From the article of 'Petrel'
No.613 / January 12, 1997

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The 100 years of the socialist movement

The Communist Party has recurred to the reformism
We request the worker party based on Marxism!



It was 1898 that Bernstein who advocated the review of the Marxism had clarified the thought for the first time about 100 years ago. The thought that is known as the revisionism and the reformism becomes to be not only the standpoint of the social democratic tendency in modern age but also the thought and practice of the Starlinistic Communist Party virtually. The Communist Party also is actually protecting the standpoint of the revisionism such as the 'nationalist' politics and the 'democratic reformation' of the capitalism by the name of "the Creative development of the socialism." However, the experience of the socialist movement during a century clarifies the correctness of the Marxism and the reactionary character of the reformism. Let's look back to the 100 years of the socialist movement.



<> The Gaining power of the revisionism and the opportunism.

The second International that succeeded the first International founded by Marx and Engels and formed in 1889 founded the socialist parties, the labor unions, and the other popular worker's organizations, and made the thought of the Marxism known to worker's average. However, the parliamentarism and the reformism had been gaining power and had expanded the influence power in it contrarily with the rapid development of the socialist parties and the labor movement.

The reformistic opinion had already been openly declared by Forumahr and the like at the beginning of 1890's. They insisted that they should pursue worker's realistic profit than persist in the revolutionary standpoint and in principle, and demanded the expansion of the labor protection legislation, the acquisition of the right to organize and the like. And, they also proposed to correct the agricultural policy of the Social Democratic Party, which required the decomposition of the farmer management, in the direction of the peasant protection. However, it is Bernstein who had laid out the opinion of the reformism en masse.

Bernstein criticized the historical materialism, the class struggle, the labor value theory, and furthermore the analysis of the development of capitalism in the basis of the theory by Marx.

He criticized first about historical materialism that it was only economic determinism by which the economic relations provided for the development of the society and it disregarded the intentional activity of human being. It is necessary to value especially the ideological and ethical factor about summarized process of the history according to him. In addition, about the class struggle and the theory of revolution, he criticized the excessive evaluation of the meaning of the revolutionary violence about the socialistic revolution, and insisted on the gradual improvement based on the democratic system.

About Marx's labor value theory, he criticized that it assumed the agreement of the demand and supply of the commodity and it was one-sided theory by which the condition on the demand side did not analyzed, and assumed "the limit effect theory" that explained the value of the commodity from the demand and supply relation of an each occasion market and the labor value theory to be in supplementary relation to each other.

Bernstein insisted about the development of capitalism that capitalism became possible to adjust the production by the expansion of the confidence system and by the formation of the stock company, cartel, trust, so the general panic had been gone, it was mistake the workers' poverty would advance, and insisted that the workers were rather becoming abundant and becoming to the middle class. Thus, Bernstein denied the fall of capitalism and the necessity of the shift to socialism. He assumed that it was necessary to advance on the road of not the fundamental revolution of capitalism but the gradual improvement as "The bigger security to gain the success lasting long is in steadier advancement than the possibility to obtain from the catastrophe collision."

The mistake of the insistence on Bernstein, which criticized the theory by Marx as the one that was led from a transcendental diagram of liberating of the worker and justified the reformism, was proven by the reality of the capitalism afterwards. The contradiction of the anarchic production of capitalism had intensified the imperialistic confrontation and contention concerning the world market. The outbreak of the First Great War that rolled all over the world was just the appearance of the anarchic of capitalism to acquire profit. It also proved that the steady advancement by the accumulation of the improvement on the base of the capital system was the Reformist's reactionary balderdash.

The imperialist war prompted the development of opportunism. At the break out of the World Great War, the guidance division of the Second International including Kautsky betrayed the standpoint of the international unity of the workers by advocating "the defense of the mother country" and "the castle peace," and fell away into the patriotism and the social chauvinism.



<> The Fight by Bolshevik

It was Lenin's Bolshevik to defend the standpoint of the Marxism and to carry out fight decisively while the Second International was deepening opportunistic degeneration.

The opportunism of the Second International was represented by the Menshevik in Russia.

