Foreword
The title of this work may seem surprising at first glance. social reform or the revolution? How can social democracy be against social reform? Is it possible oppose social revolution, a revolution in the existing system, the ultimate goal of social democracy, social reform? Of course no. For Social-Democracy, the daily practical struggle for social reforms, for the improvement of the position of the working people on the basis of the existing system, the struggle for democratic institutions, is, on the contrary, the only way to lead the class struggle of the proletariat, advance towards the ultimate goal - the seizure of political power and the abolition of the system of hired labor. labor. For social democracy, there is an inextricable link between social reform and social revolution: the struggle for social reform is means, a social upheaval is goal.
We first find the opposition of these two moments of the labor movement in the theory of Eduard Bernstein, expounded by him in the articles "Problems of Socialism" in the journal "Neue Zeit" for 1896/97, and especially in his book "Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy". Practically all this theory boils down to nothing more than the advice to abandon the social upheaval - the ultimate goal of social democracy - and to turn social reform from facilities class struggle in goal. Bernstein himself most aptly and sharply formulated his views in the following phrase: "The ultimate goal, whatever it may be, is nothing for me, the movement is everything."
But the socialist final goal is the only decisive factor that distinguishes the social democratic movement from bourgeois democracy and bourgeois radicalism. It is this ultimate goal that transforms the entire working-class movement from fruitless darning undertaken to save the capitalist system into a class struggle. against this system with the aim of its final destruction. That is why the question "social reform or revolution," in the sense that Bernstein understands it, is at the same time a question for social democracy: to be or not to be. In disputes with Bernstein and his followers, it is ultimately not about this or that method of struggle, not about this or that tactics but about existence social democratic movement.
It is doubly important for the workers to know this, the question is about themselves and their influence on the movement, their destinies are put in jeopardy. The opportunist trend in the party, theoretically formulated by Bernstein, is nothing but an unconscious desire to ensure the predominance of the petty-bourgeois elements that have entered the party and to modify its practice and goals in their spirit. The question of social reform and revolution, of the ultimate goal and movement, is, on the other hand, the question of petty-bourgeois or proletarian character of the labor movement.
Part one
1. OPPORTUNISTIC METHOD
If theories are a reflection of the phenomena of the external world in the human brain, then, bearing in mind the latest theory of Eduard Bernstein, one should add - sometimes a reflection put on its head. The theory of the introduction of socialism through social reforms - after the German social reform quietly died; the theory of trade union control over the production process - after the defeat of the English engineering workers; the theory of a Social Democratic majority in parliament - after the revision of the Saxon constitution and attempts at universal suffrage in elections to the Reichstag! But the center of gravity of Bernstein's reasoning lies, in our opinion, not in his views on the practical tasks of Social Democracy, but in what he says about the course of the objective development of capitalist society, with which, of course, his above-mentioned views are very closely connected.
According to Bernstein, the general collapse of capitalism, as the latter develops, becomes less and less probable, since the capitalist system every day shows an increasing ability to adapt, and production is constantly more and more differentiated. The adaptability of capitalism is expressed, according to Bernstein, firstly, in the disappearance of common crises, which is determined by the development of the credit system, business organizations, transport and communications; secondly, in the stability of the middle class as a result of the constant differentiation of branches of production and the transition of large sections of the proletariat to the middle class; and, finally, thirdly, this adaptability is expressed in the improvement of the economic and political position of the proletariat as a result of the trade union struggle.
Hence, for the practical struggle of Social Democracy follows the general indication that its activity should be directed not at seizing political power in the state, but at improving the position of the working class and introducing socialism, not as a result of a social and political crisis, but through the gradual implementation of the cooperative principle.
Bernstein himself does not see anything new in his arguments and even believes that they coincide both with the individual statements of Marx and Engels, and with the general direction of the activity of Social Democracy until very recently. However, in our opinion, it is difficult to deny that Bernstein's views are in fact in fundamental contradiction with the entire train of thought of scientific socialism.
If the whole of Bernstein's revision were exhausted by the assertion that the course of capitalist development proceeds much more slowly than is accustomed to believe, then this would only mean that the seizure of political power by the proletariat is necessary. postpone; and from this it would practically be possible, in the last resort, to conclude that the tempo of the struggle was slower.
But it's not that. Bernstein questions not the pace of development, but the very course of development of capitalist society and, in connection with this, the transition to the socialist system.
If socialist theory has up to now considered that a general annihilating crisis could become the starting point of a socialist revolution, then in this case, in our opinion, two things should be distinguished: the foundations of the theory and its external form. This theory assumes that the capitalist system by itself, by virtue of its own contradictions, will prepare the moment of its destruction, when its existence becomes simply impossible. If such a moment was imagined in the form of a general and destructive trade crisis, then there were certainly deep reasons for this. However, for the basic idea of socialism, this plays only a secondary role.
The scientific substantiation of socialism is based, as is well known, on three consequences of capitalist development: first of all, to the increasing anarchy capitalist economy, which makes its death inevitable; secondly, for the growing socialization production process, which creates positive starting points for the future social order, and, thirdly, for the growing organization and class consciousness the proletariat, which constitutes an active factor in the forthcoming revolution.
Bernstein rejects first from the named basic foundations of scientific socialism. He argues that capitalist development does not lead to a general economic collapse.
But at the same time, he disputes not only a certain form of death of the capitalist system, but also the very possibility of its death. He emphatically declares: “It might be objected that when they speak of the collapse of modern society, they mean more than a general and overwhelming economic crisis, namely, the complete collapse of the capitalist system due to its own contradictions.” And he answers this: “The approximately simultaneous complete collapse of the modern system of production becomes, with the further development of society, not more, but less likely, since this development increases, on the one hand, the adaptability of the industry, and at the same time increases its differentiation.” But in this case, an important question arises: why and how will we achieve the ultimate goal of our aspirations at all? From the point of view of scientific socialism, the historical necessity of a socialist revolution is expressed primarily in the growing anarchy of the capitalist system, which pushes capitalism into a dead end. But if we agree with Bernstein that capitalist development is not on the way to its own destruction, then socialism ceases to be objectively necessary. Of the cornerstones of its scientific substantiation, then only two other consequences of the capitalist system remain: the socialized process of production and the class consciousness of the proletariat. Bernstein also means this when he says: “Socialist thought (with the elimination of the theory of collapse) does not lose any of its persuasiveness. In fact, if you look closely, what are the factors we have listed to eliminate or modify the collapse of previous crises. These are all those circumstances which are at the same time the prerequisites and, in part, even the starting points for the socialization of production and exchange.
However, a cursory glance is enough to prove the falsity of this conclusion as well. What is the significance of the phenomena that Bernstein calls the means of adapting capitalism: cartels, credit, the improvement of means of communication, the rise in the well-being of the working class, etc.? In that, of course, they eliminate or at least blunt the internal contradictions of the capitalist economy, hinder their development and aggravation. Thus, the elimination of crises means the elimination of the contradiction between production and exchange on the basis of capitalism; the improvement of the position of the working class as such, and partly of its transition to the middle class, signifies the blunting of the contradiction between labor and capital. So, since cartels, the credit system, trade unions, etc., destroy capitalist contradictions and, consequently, save the capitalist system from final destruction and preserve capitalism (which is why Bernstein calls them "means of adaptation"), how can they Now is the time to represent "the preconditions and, in part, even the starting points of socialism"? Obviously, only in the sense that they contribute to a clearer manifestation of the social character of production. But in so far as they retain its capitalist form, they make it unnecessary for this socialized production to pass into a socialist form. Therefore, they can serve as a starting point and prerequisites for the socialist system only in a conceptual, and not in a historical sense, i.e., these are phenomena that we we know on the basis of our idea of socialism, that they are related to the latter, but which, in fact, not only cannot lead to a socialist revolution, but rather make it superfluous. Thus, only the class consciousness of the proletariat remains as a justification for socialism. But in this case, too, it is not simply a spiritual reflection of the increasingly sharpening contradictions of capitalism and its impending doom—after all, this latter is prevented by means of adaptation—but merely an ideal whose attractive force rests on its own perfections attributed to it.
In a word, in this way we obtain the justification of the socialist program through "pure knowledge", or, to put it more simply, the idealistic justification, while objective necessity, i.e., proof based on the very course of the material development of society, is discarded. Revisionist theory faces a dilemma. Or, as before, the socialist revolution springs from the internal contradictions of the capitalist system—then, along with this system, its contradictions develop, and their result will in due time be its downfall in one form or another; but in such a case the "means of adaptation" are invalid, and the crash theory is correct. Or the "means of adaptation" are really able to prevent the collapse of the capitalist system, i.e., thus make capitalism capable of existence and, consequently, eliminate its contradictions; but in that case socialism ceases to be a historical necessity and is anything but the result of the material development of society. This dilemma leads to another: either revisionism is right with regard to the course of capitalist development, in which case the socialist transformation of society turns into a utopia, or socialism is not a utopia, in which case the theory of means of adaptation is wrong. That is the question - that's the question.
2. ACCOMMODATION OF CAPITALISM
According to Bernstein, the most important means of adapting the capitalist economy are credit, the improvement of means of communication and the organization of entrepreneurs.
