continued to exercise the thoughts of men. It had placed before the world a whole group of problems for study, for experiment, to be pursued through doubt, struggle, and agony, to some kind of wise and beneficial solution, we fervently hope.
We should not be discouraged by the fact that the efforts made for the solution of the questions of the world have so often been so hopelessly incommensurate with the greatness of the task which they attempted.
In beginning these high endeavours, men have always been like children groping in the dark. Yet the failures of one generation have frequently shown the way to success in the next. The International attempted the great task of the present epoch of the world in its most difficult form. We need not be surprised that its success was partial; and we may with confidence expect that the lessons taught by it will prove most helpful for the future.
In truth the International had only suffered a brief eclipse. The various socialistic societies all over the world continued to be fully conscious of the international character of the movement in which they were engaged. Without a formal organisation they represented the claims and aspirations of the same class, had common sympathies, and pursued like aims. While differing greatly in methods of action, and even in principle, they felt that they belonged to the same stream of historic effort and tendency.
The international movement soon began again to find expression in congresses representing the different countries. Such was the congress at Ghent in 1877, which was not marked by any noteworthy feature. Greater than any socialist congress previously held were those which assembled at Paris in 1889, the centenary of the Revolution, on the 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. There were two congresses, one representing, as far as any difference of principle was concerned, the more uncompromising Marx school, the other consisting of delegates who are not indisposedto co-operate with other democratic parties. But the cleavage of principle was by no means definite; the difference between the two meetings originated largely in personal matters, especially as regards the French socialist parties, which issued the invitations. The immediate occasion of disagreement related to the manner of proving the mandates of the members. Both congresses advocated an energetic collectivism, while both also urged more practical measures for the protection of labour, such as Sunday rest, an eight-hours working-day, etc. The Marx congress consisted of 395 delegates, and the other congress of about six hundred delegates from the various countries of the civilised world.
International Congresses followed at Brussels in 1891, at Zürich in 1893, and in London in 1896. Both at Brussels and London there was much disorder, caused chiefly by the presence of a considerable number of delegates with anarchist sympathies, and proving too clearly that the International of Workers was like the Concert of Europe, not yet ready to march.
After being alarmed by an International of Workers, the world was agreeably startled by the project for an International of Governments. In 1889 the Swiss Government brought forward a proposal for an International Conference on Labour of the countries most interested in industrial competition. The question assumed a new aspect when, early in 1890, the young German Emperor issued rescripts, one of which contained the same proposal. Naturally, the matterspresented for discussion by the Emperor covered only a small part of the ground occupied by the International of Workers. The protection of adult labour, except in mines, was excluded from the business of the conference. Sunday labour, the protection of women, children, and young persons, were the chief questions laid before the meeting. There can be no doubt that the conference gave a much-needed and a beneficial stimulus to legislation for the protection of labour in civilised countries, though it by no means realised the sanguine expectations that many formed regarding it.
The main result of the conference has been the recognition by the Governments of the fact that there are labour questions of vast importance, and that these questions have international aspects which can no longer be ignored. Let us hope that it may be the beginning of better things. In the course of human improvement we may hope that the question of the needs and rights of labour will ever take a large place beside the concerns of war and diplomacy, and that it will eventually supersede them. The workers have a growing influence at the elections in civilised countries. It is their duty to press their just claims on the Governments, and so to bring about that desirable consummation.