They insisted that the condition of the socialist revolution was not mature in Russia, the struggle against the despotism of the Czar was still a problem of the bourgeoisie and the worker needed not go deep into this problem, the worker felt a profit in the struggle against the employer chiefly for the improvement of pay and the work condition etc. Thus, they assumed about socialist's duty not to promote the revolutionary struggle for the Czar despotism overthrow but to organize the economic struggle of the worker against the government and the employer. The insistence of Menshevik was to evade the fight against the Czar despotism and to try to have made the labor movement to the tail of the bourgeoisie compromising to the Czar.

On the other hand, the Bolshevik including Lenin appealed that just the worker was the class who would carry out the democratic revolution thoroughly, the worker had to stand at the head. Lenin and the like appealed that even if the revolution of Russia is a bourgeois revolution, there could exist "the revolution superior in the landowner and large bourgeois element" or "the revolution superior in the farmer and proletarian element." He appealed that the worker had to fight for the promotion of the bourgeois revolution thoroughly because it was possible to advance to the socialism only by the latter revolution by "cutting out the rotting part" such as the monarchism and the standing army. And, He parted from the opportunistic Menshevik, organized the disciplined revolutionary party stood in the Marxism, organized the class struggle of the worker.

If there would not exist the tenacious and consistent fight of Bolshevik against the ruling class and the all opportunisms, there might not exist Russian revolution.

The defeatistic tendency became strong and the skepticism to the Marxism had spread in the situation where the age of the reactionary came after the fail of the revolution in 1905.

Though the subjective idealism of the Mach principal and the like became popular, Lenin fought against this protecting the dialectic materialism of Marx by writing "The Materialism and the Experience criticizing theory." The contradiction of capitalism exploded as the First Great War and the various parties of the Second International fell into chauvinism. Lenin wrote "The Imperialism Theory" on the circumstances where most of the Bolshevik calling of Lenin and the like named "the imperialist war into the civil war" was isolated. It was the one that elucidated the economic base of the capitalist powers rushed into the World Great War and clarified the necessity. What Lenin wanted to emphasize most in this writing was that the monopolistic capitalism was the previous night of the socialist revolution, how did imperialism misinterpret the labor movement, and how the worker in Russia fought. He was not able to write these plainly in consideration of the inspection under the Czar despotism. However, Lenin accomplished these problems by promoting the revolutionary struggle of the reality.

The revolution of 1917 year was the first socialist revolutions in the world in the meaning of the revolution led by the socialist thought of the worker, and it produced a big influence on the labor movement and the socialist movement in the world. Lenin called the formation of the Third International to the worker in all over the world as a new international organization of socialism that replaced the failing Second International.



<> The Dismantlement of the revolutionary struggle by Stalinist

However, the international socialist movement rebuilt by Lenin and Bolshevik was changed in quality in opportunism by Stalin after the death of Lenin.

The one to characterize the movement of the Stalinist Communist Party is the people's front strategy. However, this had appeared historically as a mistake of "inside out" of the petty bourgeois revolutionary, sectarian "the Social Fascism theory." At first, Stalin did not try to appeal and to organize the counteroffensive of the worker against the counterrevolution = fascism that was gaining power under the deepening crisis of the capitalism. Stalin advocated "the Social Fascism theory" that assumed social democracy as "the mild share of fascism" and appealed to concentrate worker's fight on social democracy. The sectarian and opportunistic policy of Stalin, identifying the social democrat to the fascism as the counterrevolutionary and violent rule, and turning "Main shock" to the social democracy, dismantled worker's fight and helped the Nazis fascist to win.

Nazis won in Germany and the organizations of the workers including the Communist Party were made to be annihilated, the Comintern converted the policy from "Main shock" policy to the social democrat to the union front strategy ("People's front strategy") under the circumstances where the halberd ahead was turned to the Soviet Union.

Stalinist assumed that it was necessary to protect bourgeois democracy aggressively to fight against the fascism and insisted on the union with the social democrat, the liberal, and furthermore including a part of the bourgeoisie. They assumed that just the union of wide "democratic power" was the condition to win the fight against the fascism, lifted bourgeois democracy, and confined worker's fight in the narrow frame of democracy protection.

However, the fascism resulted from the corruption of the bourgeois democracy that Stalinist had protected. The fascism opposed worker's socialism and repulsed to the bourgeois's liberalism and democracy. The fascism criticized the bourgeois liberalism, the individualism, and the selfishness as the cause of the division, confusion, and corruption of society, and as bringing the crisis of the socialist revolution, and it took out "Community" as the principle of new society. The fascism tried to get over the crisis of capitalism by the national integration by totalitarianism. Thus, under the circumstances that the liberalism and the bourgeois democracy were losing trust, the "Community" fantasy of the fascism extended rapidly.