Let's start with loan. It performs various functions in the capitalist economy, but the most important of them, as you know, is to increase the capacity of production to expand, to mediate and facilitate exchange. Where the immanent tendency of capitalist production towards unlimited expansion runs up against the limits of private property, against the limited size of private capital, credit is the means of overcoming these obstacles in the capitalist way; it combines into one many private capitals (joint-stock companies) and puts at the disposal of the capitalist someone else's capital (industrial credit). On the other hand, it, as trade credit, speeds up the exchange of commodities, i.e., speeds up the return of capital to production, and consequently the entire cycle of the production process. It is easy to see the impact that both of these essential functions of credit have on the occurrence of crises. If, as is well known, crises result from a contradiction between the capacity and tendency of production to expand, on the one hand, and the limited capacity of consumption, on the other, then, according to what has been said above, credit is intended, as it were, to expose this contradiction as often as possible. First of all, it increases to an extraordinary extent the capacity of production to expand and constantly creates in it an internal impulse to go beyond the market. But he strikes on two fronts.
Since credit, as a factor in the production process, causes overproduction, then, as a medium of circulation, it strikes with the greatest force during a crisis the productive forces it itself called forth. At the first sign of stagnation, credit shrinks, does not come to the aid of exchange where it is needed, does not work and is useless where it still functions, and thus reduces the ability to consume to a minimum during crises.
In addition to these two most important consequences, credit also acts in many respects in the formation of crises. It is not only a technical means that gives the capitalist the opportunity to dispose of other people's capital, but at the same time serves as an encouragement to the bold and unceremonious use of other people's property, therefore, leads to risky speculation. As an insidious means of commodity exchange, it not only exacerbates the crisis, but also facilitates its onset and spread; he turns the whole exchange into an extremely complex and artificial mechanism, with a minimum amount of metallic money as the real basis, so that the slightest provocation upsets him.
Thus, credit is far from being a means of eliminating or even alleviating crises, but, on the contrary, is a special and powerful factor in creating crises. Yes, it cannot be otherwise. The specific function of credit, in the most general terms, is precisely to deprive all capitalist relations of the last remnant of stability and to introduce everywhere the greatest possible elasticity, to make all capitalist forces in the highest degree extensible, relative and sensitive. It is clear that this can only exacerbate and facilitate the emergence of a crisis, which is nothing but a periodic clash of opposing forces of the capitalist economy.
But this brings us at the same time to another question: how can credit be a "means of adaptation" of capitalism at all? In whatever respect and in whatever form we may conceive of this “adaptation” through credit, the essence of such an adaptation can obviously lie in only one thing: thanks to it, some contradictory relationship in the capitalist economy is smoothed out, some contradictory relationship is abolished or dulled. then from its contradictions and in this way the forces fettered at one point are able to reach a wide expanse. However, if there is a means in modern capitalist society that can bring all its contradictions to an extreme degree, then this is precisely credit. It reinforces the tension between modes of production and exchange bringing production to the greatest tension and, at the slightest pretext, paralyzing exchange. It reinforces the tension between production method and method of assignment separating production from property, transforming the capital employed in production into social capital, and giving a part of the profit the form of interest on capital, that is, pure private property. It reinforces the tension between relations of ownership and production, by concentrating enormous productive forces in the hands of a few through the forcible expropriation of many small capitalists. It intensifies the contradiction between the social nature of production and capitalist private property, making it necessary for the state to intervene in production (joint-stock companies).
In a word, credit reproduces all the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist world and brings them to the extreme, accelerates the pace with which capitalist society rushes towards its own death - collapse. So, as far as credit is concerned, the first thing that capitalism would have to do in order to adapt itself is to destroy credit, to stop its activity. In its present form, it serves not as a means of adaptation, but as a means of destruction, which has an extremely revolutionary effect. After all, it was precisely this revolutionary character of credit, which went beyond the limits of capitalism itself, that even provoked reformist plans with a slight socialist coloring and turned, in the words of Marx, the main heralds of credit, such as Isaac Pereira in France, into half prophets, half swindlers.
Just as untenable is, on closer examination, the second "means of adaptation" of capitalist production - business unions. According to Bernstein, they must stop anarchy and prevent crises by regulating production. The development of cartels and trusts in terms of their multifaceted economic impact is a phenomenon that has not yet been explored. This is a problem that can only be solved on the basis of the teachings of Marx. In any case, the following is clear: the cessation of capitalist anarchy of production by means of cartels of entrepreneurs could be discussed insofar as cartels, trusts, etc., at least approached becoming the universal and dominant form of production. But this is just ruled out by the very nature of the cartels. The ultimate economic goal and activity of the associations of entrepreneurs is, by eliminating competition within a given industry, to influence the distribution of the total mass of profits received on the commodity market in the sense of increasing the share of this industry. But an organization can only raise the rate of profit of one branch of industry at the expense of others, and for this reason alone cannot become general. Spreading over all the most important branches of production, it itself destroys its influence.
But even within the limits of their practical activity, the unions of entrepreneurs act in a direction completely opposite to ending industrial anarchy. This increase in the rate of profit is usually achieved by cartels in the home market by putting additional parts of capital that cannot be used for domestic needs into production for export, content with a much lower rate of profit, i.e., they sell their goods abroad much cheaper than in your own country. The result of this is an intensification of competition abroad, an increase in anarchy in the world market, that is, just the opposite of what was desired. An example of this is the history of the international sugar industry.
Finally, the unions of entrepreneurs as a whole, as one of the forms of the capitalist mode of production, should be regarded as a transitional stage, as a definite phase of capitalist development. Indeed! Ultimately, cartels are a means of the capitalist mode of production in order to check the fatal fall in the rate of profit in individual branches of production. What method do cartels use for this purpose? In essence, it consists only in the fact that a part of the accumulated capital is left unused, that is, it is the same method that is used in crises in a different form. But such a medicine is like two drops of water similar to the disease itself and can only be used up to a certain time as the lesser of two evils. As soon as the market begins to shrink, as the world market develops to its limit and is exhausted by the competing capitalist countries - and it cannot be denied that such a moment will come sooner or later - the forced non-use of part of the capital will assume such proportions that the medicine itself will turn into a disease, capital, already significantly socialized through organization, will again turn into private capital. Since the opportunity to seize a place in the market decreases, every private share of capital prefers to seek happiness at its own peril and risk. In this case, organizations should burst like soap bubbles and again give way to free competition, but in an enhanced form.
So, in general, cartels, just like credit, appear as certain phases of development, which in the end increase still more the anarchy of the capitalist world, expose and bring to maturity all its internal contradictions. They sharpen the contradictions between the mode of production and exchange, intensifying to the extreme the struggle between producer and consumer, as we especially see in the United States of America. They further sharpen the contradiction between mode of production and appropriation by opposing the working class with the superior power of organized capital, and thus greatly increase the antagonism between labor and capital.
Finally, they sharpen the contradiction between the international character of the capitalist economy and the national character of the capitalist state, since the cartels are accompanied by a general customs war, and thus intensify the antagonism between the individual capitalist states to an extreme degree. Added to this is the direct and highly revolutionary influence of the cartels on the concentration of production, technical improvement, etc.
Thus, cartels, in their final influence on the capitalist economy, not only do not represent a "means of adaptation" to smooth out its contradictions, but, on the contrary, are one of the means created by the capitalist economy in order to increase the anarchy inherent in it, to reveal the contradictions contained in it. and hasten their own destruction.
However, if credit, cartels and similar means do not eliminate the anarchy of the capitalist economy, how could it be that we have not experienced general commercial crises in the two decades since 1873? Isn't this a sign that the capitalist mode of production, at least in the main, has really "adapted" to the needs of society and refuted Marx's analysis?
The answer followed immediately after the question. No sooner had Bernstein thrown Marx's theory of crises into the dustbin in 1898 than a severe general crisis broke out in 1900, and seven years later, that is, in 1907, a new crisis spread from the United States to the entire world market. Thus, the outrageous facts themselves refuted the theory of "adaptation" of capitalism. This also confirmed that those who abandoned the Marxian theory of crises only because it did not come true in predicting the period of "two crises" confused the essence of this theory with an insignificant external detail of its form - a ten-year cycle. The definition of the cycle of modern capitalist industry as a ten-year cycle had for Marx and Engels in the 60s and 70s the meaning of a simple statement of facts, which, in turn, were not based on any laws of nature, but were due to a number of specific historical circumstances, associated with the abrupt expansion of the scope of young capitalism.
Indeed, the crisis of 1825 was the result of large investments in the construction of roads, canals and gas works, which had arisen, like the crisis itself, mainly in England during the preceding decade. The next crisis of 1836-1839. likewise was the result of the colossal Greenundering caused by the creation of new means of transport. The crisis of 1847 was, as is known, caused by the feverish railway construction in England (from 1844 to 1847, i.e., within only three years, Parliament handed out concessions for the construction of new railways to the amount of about 1.5 billion thalers! ). In all three cases, therefore, the crises were the result of various forms of creating a capitalist economy and laying new foundations for capitalist development. The crisis of 1857 was caused by the sudden appearance of new markets for European industry in America and Australia, thanks to the discovery of gold mines; in France - mainly railway construction, and in this respect she followed in the footsteps of England (from 1852 to 1856, new railways were built in France for 1.25 billion francs). Finally, as is known, the severe crisis of 1873 was a direct consequence of the creation of large-scale industry in Germany and Austria and its first rapid growth, which followed the political events of 1866 and 1871.
