Written March 14, 1913
The main thing in the teaching of Marx is the elucidation of the world-wide historical role of the proletariat as the builder of a socialist society. Has the progress of events in the world confirmed this teaching since it was expounded by Marx?
It was first put forward by Marx in 1844. Already the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, which appeared in 1848, gave a consistent systematic exposition of this teaching, which exposition still remains the best even now. World history, since that time, is clearly divisible into three main periods: (1) From the 1848 Revolution to the Paris Commune (1871); (2) From the Paris Commune to the Russian Revolution (1905); (3) Since the Russian Revolution.
Let us cast a glance on the fate of the teaching of Marx in each of these periods.
1.
In the beginning of the first period Marx’s teaching does not by any means dominate. It is only one of very many fractions or streams in socialism. The forms of socialism which dominate are those which, in the main, are akin to our Narodniks; the lack of understanding of the materialist basis of the historical movement, the inability to assign the role and significance of each class in capitalist society, the masking of the bourgeois essence of democratic reorganization by various, ostensibly socialist, phrases about “the people,” “justice,” “right,” etc.
The 1848 Revolution struck a fatal blow at all these vociferous, multi-coloured, and noisy varieties of pre-Marxian socialism. In all countries the Revolution showed the various classes of society in action. The shooting of the workers by the republican bourgeoisie in the June Days in Paris, in 1848, finally established that the proletariat alone was of a socialist nature. The liberal bourgeoisie feared the independence of this class a hundred times more than any kind of reaction. Cowardly liberalism grovels before the latter. The peasantry is satisfied with the abolition of the remnants of feudalism and passes over to the side of order and only from time to time wavers between labour democracy and bourgeois liberalism. All doctrines of classless socialism and class-less politics turn out to be sheer nonsense.
The Commune of Paris (1871) completes this development of bourgeois reforms; it was only the heroism of the proletariat that brought about the consolidation of the republic, i.e., the form of state organisation in which the class relations appear in their most naked form.
In all other European countries a more confused and less finished development leads to the same formation of a bourgeois society. By the end of the first period (1848-71) – a period of storm and revolution – pre-Marxian socialism dies. Independent Proletarian parties are born: the First International (1864-72) and the German Social-Democracy.
2.
The second period (1872-1904) is distinguished from the first by its “peaceful” character, by the absence of revolutions. The West has finished with bourgeois revolutions. The East has not yet grown ripe for them.
The West enters into a phase of “peaceful” preparation for the epoch of future transformations. Socialist parties, proletarian in essence, are formed everywhere, parties which learn to use bourgeois parliamentarianism, to establish their own daily press, their educational institutions, their trade unions and their co-operatives. The teaching of Marx gains a complete victory and expands in breadth. The process of selection and gathering of the forces of the proletariat and its preparation for the battles ahead proceed slowly but steadily.
The dialectics of history is such that the theoretical victory of Marxism forces its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists. Liberalism, rotten to the core, tries to revive itself in the form of socialist opportunism. The period of preparation of the forces for great battles, is interpreted by them as the renunciation of these battles. Improvements in the position of the slaves enabling them to carry on a fight against wage-slavery is explained by them in the sense that the slaves are selling their liberty rights for a penny. In a cowardly manner they preach “social peace” (i.e., peace with slave-ownership), renunciation of the class struggle, etc. They have many adherents among socialist parliamentarians, the various officials in the labour movement, and the “sympathizing” intellectuals.
3.
The opportunists hardly had time to finish their hymns of praise to “social peace” and the needlessness of storms under “democracy,” when a new source of the greatest of world storm opened in Asia. The Russian Revolution [of 1905] was followed by the Turkish, the Persian and the Chinese. We are now living in the very epoch of these storms and their “repercussion” on Europe. Whatever fate may befall the great Chinese republic against which various “civilized” hyenas are now sharpening their teeth, no power in the world will re-establish serfdom in Asia, or wipe out the heroic democracy of the m of the people in Asiatic and semi-Asiatic countries.
Some people, inattentive to the conditions of preparation and development of mass struggle, were reduced to a state of despair and anarchism by the long postponements of the decisive fight against capitalism in Europe. We now see how short-sighted and pusillanimous is this anarchist despair.
The fact of Asia, with its eight hundred million people, being drawn into the struggle for the same European ideals must he a source of courage and not of despair.
The Asiatic revolutions have shown us the same lack of backbone and baseness of liberalism, the same exceptional importance of the independence of the democratic masses, and the same sharp line dividing the proletariat from the bourgeoisie. Anyone who, after the experience of Europe and Asia, speaks of class-less politics and class-less socialism, simply deserves to be put in a cage, to be exhibited side by side with some Australian kangaroo.
After Asia, Europe has also begun to stir, but in no Asiatic way. The “peaceful” period of 1872-1904 has gone completely, never to return. High cost of living and the pressure of the trusts is causing an unprecedented intensification of the economic struggle, which has roused even the British workers who are most of all corrupted by liberalism. Before our eyes, a political crisis is maturing even in the “die-hard,” bourgeois-junker country, Germany. Owing to the feverish race for armaments, and the policy of imperialism, the “social peace” of modern Europe is more like a barrel of gunpowder. And the decay of all bourgeois parties together with the maturing of the proletariat is proceeding steadily apace.
Since the rise of Marxism, every one of the three great epochs in world history has provided it with fresh proof and has brought it new triumphs. But the coming historical epoch is holding in store for Marxism, as the teaching of the proletariat, a still greater triumph.