It was necessary to pursue just the class fight of the worker aiming at the socialism and getting over bourgeois democracy to crush the fascism. However, Stalinist opposed the promotion of the class fight of the worker and beautified the alliance with the bourgeois, putty bourgeois party and the politician.

The experience of the people's front of Spain in 1936 year actually clarifies the powerlessness and the reactionary of the people's front strategy. In Spain, the Communist Party slandered and suppressed the worker's revolutionary struggle that tried to get over the bourgeois ruling order and to fight against it as the "counterrevolution" to "destroy" the people's front and to give enemy profit. The generosity to the bourgeois league in one side and the hostility to the worker's revolutionary league in the other side were the two sides of a medal of the people's front strategy. The sect opportunism of the people's front strategy of the Communist Party destroyed revolutionary worker's fight and helped the counterrevolution. The reactionary, dictatorial politics of Franco continued near 40 years in Spain after that.

Moreover, the entering to the bourgeois cabinet of the Communist Party in France and Italy immediately after the Second Great War was the one based on the union front (the "national" front) strategy. The Communist Party has been beautifying the United Nations as the "Democratic" power because they assume the Second Great War that is the imperialism war from which side to be seen the war to defend "Democracy" from the invasion of the fascism. (In postwar days, the Japanese Communist Party called the occupation army "the Liberation army.") And when the war is concluded, they suppressed the worker's fight and helped the rebuilding of the bourgeois order assuming that the revival of the system of "Democratic nation" is the problem to which we should give priority above all.

These experiences teach that the union front strategy such as the people's front or the national front is the betrayal that rots and dismantles the revolutionary fight of the worker. However, the Communist Party does not seriously learn anything from such an experience and is lifting the union front strategy still as a golden rule now.



<> The corrupting left

The bourgeois corruption of the Stalinist Communist Party advanced after the war. The Communist Party "Structure Reformation" route in Italy, which gradually approached socialism through "the democratic reformation" of politics and economy of capitalism, became the route of the Western Europe Communist Party as "Euro-communism" in 1970's. And in Italy, the Communist Party came to advocate "the Historical Compromise," that is, the "National Unity" government by the union with bourgeois parties in the deepening of the political and social uneasiness such as the inflation, the serious economic crisis due to recession, the spread of the crime and the terrorism. This was a government for the rebuilding of the capital system. The crisis of capitalism is not ominous at all for the worker. It shows that the rule of the capital should overcome, and teaches that the worker should unite for it and should develop the fight. However, "the Historical Compromise" abandoned this fundamental duty and expressed the relief of a capital system. It is also natural for the Italian Communist Party, which hoisted openly the relief of capitalism as self's duty, to have canceled the Communist Party today and to have attempted the turnover to the Social Democratic Party both nominally and virtually.

The Japanese Communist Party also assumes that socialism is a problem of "the Selection of the people" in the future, shelves the worker's fight for socialism, and is chatting about the "national" fight for "the Democracy Revolution" of capitalism. They announced "the Declaration of freedom and democracy," lift the bourgeois freedom and democracy as if the one that the human race should eternally esteem, that is, the plural political parties will exist, the freedom of thought, creed, and religion will be remaining about socialism in the far future, and flatter the bourgeoisie and the putty bourgeoisie. However, these will not be able to become problem clearly in the socialist society where the class and exploitation do not exist. The rot of the Communist Party evolved and the thought and the practice degenerated into the same one as Kautsky and Bernstein before fundamentally.

On the other hand, the lazy leader of old Socialist Party and the labor union, a part of intelligentsia assumes that Marx's socialism failed and is lifting the civicism as a movement replacing it in time of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Communist Party. However, having failed is not the socialism but the national capitalism of the Soviet Union. They make public whether socialism went bankrupt, deny the worker's original class fight and try to dissolve it to the petty bourgeois improvement movement.

The historical experience of the international socialist movement teaches that the liberating of the worker is not possible without the uniting of the labor movement and the revolutionary socialism = Marxism. It is necessary to pursue the revolutionary party of the worker based on the Marxism. It is just the problem of the advanced worker to construct the true labor party (SWP) and to fight.

(Kichiro Taguchi)