So, until now, the cause of trade crises has always been a sudden extension spheres of the capitalist economy. The ten-year periodicity of the international crises that took place at that time seems, therefore, to be an external, accidental phenomenon. Marx's scheme for the formation of crises, as given by Engels in Anti-Dühring and by Marx in volumes I and III of Capital, is true for all crises insofar as it reveals internal mechanism and deeply hidden common causes of crises, whether they recur every 10 or 5 years or alternately every 20 and 8 years.
But the failure of Bernstein's theory is most convincingly proved by the fact that the recent crisis of 1907-1908. raged most terribly in the country where the notorious "means of adaptation" are best developed: credit, communications and trusts.
In general, the assumption that capitalist production could "adapt" to exchange requires one of two things: either the world market grows indefinitely and indefinitely, or, on the contrary, the productive forces are limited in their growth so that they cannot outgrow the limits of the market. The first is physically impossible, the second assumption is contradicted by the fact that at every step a technical revolution is taking place in all areas of production, new productive forces are awakening every day.
According to Bernstein, one more phenomenon contradicts the indicated course of things under capitalism: the "almost unshakable phalanx" of medium-sized enterprises, to which he points us. In his opinion, this proves that the development of large-scale production does not operate in such a revolutionary and concentrating way as one would expect, according to the "theory of collapse". However, it would be completely erroneous to interpret the development of large-scale industry in the sense that, in proportion to this development, all medium-sized enterprises should one by one disappear from the face of the earth.
In the general course of capitalist development, it is precisely small capitals, according to Marx, who play the role of pioneers of the technical revolution in two respects: both in relation to new methods of production in old, strong and established industries, and in relation to the creation of new industries not yet used by big capitals. . The view that the development of capitalist medium-sized enterprises proceeds in a straight line towards a gradual decline is completely false. In fact, the course of development is rather here also purely dialectical and constantly moves between contradictions. The capitalist middle class, like the working class, is entirely under the influence of two opposite tendencies - exaltation and oppression. The tendency of oppression in this case consists both in the constant growth of the scale of production, which periodically outstrips the volume of average capitals and thus again for a while reduces the scale of production in accordance with the cost of the necessary minimum capital, and in the penetration of capitalist production into new spheres. The struggle between medium enterprises and big capital cannot be conceived as a regular battle in which the strength of the weaker side's troops decreases directly and to an ever greater extent, but rather as a periodical mowing down of small capitals, which rapidly rise again to again fall under the scythe of large industry. Of these two tendencies, which play like a ball with the capitalist middle class, in the end - in contrast to the development of the working class - it wins trend his oppression. But this should not necessarily manifest itself in an absolute numerical reduction of medium-sized enterprises, but is expressed, firstly, in a gradually increasing minimum of capital, which is necessary for the viability of enterprises in old industries, and, secondly, in an ever-decreasing period of time during which small capitals independently exploit new branches of production. That is why the period of life individual small capital is becoming shorter and shorter, the methods of production and methods of its application are changing more and more rapidly, but for the class as a whole, this implies an ever-accelerating social metabolism.
The latter is well known to Bernstein, and he himself states this. But he obviously forgets that this is also the very law of the capitalist development of medium-sized enterprises. If small capitals are the champions of technical progress, and if technological progress is the lifeblood of capitalist economy, then obviously small capitals are inseparable companions of capitalist development and can only disappear simultaneously with the latter. The gradual disappearance of medium-sized enterprises, in the sense of absolute summary statistics, which is what Bernstein means, would indicate not the revolutionary course of development of capitalism, as he thinks, but, quite the contrary, the stagnation and hibernation of capitalism. “The rate of profit, i.e., the relative growth of capital, is of great importance, first of all, for all new, independently grouped offshoots of capital. And if capital formation became the lot of only a few large capitals... then the fire that revives production would go out altogether. It would go to sleep."
3. INTRODUCING SOCIALISM BY SOCIAL REFORM
Bernstein rejects the "theory of collapse" as a historical path to the realization of a socialist society. What is the path that, from the point of view of the "theory of adaptation of capitalism" leads to this? Bernstein answered this question only with hints, while Konrad Schmidt made an attempt to give a more detailed answer in the spirit of Bernstein. In his opinion, the trade union struggle and the political struggle for social reforms lead to an ever-increasing control of society over the conditions of production and, through legislation, “reduce the owner of capital more and more by limiting his rights to the role of administrator”, until finally “the direction and management of production will be taken away from the capitalist, whose resistance will be broken and it will become clear to him that his property is increasingly losing all its value for himself, ”and thus social production will finally be introduced.
Thus, trade unions, social reforms, and, according to Bernstein, the political democratization of the state are the means of gradually introducing socialism.
Let's start with trade unions. Their main function - Bernstein himself proved it better than anyone else in the Neue Zeit in 1891 - is that for the workers they serve as a means to implement the capitalist law of wages, that is, the sale of labor power at its market price at the moment. The service which the trade unions render to the proletariat consists in the fact that they enable it to use in its own interests the market situation existing at any given moment. But the conjuncture itself, i.e., on the one hand, the demand for labor power, which depends on the state of production, on the other hand, the supply of labor power, created by the proletarianization of the middle strata and the natural multiplication of the working class, and, finally, the given degree of productivity of labor - all this lies outside the sphere of influence of the trade unions. Because of this, they cannot destroy the law of wages; they can, at best, bring capitalist exploitation within the boundaries "normal" for the moment, but they are by no means able, even if only gradually, to destroy it.
Konrad Schmidt, of course, sees in the modern trade union movement a weak initial stage and expects that subsequently the trade union organization will have more and more influence on the regulation of production itself. But under the regulation of production, one can understand only one of two things: either intervention in the technical side of the production process, or determining the size of production itself. What character can the influence of the trade unions have in both these questions? It is clear that, with regard to the technique of production, the interest of the individual capitalist fully coincides with the progress and development of the capitalist economy. Self-interest prompts him to technical improvements. The position of the individual worker, on the other hand, is directly opposite: every technical revolution is contrary to the interests of the workers who are directly related to it, and directly worsens their position, depreciating labor power, making work more intense, monotonous and painful. And since the trade union can intervene in the technical side of production, it can obviously act only in the last sense, in the interests of the individual groups of workers directly affected, that is, resist innovations. But in this case it does not act in the interests of the working class in general, not in the interests of its emancipation, since these interests coincide with technical progress, or, in other words, with the interests of individual capitalists, and, consequently, the trade union, on the contrary, plays into the hands of reaction. . In fact, we do not find the desire to influence the technical side of production in the future of the professional movement, where Konrad Schmidt is looking for it, but in the past. They are a hallmark of an earlier stage of English trade unionism (before the 60s), when the latter had not yet parted with the guild survivals of the Middle Ages and, characteristically, was guided by the outdated principle of "acquired right to decent work." The desire of the trade unions to fix the scale of production and commodity prices is, on the contrary, a phenomenon of a later time. Only very recently do we meet - and again in England - with the emergence of such attempts; but these aspirations are, in their character and tendencies, quite equivalent to the previous ones. After all, what should the active participation of the trade unions in determining the volume and prices of commodity production amount to? Towards an alliance of workers and employers against the consumer, acting through coercive measures against competing employers, measures that are in no way inferior to the methods of properly organized associations of employers. In essence, this is no longer a struggle between labor and capital, but a solidarity struggle between capital and labor against a consuming society. In its social character, this is a reactionary undertaking, which, by that alone, cannot serve as a stage in the liberation struggle of the proletariat, which is rather something directly opposite to the class struggle. This is a utopia in its practical significance, which, as some reflection shows, can never be extended to the larger and world-producing industries.
Thus, the activity of the trade unions is essentially limited to the struggle for higher wages and a shorter working day, that is, the regulation of capitalist exploitation in accordance with market conditions; impact on the process of production in their very essence is completely impossible for them. Moreover, the entire development of trade unions is directed towards the complete cessation of direct relations between the labor market and the rest of the commodity market, which is the exact opposite of the assertions of Konrad Schmidt. The most characteristic thing in this case is the fact that even the desire to establish, even if only passively, a direct relationship between the contract of employment and the general situation of production by means of a system of sliding wages has now become obsolete, and that the English trade unions are beginning to increasingly abandon it.
But even within the actual limits of its influence, the professional movement does not expand as unrestrictedly as the theory of the adaptation of capital suggests. Quite the opposite. Considering more significant periods of social development, one cannot hide the fact that, by and large, we are moving towards times of increasing difficulties of the trade union movement, and not its strong upsurge. Once the development of industry has reached its apogee and there is a “downward curve” of capital on the world market, the professional struggle becomes doubly difficult: firstly, the objective market situation for the labor force worsens, since demand grows more slowly, and supply, on the contrary, develops faster than it is observed now; secondly, capital itself, seeking to compensate itself for the losses suffered in the world market, lays its hand more and more insistently on the share of the product belonging to the worker. For lowering wages is one of the most effective means of keeping the rate of profit from falling. England gives us a picture of the beginning of the second stage of the trade union movement. Here it necessarily reduces more and more to the simple defense of what has already been conquered, but even this becomes more and more difficult every day. The other side of this general course of affairs must be the rise of the political and socialist class struggle.
Konrad Schmidt makes the same mistake in terms of the incorrectness of the historical perspective regarding social reform, from which he expects that "hand in hand with the professional coalitions of workers, she will dictate to the capitalist class the conditions under which the latter can use labor power." Understanding social reform in this sense, Bernstein considers factory laws to be part of "social control" and, therefore, part of socialism. Konrad Schmidt uses the expression “public control” wherever he speaks of state protection of labor, and having so successfully turned the state into society, he consoles himself by adding: “i.e. e. developing working class”; with the help of such an operation, the innocent decisions of the German Bundesrat on the protection of labor are transformed into socialist transitional measures of the German proletariat.
The hoax is evident here. After all, the modern state is not a "society" of a developing working class, but a representative capitalist society, i.e., the class state. Therefore, the social reforms he is carrying out are by no means a manifestation of “public control”, i.e., the control of a freely working society over its own labor process, but a manifestation of control class organization of capital over the production process of capital. Here, that is, in the interests of capital, lie the natural limits of social reform. However, both Bernstein and Konrad Schmidt now see here, too, only a “weak initial stage” and hope in the future for an unlimited development of social reforms in favor of the working class. But in doing so they fall into the same error as in assuming an unlimited growth in the power of the trade union movement.
Follow us on telegramThe theory of the gradual introduction of socialism through social reforms suggests - and this is its center of gravity- a certain objective development as a capitalist property, so states. With regard to the first, future development, as Konrad Schmidt suggests in his scheme, goes to the fact that "by limiting the rights of the owner of capital in his rights, he is reduced little by little to the role of a manager." In view of the alleged impossibility of expropriating the means of production all at once and suddenly, Konrad Schmidt creates his own theory gradual expropriation. For this purpose, he constructs, as a necessary premise, a theory of the splitting of the right of property into "supreme property", which he grants to "society" and which, in his opinion, must be constantly expanded, and into the "right of use", which in the hands of the capitalist turns over time in simple management. If this construction is nothing more than an innocent play on words, under which nothing serious is hidden, then the theory of gradual expropriation remains unfounded; if it represents a serious scheme of legal development, then it is completely erroneous. The fragmentation of the right of ownership into the various powers contained in it, which Konrad Schmidt resorts to to prove his theory of the "gradual expropriation" of capital, is characteristic of a society with a feudal-subsistence economy, when the distribution of the product between different social classes took place in kind, on the basis of personal relations. between the feudal lord and his subjects. The disintegration of property into various parts here reflected the predetermined organization of the distribution of social wealth. With the transition to commodity production and the abolition of all personal ties between the individual participants in the production process, on the contrary, the relationship between a person and a thing became stronger - private property. Since the distribution is no longer made on the basis of personal relations, but by exchange, then individual rights to participate in social wealth are no longer measured by particles of ownership of a common thing, but value, delivered to the market by everyone. The first revolution in legal relations that accompanied the emergence of commodity production in the urban communities of the Middle Ages was the formation of absolute closed private property in the bosom of feudal legal relations based on the division of property. In capitalist production this development paves the way for itself. The further the socialization of the production process proceeds, the more the distribution process is based on pure exchange, the more inviolable and closed private property becomes, and the more capitalist property is transformed from the right to the product of one's own labor into the pure right to appropriate the labor of others. As long as the capitalist manages the factory himself, distribution is to a certain extent connected with personal participation in the process of production. As the personal management of the manufacturer becomes superfluous - and in joint-stock companies this is already a fait accompli - the ownership of capital, as a basis for claims in distribution, is completely separated from personal relations in production and appears in its purest and most closed form. In stock capital and industrial credit capital, the capitalist right of property reaches its full development for the first time.
The historical scheme of K. Schmidt “from the owner to the simple administrator” is thus an actual development put on its head, which, on the contrary, leads from the owner and administrator to the pure owner.
Here, with K. Schmidt, the same thing happens as with Goethe:
What is his, he sees in the fog, And what is gone, it suddenly became a reality.
And just as his historical scheme reverses economically from the newest joint-stock companies to the manufactory or even to the handicraft workshops, so in the legal sense it seeks to squeeze the capitalist world into the shell of a feudal subsistence economy.
But even from this point of view, "public control" also does not appear in the light in which it is portrayed by Konrad Schmidt. What currently functions as "public control" - labor protection, supervision of joint-stock companies, etc. - has in fact nothing to do with participation in property rights, with "supreme ownership". This control does not act as restrictions capitalist property, but, on the contrary, as its security. Or, in economic terms, it is not interference into capitalist exploitation, and rationing, streamlining this exploitation. And if Bernstein raises the question of whether a factory law contains much or little socialism, then we can assure him that the best factory law contains exactly as much socialism as the magistrate's decree on cleaning the streets and lighting gas lamps, which also exists. "public control".
4. CUSTOMS POLICY AND MILITARISM
The second condition for the gradual introduction of socialism is, according to E. Bernstein, the development of the state into society. The assertion that the modern state is a class state has already become commonplace. However, it seems to us that this proposition, like everything related to capitalist society, should be considered not as a frozen absolute truth, but from the point of view of constant development.
The political victory of the bourgeoisie turned the state into a capitalist state. Of course, capitalist development itself significantly changes the nature of the state, constantly expanding its sphere of influence, endowing it with new functions, especially in the field of economic life, and therefore making its intervention and control more and more necessary. Thus, the future fusion of the state with society is gradually being prepared, so to speak, the return to society of the functions of the state. Accordingly, we can also speak of the development of the capitalist state into society, and, undoubtedly, in this sense, Marx said that labor protection is the first type of conscious intervention of "society" in its social life process - the position to which Bernstein refers.
But, on the other hand, another change takes place in the state, thanks to the same capitalist development. First of all, the modern state is an organization of the ruling capitalist class. If, in the interests of social development, it assumes heterogeneous functions that have a common interest, then this happens only because and insofar as these interests and social development coincide on the whole with the interests of the ruling class. Thus, for example, the capitalists as a class are just as directly interested in the protection of labor as the whole of society. But this harmony lasts only up to a certain point in capitalist development. Once development has reached a certain height, the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class and the interests of economic progress, even in the capitalist sense, begin to diverge. We think that this stage has already arrived, and this is expressed in two major phenomena of modern social life: in customs policy and militarism. Both of them - customs policy and militarism - have played their necessary and to a certain extent progressive revolutionary role in the history of capitalism. Without protective duties, large-scale industry could not appear in individual countries. But at present the situation is different. Today, protective duties serve not to promote the development of young branches of industry, but to artificially conserve outdated forms of production. From a capitalist point of view development, that is, from the point of view of the world economy, it makes absolutely no difference at the present time whether more goods are exported from Germany to England, or vice versa. From the point of view of this development, the Moor has done his job, the Moor can leave. Moreover, he must leave. With the present interdependence of various branches of industry, protective duties on any kind of commodities must increase the cost of production of other commodities within the country, i.e., undermine industry. But these are not the interests the capitalist class. Industry for your development does not need protective duties, but entrepreneurs need them to protect their sales. This means that at present duties no longer serve as a means of defending developing capitalist production against another, more developed one, but as a means of fighting one national group of capitalists against another. Further, duties are no longer necessary for the protection of industry, in order to create and conquer the home market; they are a necessary means for creating cartels in industry, that is, for the struggle of the capitalist producer against the consuming society. Finally, the specific character of modern customs policy is especially clearly characterized by the fact that now everywhere the decisive role in this matter does not belong to industry at all, but to agriculture, i.e., in other words, customs policy has become a means of give feudal interests a capitalist form and allow them to manifest themselves in this form.
Militarism has undergone the same changes. If we look at history not from the point of view of what it could and should be, but what it really was, then we must state that the war was a necessary factor in capitalist development. The United States of North America and Germany, Italy and the Balkan states, Russia and Poland - everywhere wars played the role of a condition or served as an impetus for capitalist development, whether they ended in victory or defeat. As long as there were countries where it was necessary to overcome their internal fragmentation or their natural economic isolation, militarism played a revolutionary role in the capitalist sense. But at the present time, here too, the situation is different. Since world politics has turned into an arena of formidable conflicts, it is not so much a matter of opening new countries to European capitalism, but of ready European contradictions that have spread to other parts of the world and break out there. And at the present time, both in Europe and in other parts of the world, it is not the capitalist countries against the countries with a subsistence economy that are taking up arms against each other, but states that come into conflict precisely because of the equally high level of their capitalist development. For this development itself, such a conflict, if it breaks out, can, under such conditions, of course, have only fatal significance, causing a profound shock and upheaval in the economic life of all capitalist countries. But things seem quite different from the point of view of the capitalist class. For them, militarism has now become necessary in three respects: first, as a means of fighting competing "national" interests against the interests of other national groups; secondly, as the most important means of applying both financial and industrial capital and, thirdly, as an instrument of class domination within the country against the working people; but all these interests have nothing to do with the development of the capitalist mode of production. And what, again, best of all reveals the nature of modern militarism is, first of all, its general growth in all countries striving to overtake each other, growth, so to speak, under the influence of their own, acting from within, mechanical forces; this phenomenon was still completely unknown a few decades ago. Further, the inevitability, the fatality of the approaching explosion, and at the same time the utter impossibility of determining in advance the reasons, the directly interested states, the subject of the dispute and other details are characteristic. From the engine of capitalist development, militarism has turned into a disease of capitalism.
In the described contradiction between social development and the dominant class interests, the state takes the side of the latter. In its policy, the state, like the bourgeoisie, enters into contradiction with social development, thus losing more and more the character of a representative of the whole society and becoming to the same extent purely class state. Or, to put it more correctly, both of these properties are separated from each other and sharpened, turning into an internal contradiction of the very essence of the state; And every day this contradiction becomes more and more aggravated. The fact is that, on the one hand, the circle of the functions of the state, which are of a general nature, its intervention in public life and its "control" over it, is constantly increasing; on the other hand, the class character makes it increasingly shift the center of gravity of its activities and all its means of power to such areas that are useful only for the class interests of the bourgeoisie, but for society they have only a negative value; such are militarism, customs and colonial policy. But because of this, "public control" is increasingly imbued with a class character (for example, the application of labor protection in all countries).
The development of democracy, in which Bernstein also sees a means of gradually introducing socialism, does not contradict, but rather fully corresponds to, these changes taking place in the very essence of the state.
As Konrad Schmidt explains, winning a Social Democratic majority in parliament is even a direct path to the gradual socialization of society. Democratic forms of political life are, undoubtedly, the phenomenon in which the development of the state into society is most clearly manifested, and to that extent they serve as a stage on the road to a socialist revolution. However, this contradiction in the very essence of the capitalist state, described above, is even more clearly manifested in modern parliamentarism. True, in form parliamentarism serves to express the interests of the whole society in the state organization, but in reality it is an expression only of capitalist society, i.e., a society in which capitalist interests. In this way, institutions that are democratic in form and in content become the tools of the ruling classes. This is most strikingly expressed in the fact that as soon as democracy shows a tendency to renounce its class character and become the instrument of truly popular interests, these very democratic forms are sacrificed by the bourgeoisie and the state that represents it. Under such conditions, the idea of a Social-Democratic majority in parliament is a calculation that, quite in the spirit of bourgeois liberalism, takes into account only the formal side of democracy and completely forgets about its real content. Parliamentarism, on the other hand, is not in general a directly socialist element gradually permeating capitalist society, as Bernstein believes, but, on the contrary, a specifically capitalist means of the bourgeois class state, called upon to bring capitalist contradictions to full maturity and development.
In view of this objective development of the state, the thesis of Bernstein and Konrad Schmidt about the constantly developing "social control" that directly introduces socialism turns into a phrase that every day more and more contradicts reality.
The theory of the gradual introduction of socialism boils down to the gradual reformation of capitalist property and the capitalist state in the socialist spirit. However, both of them, due to the objective conditions of life in modern society, are developing in exactly the opposite direction. The production process is becoming more and more socialized, and the intervention and control of the state over this process is becoming ever wider; but at the same time, private property is increasingly becoming a form of open capitalist exploitation of the labor of others, and state control is increasingly imbued with exclusively class interests. Thus, the state, i.e. political organization, and property relations, i.e. legal organization of capitalism, acquiring as it develops more and more capitalist, rather than a socialist character, pose two insurmountable obstacles to the theory of the gradual introduction of socialism.
Fourier's idea - by means of a system of phalansteres to turn all the sea water of the globe into lemonade - was very fantastic; but Bernstein's idea of turning the sea of capitalist bitterness into a sea of socialist sweetness by gradually pouring a bottle of social-reformist lemonade into it is only more absurd, but no less fantastical.
The production relations of capitalist society are increasingly approaching socialist society, but on the other hand, its political and legal relations are erecting an ever higher wall between capitalist and socialist society. Neither social reforms nor the development of democracy will break through this wall, but, on the contrary, will make this wall even higher and stronger. Only the blow of the hammer of the revolution, that is, the seizure of political power by the proletariat, can destroy this wall.
5. PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS AND THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF REVISIONISM
In the first chapter, we tried to prove that Bernstein's theory transfers the socialist program from the material to the idealist soil. This refers to the theoretical justification. What is this theory in its application in practice? At first glance and formally, it does not differ in any way from the usual practice of the Social-Democratic struggle. The trade unions, the struggle for social reform and for the democratization of political institutions - after all, all this usually also constitutes the formal content of the party activity of the Social Democrats. Therefore, the difference is not what, but in that as. In the present state of affairs, the trade union and parliamentary struggle is regarded as a means of gradually educating the proletariat and leading it to the seizure of political power. According to the views of the revisionists, in view of the impossibility and futility of such a seizure, the aforementioned struggle should be waged only for the sake of immediate results, i.e., to raise the material level of the workers, gradually limit capitalist exploitation and expand social control. Leaving aside the goal of the direct improvement of the position of the working class, which is the same for both theories - both the theory accepted by the party so far and the revisionist theory - then the whole difference, in short, is this: according to the generally accepted view, the socialist meaning of the trade union and the political struggle lies in the fact that it prepares the proletariat, i.e. subjective factor of the socialist revolution, to the implementation of this revolution. According to Bernstein, it consists in gradually limiting capitalist exploitation by means of trade union and political struggle, gradually depriving capitalist society of its capitalist character and giving it a socialist character, in a word, objective meaning socialist revolution. On closer examination, these two views turn out to be diametrically opposed to each other. According to the generally accepted party view, with the help of the trade union and political struggle, the proletariat is led to the conviction that through such a struggle it is impossible to radically improve its position and that the seizure of political power is inevitable in the end. Bernstein's theory, starting from the impossibility of seizing political power as a prerequisite, suggests the possibility of introducing a socialist system through simple trade union and political struggle.
Thus, the recognition by Bernstein's theory of the socialist character of the trade union and parliamentary struggle is explained by the belief in its gradual socializing influence on the capitalist economy. But such an influence, as we tried to show, is only a fantasy. The capitalist institutions of property and the state develop in quite the opposite direction; but in such a case the daily practical struggle of the Social-Democrats will eventually lose all relation to socialism in general. The enormous socialist significance of the trade union and political struggle lies in the fact that it makes socialist concepts, the consciousness of the proletariat organizes it as a class. It is a different matter if we consider it as a means of direct socialization of a capitalist character: in this case, not only can it not exert the influence it has imagined, but at the same time it loses another meaning - it ceases to serve as a means of educating and preparing the working class for the seizure of power by the proletariat.
Therefore, the soothing statements of Eduard Bernstein and Konrad Schmidt are a complete misunderstanding, that by transferring the struggle to the sphere of social reforms and trade unions, they do not deprive the working-class movement of its ultimate goal, since every step along this path requires the following and, thus, socialist the target remains in motion as its trend. This, of course, is perfectly true of the present-day tactics of the German Social Democracy, i.e., provided that the trade union and social reformist struggle preceded, as a guiding star, a conscious and firm desire to win political power. But if we separate this aspiration from the movement and turn social reform into an end in itself, then it will in fact lead not to the realization of the socialist ultimate goal, but rather to the opposite results. Konrad Schmidt relies on mechanical movement, which, once started, cannot stop by itself; it rests on the simple premise that appetite comes with eating and that the working class will never be satisfied with reforms until the socialist revolution is completed. The latter assumption is correct, and the insufficiency of the capitalist social reforms themselves vouches for this; but the conclusion drawn from this could be true only if it were possible to create an uninterrupted chain of constantly growing and developing social reforms, directly linking the present system with the socialist one. But this is a fantasy: the chain must very soon be broken by the force of things, and the movement can then take the most different directions.
Then, most likely and most likely, tactics will change in the sense that by all means they will begin to achieve the practical results of the struggle - social reforms. The irreconcilable, stern class point of view, which makes sense only when striving for the conquest of political power, will acquire more and more the significance of a negative force as soon as directly practical results become the main goal of the movement; therefore, the next step in such a case will be a policy of compensation, or, better, a policy of behind-the-scenes bargaining and state-conciliatory wise stance. But under such conditions, the movement is not able to constantly maintain balance. Since social reform in the capitalist world has always been and will remain an empty nut, then, whatever tactics we adopt, its next logical step will be disappointment in social reform, that is, in that quiet harbor where Professor Schmoller and Co. how they, having traveled the whole world through the social-reformist waters, decided to leave everything to the will of God. So, socialism does not arise out of the daily struggle of the working class by itself and under any circumstances. It arises from the increasingly sharpening contradictions of the capitalist economy and from the realization by the working class of the inevitability of eliminating these contradictions through a social revolution. If one denies the first and discards the second, as revisionism does, then the whole movement will immediately come down to mere professionalism and social reformism, and then one's own gravity will eventually lead to the rejection of the class point of view.
These conclusions are fully confirmed even if we consider the revisionist theory from another point of view and ask ourselves the question: what is the general character of this theory? It is clear that revisionism does not stand on the basis of capitalist relations and does not deny, together with the bourgeois economists, the contradictions of these relations. Moreover, in his theory, he, like Marxist theory, proceeds from these contradictions. But, on the other hand—and this constitutes both the main core of his reasoning in general, and the main difference from the accepted Social Democratic theory—he does not rely in his theory on destruction these contradictions through their own consistent development.
His theory occupies the middle between two extremes: he does not want contradictions to reach full maturity in order to overcome them by means of a revolutionary upheaval; on the contrary, he seeks to break off their edge, blunt them. Thus, according to his theory, the cessation of crises and the organization of entrepreneurs should blunt the contradiction between production and exchange; the improvement of the position of the proletariat and the continued existence of the middle class should blunt the contradiction between labor and capital, and increasing control and democracy will reduce the contradiction between the class state and society.
It is clear that the generally accepted tactics of social democracy also do not consist in wait development of contradictions to the highest point and then destroy them by way of a revolution. On the contrary, relying on the known direction of development, we extremely sharpen its conclusions in the political struggle, which is the essence of all revolutionary tactics in general. Thus, for example, the Social Democracy fights tariffs and militarism at all times, and not only when their reactionary character is fully manifested. Bernstein proceeds in his tactics in general not from the further development and sharpening of capitalist contradictions, but from their blunting. He himself described this most aptly when speaking of the "adaptation" of the capitalist economy. When might such a view be correct? All the contradictions of modern society are the simple result of the capitalist mode of production. If we suppose that this mode of production continues to develop in the same direction as now, then all the consequences connected with it must also develop inextricably along with it, i.e., the contradictions must become sharper, sharpen, and not dull. The blunting of contradictions presupposes, on the contrary, that the capitalist mode of production is also retarded in its development. In a word, the most general premise of Bernstein's theory is stagnation of capitalist development.
But by doing so, his theory itself pronounces a sentence upon itself, and even a double sentence. First of all, she discovers her Utopian character in relation to the socialist final goal (it is quite clear that capitalism suspended in its development cannot lead to a socialist revolution), and this confirms our understanding of the practical conclusions from this theory. Secondly, she discovers her reactionary character in relation to the process of capitalist development that is actually rapidly unfolding. As a consequence, the question arises: how to explain, or rather, how to characterize Bernstein's theory, if we take into account this actual development of capitalism?
That the economic premises from which Bernstein proceeds in his analysis of modern social relations (his theory of the "adaptation" of capitalism) are based on nothing, we, we dare to think, proved in the first part. We have seen that neither the credit system nor the cartels can be recognized as a means of "adjusting" the capitalist economy, that neither the temporary absence of crises nor the continued existence of the middle class can be considered symptoms of capitalist "adjustment". But all these details of the "adaptation" theory mentioned, apart from their obvious fallacy, have one more common characteristic. This theory considers almost all the phenomena of economic life that are of interest to it, not as organic parts of the process of capitalist development taken as a whole, not in their connection with the entire economic mechanism, but torn out of this connection, independently, as disjecta membra (scattered parts) of a dead machine. Take, for example, the theory of adaptive influence loan. If we consider credit as a naturally developing, higher stage of exchange, and in connection with all the contradictions inherent in exchange, then at the same time one cannot see in it any kind of mechanical "means of adaptation" standing outside the process of exchange, just as one cannot call money, as such, commodities, capital are the "means of adaptation" of capitalism. But after all, at a certain stage in the development of the capitalist economy, credit is no less than money, commodities, and capital, its organic member, and at this stage, again, like them, it is a necessary part of the mechanism of this economy and an instrument of destruction, since credit strengthens it. internal contradictions.
Exactly the same can be said about cartels and improved means of communication.
The same mechanical and non-dialectical point of view appears further when Bernstein takes the absence of crises as a symptom of the "adaptation" of the capitalist economy. For him, crises simply represent a breakdown in the economic mechanism, and since they do not exist, the mechanism can, of course, function without hindrance. But in fact, crises are not a disorder in the proper sense, or rather, they are a defect without which the capitalist economy as a whole cannot do at all. And if it is true that crises are the only possible method on capitalist soil, and therefore a completely normal method of periodically resolving the contradiction between the unlimited capacity for the development of productive forces and the narrow limits of the market, then they should be recognized as organic phenomena inseparable from the capitalist economy in its entirety.
There are greater dangers in the "disturbance-free" course of capitalist production than even the crises themselves. For the constant fall in the rate of profit, which results not from the contradiction between production and exchange, but from the development of the productivity of labor itself, has a very dangerous tendency to make production impossible for all small and medium-sized capitals, and to hinder the formation and at the same time the development of new capitals. It is crises, which are another consequence of the same process, which, by periodic impairment capital, the cheapening of the means of production, and the paralysis of part of the active capital, simultaneously cause an increase in profits, freeing up space for new capital in production and thus facilitating the development of the latter. They are, therefore, a means of fanning the dying fire of capitalist development, and their absence—not for any particular phase of the development of the world market, as we believe, but their absence in general—would soon lead capitalist economy not to flourish, as Bernstein thinks, but directly to death. Owing to the mechanical mode of understanding which characterizes the whole "theory of adaptation", Bernstein pays no attention either to the necessity of crises, or to the necessity of the periodical increase in investments of small and medium capital; this explains, among other things, that the constant revival of small capital appears to him as a sign of capitalist stagnation, and not of the normal development of capitalism, as it actually is.
True, there is a point of view from which all the phenomena considered are really presented in the form in which the "theory of adaptation" draws them. This is the point of view individual capitalists who perceive the facts of economic life distorted under the influence of the laws of competition. Each individual capitalist really, first of all, sees in any organic member of the economic whole something completely independent; furthermore, he sees them only from the side of how they affect him, the individual capitalist, that is, he sees in them only "delays" or simply "means of adaptation." For the individual capitalist, crises are really only hindrances, and their absence guarantees the capitalist a longer existence; in the same way, credit is for him only a means of "adapting" his insufficient productive forces to the requirements of the market; finally, for him, the cartel he joins really eliminates the anarchy of production.
In a word, Bernstein's "theory of adaptation" is nothing more than a theoretical generalization of the train of thought of an individual capitalist. But is not this train of thought, theoretically expressed, the most characteristic essence of bourgeois vulgar economics? All the economic mistakes of this school rest precisely on the misunderstanding that in the phenomena of competition, which they consider from the point of view of individual capitalists, they see phenomena that are characteristic of capitalist economy as a whole. And just as Bernstein looks at credit, so vulgar economy looks at money as a witty "means of adaptation" to the needs of exchange. In the very phenomena of capitalism, it seeks antidotes for the evils of capitalism; she believes with Bernstein in possibility to regulate the capitalist economy, and, like Bernstein, she in the end constantly resorts to the theory blunting capitalist contradictions, to a patch for capitalist wounds, in other words, to reactionary rather than revolutionary methods, that is, to utopia.
So, the whole theory of revisionism can be characterized as follows: This- the theory of socialist stagnation, based in the spirit of vulgar economists on the theory of capitalist stagnation.
Part two
1. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIALISM
The greatest achievement in the development of the class struggle of the proletariat was the discovery in economic relations capitalist society starting points for the implementation of socialism. Thanks to this discovery, socialism from the "ideal" that it has been for humanity for thousands of years has turned into historical necessity.
Bernstein disputes the existence of these economic preconditions for socialism in modern society. At the same time, he himself makes a very interesting evolution in his proofs. At first, in the Neue Zeit, he denied only the rapidity of concentration in industry, relying on the comparative industrial statistics of Germany for 1895 and 1882. But in order to use these data for his own purposes, he had to resort to purely summary, mechanical methods. However, even in the best case, Bernstein, with his indications of the stability of medium-sized production, did not manage to shake Marx's analysis one iota, since the latter does not set a certain rate of concentration of industry as a condition for the implementation of socialism - in other words, does not establish a certain term for the realization of the ultimate goal of socialism, absolute disappearance small capitals or petty bourgeoisie, as we have shown above.
With the further development of his views, Bernstein, in order to prove their validity, cites new material in his book - statistics of joint-stock companies, which should show that the number of shareholders is constantly increasing, and consequently, the class of capitalists is not decreasing, but, on the contrary, is becoming more and more numerous. It is directly striking how little Bernstein is familiar with the available material and how badly he knows how to use it to his advantage!
If he thought, with the help of joint-stock companies, to prove something contrary to Marx's law of industrial development, then he should have given quite different figures. Anyone who is familiar with the history of the formation of joint-stock companies in Germany knows that the fixed capital per enterprise, on average, decreases almost regularly. So, until 1871 this capital was about 10.8 million marks, and in 1871 - only 4.01 million marks, in 1873 - 3.8 million marks, in 1883-1887 - less than 1 million marks, in 1891 - only 0.56 million marks, in 1892 - 0.62 million marks, then this amount increases by 1 million, but from 1.78 million marks in 1895 it falls again in the first half of 1897 to 1.19 million marks.
Astonishing numbers! Based on them, Bernstein would probably have deduced, in contrast to Marx, the tendency of the transition from large-scale industry back to small. But in that case, anyone could object to him: if you want to prove anything by these statistics, then you must first of all show that they refer to the same branches of industry and that it is in them that small enterprises have taken the place of the former large ones, and did not appear where until that moment there was a single capital or handicraft or dwarf enterprises. But you will not be able to prove this, since the transition from huge joint-stock enterprises to medium and small ones can only be explained by the fact that the joint-stock business constantly penetrates into new branches of industry and that if at first it was suitable only for a small number of colossal enterprises, now it is all adapts more to medium and even small industries (there are also joint-stock companies with a capital of less than 1,000 marks).
But what does this ever-increasing spread of joint-stock enterprises mean from the point of view of the national economy? It points to developing socialization of production in the capitalist form, the socialization of not only gigantic, but also medium and even small industries, therefore, points to a phenomenon that not only does not contradict Marx's theory, but, on the contrary, most brilliantly confirms it.
In fact, what is the economic phenomenon of creating a joint-stock company. First, in the combination of many small money-capitals in one productive capital, one economic unity; secondly, in the separation of production from ownership of capital, and consequently in the double overcoming of the capitalist mode of production on the basis of capitalism itself. But what does the large number of shareholders in one enterprise mean in this case, as indicated by Bernstein's statistics? Only what is currently one capitalist enterprise is not connected with one owner of capital, as before, but with an ever-increasing number of owners of capital, that thus the economic concept of "capitalist" is not covered by the concept of "individual", that the modern industrial capitalist is a collective person, which consists of hundreds, even of thousands of persons, that the category "capitalist" even within the framework of the capitalist economy becomes social, is socialized.
But in this case, how can one explain why Bernstein considers the phenomenon of joint-stock companies not as a concentration of capital, but, on the contrary, as its fragmentation, that he sees the expansion of ownership of capital where Marx sees the overcoming of this ownership? This can be explained by a very simple mistake of vulgar political economy: Bernstein understands by capitalist not a category of production, but the right of ownership, not an economic, but a tax unit, and by capital - not a production unit, but simply monetary property. Therefore, he sees in his English thread trust not a merger of 12,300 persons into one person, but as many as 12,300 capitalists; that is why he also sees a capitalist in his engineer Schultz, who received from his wife Miller’s rentier as a dowry “a significant number of shares (p. 54), he also sees a capitalist: therefore the whole world he is teeming "capitalists".
But here, as always, the fallacy of vulgar economics is in Bernstein only the theoretical basis for vulgarizing socialism. Transferring the concept of "capitalist" from production relations to property relations and "instead of an entrepreneur speaking of man" (p. 53), Bernstein at the same time transfers the question of socialism from the field of production to the field of property relations, from relations capital and labor in a relationship wealth and poverty.
This brings us safely back from Marx and Engels to the author of The Gospel of the Poor Sinner, with the only difference that Weitling, with the correct proletarian instinct recognized in a primitive form, in this contradiction between wealth and poverty, class contradictions and wanted to make them a lever of the socialist movement; Bernstein, on the other hand, sees the hope for socialism in the transformation of the poor into the rich, that is, in the obscuring of class contradictions, and consequently in petty-bourgeois methods.
True, Bernstein is not limited to income statistics. He also gives us industrial statistics, and not even one, but several countries: Germany and France, England and Switzerland, Austria and the United States. But what a statistic! These are not comparative numbers. various periods of one country, and figures relating to the same period in different countries. With the exception of Germany, where he repeats his old comparison of 1895 and 1882, he does not compare the state of groups of enterprises in any one country at different moments, but only absolute figures relating to different countries (for England for 1891, France for 1894, to the United States for 1890, etc.). The conclusion to which he comes is that “if large-scale production in industry actually has a preponderance at the present time, then it is occupied, counting all the productions connected with it, even in such a developed country as Prussia, the maximum is only half of the total population employed in general in production”; the same throughout Germany, England, Belgium, etc. (p. 84).
By this, he obviously sets the wrong one or the other. trend of economic development, but only quantitative ratio various forms of enterprises or various professional groups. If this is to prove the hopelessness of socialism, then this method of proof is based on the theory that the outcome of social aspirations depends on the numerical physical ratio of the forces of the fighters, that is, simply on the physical strength. Here Bernstein, everywhere and everywhere smashing Blanquism, for a change himself falls into the grossest mistake of the Blanquists, again with this difference, however, that the Blanquists, as socialists and revolutionaries, assumed the economic feasibility of socialism as a matter of course and based their hopes on this for a violent revolution. undertaken by even a small minority, while Bernstein, on the contrary, draws the conclusion from the insufficiently significant numerical superiority of the masses that socialism is economically hopeless. Social Democracy does not link its ultimate goal either with the victorious violence of the minority, or with the numerical superiority of the majority; it proceeds from economic necessity and understanding of this necessity, which is primarily expressed in capitalist anarchy and leads to the destruction of capitalism by the masses.
As regards this last decisive question of anarchy in the capitalist economy, Bernstein himself denies only great and general crises, and not partial and national ones. By this, he only denies too much anarchy, while at the same time recognizing its existence on a small scale. Capitalist economy reminds Bernstein - to use the words of Marx - that stupid girl who turned out to have "only a very small" child. The only trouble is that in such things as anarchy, both little and much are equally bad. Once Bernstein recognizes a little anarchy, then the mechanism of commodity economy will take care of itself to intensify this anarchy to terrible proportions - to the point of collapse. But if Bernstein hopes, while preserving commodity production, to gradually dissolve this little anarchy into order and harmony, then he again falls into one of the most fundamental mistakes of bourgeois vulgar political economy, since he considers the mode of exchange as something independent of the mode of production.
This is not the place to recount in its entirety the astonishing confusion of the most elementary principles of political economy which Bernstein allowed in his book. But on one point, to which the basic question of capitalist anarchy leads us, we should dwell briefly.
Bernstein calls the Marxes law of labor value just an abstraction, which for him in political economy is obviously tantamount to a curse. But if labor value is nothing more than an abstraction, a “mental image” (p. 44), then every honest burgher who has served his military service and paid taxes has the same right as Karl Marx to concoct such a “mental image” out of any absurdity. ", i.e. the law of value. “Just as the school of Boehm and Jevons is allowed to abstract from all properties of commodities, except utility, Marx from the very beginning had the right not to take into account the properties of commodities to such an extent that they eventually turned into the objectification of masses of simple human labor” (p. 42 ).
So, both Marx's social work and Menger's abstract utility he lumps together - all this is just an abstraction. But at the same time, Bernstein forgot that Marx's abstraction is not an invention, but the discovery that it exists not in Marx's head, but in the commodity economy, that it lives not an imaginary, but a real social life, and this existence of it is so real that it is cut, forged, weighed and minted. This abstract human labor discovered by Marx in its developed form is nothing but money. And this is precisely what constitutes one of the most brilliant economic discoveries of Marx, while for the entire bourgeois political economy, from the first mercantilist to the last classic, the mystical essence of money has always remained a book with seven seals.
On the contrary, the abstract usefulness of Boehm-Jvons is, in fact, only a “mental image”, or rather, a model of lack of thought and stupidity, for which neither capitalist nor any other human society is responsible, but only and entirely bourgeois vulgar political economy. With such a “mental image” in their heads, Bernstein, Böhm and Jevons, together with their entire subjective company, can stand before the mystery of money for another twenty years and come only to the decision that every shoemaker knows even without them: that money is still “a useful thing.” ".
Thus, Bernstein finally lost the ability to understand Marx's law of value. But for anyone who is at least somewhat familiar with the economic system of Marx, it will be quite clear that without this law the whole system remains completely incomprehensible, or, to put it more concretely, in the absence of an understanding of the essence of the commodity and commodity exchange, capitalist economy and everything connected with it must remain a mystery.
But what is this magic key that gave Marx access to the deepest secrets of all capitalist phenomena and enabled him to solve problems in jest, the existence of which was not even suspected by such great minds of bourgeois-classical economics as Smith and Ricardo? Nothing but the understanding of the entire capitalist economy as historical event, taking into account not only what lies behind it, as classical economics did at best, but also what lies ahead, not only in relation to the feudal-economic past, but also socialist future. The secret of Marx's theory of value, his analysis of money, his theory of capital, his doctrine of the rate of profit, and therefore of his entire economic system, is the transient nature of the capitalist economy, its downfall, therefore - and this is just the other side - socialist end goal. Precisely and only because Marx viewed capitalist economy from the very beginning as a socialist, i.e. from a historical point of view, he managed to decipher its hieroglyphs; and thanks to the fact that he made a socialist point of view starting point scientific analysis of bourgeois society, he, on the contrary, got the opportunity to scientifically substantiate socialism.
It is interesting to compare with this the remarks of Bernstein at the end of his book, where he complains about "the dualism that permeates the whole of Marx's great work", "the dualism which consists in this work striving to be a scientific investigation and at the same time established long before its compilation, that it is based on a scheme that already establishes in advance the conclusion to which the study should have come in its development. Return to the "Communist Manifesto" (i.e. to the ultimate social goal! - R. L.) indicates that, indeed, the remnant of utopianism still lies in the system of Marx” (p. 177).
But Marx's "dualism" is nothing else than the dualism of the socialist future and the capitalist present, of capital and labor, of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; he is a great scientific reflection dualism existing in bourgeois society, bourgeois class contradictions. And if Bernstein sees in this theoretical dualism of Marx "a remnant of utopianism", then by this he only naively admits that he denies historical dualism in bourgeois society, capitalist class contradictions, that for him socialism has also turned into a "remnant of utopianism". Bernstein's monism is the monism of an eternally fixed capitalist order, the monism of a socialist who has renounced the ultimate goal in order to see the limit of human development in the only and unchanging bourgeois society.
But if Bernstein himself notices the cracks in the economic edifice of capitalism, but does not notice the development towards socialism, then, in order to save the socialist program at least formally, he has to resort to an idealistic construction that lies outside economic development and transform socialism itself from a definite historical phase of social development. into an abstract "principle".
Bernstein's "principle of comradeship", which is supposed to beautify the capitalist economy, this very liquid sludge of the ultimate socialist goal, is thus not a concession on the part of his bourgeois theory to the socialist future, but a concession to Bernstein's socialist past.
2. TRADE UNIONS, COOPERATIVES (PARTNERSHIPS) AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACY
We have seen that Bernstein's socialism boils down to a plan to allow the workers to share in the public wealth, to turn the poor into rich. How is this to be done? In his articles “Problems of Socialism” in the Neue Zeit, Bernstein confines himself to barely comprehensible hints, but in his book he already gives a complete answer to this question: his socialism must be carried out in two ways: through trade unions, or, as Bernstein calls it , through economic democracy, and through cooperatives (partnerships). By means of the first means he hopes to seize industrial profit, by means of the second, labor profit.
As for cooperatives, and above all productive partnerships, by their intrinsic properties they are in the capitalist economy some kind of hermaphrodite: socialized production on a small scale under capitalist exchange. But in the capitalist economy, exchange dominates production and, under the influence of competition, makes unrestrained exploitation, i.e., the complete subordination of the production process to the interests of capital, a condition for the existence of enterprises. In practice, this is expressed in the need to increase the intensity of labor as much as possible, to reduce or increase it, depending on the state of the market, to attract or throw out labor power, again depending on the requirements of the market, in a word, to use all methods that make capitalist enterprise competitive. Because of this, the workers, united in a productive partnership, must submit to a necessity full of the most acute contradictions: they must apply to themselves the regime of absolutism with everything connected with it, playing in relation to themselves the role of a capitalist entrepreneur. These contradictions lead productive associations to destruction, because they either turn into capitalist enterprises or, if they overpower the interests of the workers, they completely disintegrate. While stating such facts himself, Bernstein, however, does not understand them and, together with Mrs. Potter-Webb, sees the reason for the death of industrial associations in England in the lack of "discipline". What is superficially and unfoundedly called discipline here is nothing else than the natural absolutism of capital, which, of course, the workers themselves cannot exercise in relation to themselves.
It follows from this that productive partnerships can ensure their existence in the capitalist economy only if they succeed in some roundabout way in eliminating the contradiction between the mode of production and exchange concealed in them, artificially freeing themselves from subjection to the laws of free competition. And this is possible only if from the very beginning they provide themselves with a sales market, a stable circle of consumers. The means for this are consumer unions. Only in this, and not in the difference between partnerships that buy and sell, or whatever Oppenheim calls them, lies the secret considered by Bernstein that independent productive partnerships are dying and only consumer unions are able to ensure their existence.
But if, therefore, the conditions for the existence of productive associations in modern society are connected with the conditions for the existence of consumer associations, then the further conclusion follows that the productive associations, at best, can count on only a small local market and on the production of a few products of direct consumption, mainly food. . All the most important branches of capitalist production, such as the textile, coal, metal and oil industries, as well as machine building, locomotive and shipbuilding, are excluded from the very beginning from the scope of consumer, and consequently, productive associations. Thus, productive partnerships, besides their dual nature, cannot become the goal of a general social reform for the very reason that their general implementation presupposes, first of all, the destruction of the world market and the disintegration of the existing world economy into small local groups for production and exchange; and this, in essence, would be a return from a large-scale capitalist economy to a medieval commodity economy.
But even within the limits of their possible realization on the soil of modern society, productive associations are inevitably mere appendages of consumer associations, which thus come to the fore as the main agents of the supposed socialist reform. But in this case, the entire socialist reform, through the mediation of the cooperatives, is transformed from a struggle against the main foundation of the capitalist economy, productive capital, into a struggle against commercial capital, and, moreover, against petty trading and intermediary capital, i.e., exclusively against small branches capitalist stem.
As for trade unions, which, according to Bernstein, should also serve as a means against exploitation by productive capital, we have already shown above that they are not capable of providing the workers with influence on the production process, either in relation to sizes the latter, nor with regard to technical tricks.
As for the purely economic side, or, in Bernstein's words, "the struggle between the rate of wages and the rate of profit", here, too, as we have already had occasion to show, this struggle is waged not in a vacuum, but within certain limits of the law of wages. so that it can not destroy, but only implement the said law. This becomes clear if we look at the same subject from a different angle and ask ourselves what, in fact, are the functions of the trade unions.
The trade unions, which, according to Bernstein, play the role of an attacking side in the liberation struggle of the working class against the industrial rate of profit, which they must gradually dissolve in the rate of wages, it is these unions that are not in a position to conduct an economic offensive policy against profit. After all, they are nothing more than an organized defense of labor against attacks from profit, protection working class against the oppressive tendency of the capitalist economy. This is due to two reasons.
Firstly, the task of trade unions is to influence, through their organization, the position of the labor market; but thanks to the process of proletarianization of the middle strata, who constantly bring new goods to the labor market, this organization is constantly defeated. Secondly, the trade unions set themselves the goal of improving the position of the working class, increasing its share of social wealth. But this share, due to the increasing productivity of labor, is constantly decreasing with the inevitability of the law of nature. To be convinced of this, one does not need to be a Marxist at all, it is enough just once to hold in one's hands the work of Rodbertus "On the Elucidation of the Social Question".
Thus, the trade union struggle, in its two main economic functions, is transformed by the objective conditions of capitalist economy into a kind of Sisyphean labour. Of course, this Sisyphean labor is necessary in order for the worker to generally achieve the establishment of wages corresponding to the given state of the market, to implement the capitalist law of wages, to paralyze or, rather, weaken the influence of the tendency to slow down economic development. But the transformation of trade unions into a means of gradually lowering profits for the sake of raising wages must have as a social prerequisite, first of all, an end to the proletarianization of the middle strata, an increase in the size of the working class, and also an increase in labor productivity, i.e., in both cases it presupposes (as in the implementation of consumer cooperative management) a reverse return to the conditions that preceded the large-scale capitalist economy.
Thus, both of Bernstein's means of socialist reform - the unions of partnerships and trade union organizations - turn out to be completely incapable of transforming the capitalist mode of production. In fact, Bernstein himself is vaguely aware of this, considering them only as a means to snatch something from the capitalist arrived and enrich the working class in this way. But in this case, he himself refuses to fight with capitalist mode of production and directs the social democratic movement against capitalist distribution. Bernstein more than once formulates his socialism as a striving for "just", "more just" (p. 51) and even "even more just" distribution.
Of course, the first impetus for participation in the Social Democratic movement, at least among the masses of the people, is the "unjust" distribution that prevails under the capitalist system. While fighting for the socialization of the entire economy as a whole, the Social-Democrats are fighting at the same time, of course, for a "fair" distribution of social wealth. But thanks to Marx's discovery that a given distribution is only a natural consequence of a given mode of production, her struggle is not directed against distribution in framework capitalist production, but to the destruction of commodity production itself. In a word, Social Democracy strives to realize socialist distribution by eliminating capitalist mode of production while Bernstein aims at exactly the opposite: he wants to eliminate capitalist distribution, hoping in this way to gradually realize socialist mode of production.
But how can one justify Bernstein's socialist reform in this case? Certain tendencies of capitalist production? Far from it. Firstly, he himself denies these tendencies, and secondly, the desired transformation of production appears to him, according to the above, not as a cause, but as a consequence of distribution. Therefore, the rationale his socialism cannot be economic. Taking the means of socialism for its end and vice versa, and at the same time turning all economic relations upside down, he can not give his program a materialistic justification, and forced resort to the idealistic.
"Why deduce socialism from economic necessity?" - we hear his question. "Why downplay mind, conscience and will human?" Consequently, Bernstein's more equitable distribution must be carried out by virtue of the free will of man, independent of economic necessity, or, more precisely, since the will itself is only an instrument, by virtue of the consciousness of justice, due to the idea of justice.
And so, we have safely arrived at the principle of justice - this old hackneyed steed, which has been used for whole millennia - for lack of other, more reliable historical means of transportation - by all the improvers of the world. We came to that skinny Rossinante, where all the Don Quixotes of known history rode out in search of the great reforms of the world, only to return home in the end with only a black eye.
The relationship between rich and poor as the social basis of socialism, the "principle" of partnership as its content, "more just" distribution as its goal, and, finally, the idea of justice as its only historical justification - how much more power, however, spiritual beauty and brilliance was displayed by Weitling more than 50 years ago, speaking as a representative of such socialism! And besides, this ingenious tailor was not yet familiar with scientific socialism. But if now, half a century later, his whole theory, gutted by Marx and Engels, is again stitched together and presented as the last word of science to the proletariat, then, of course, this requires a tailor, but not at all a genius.
Just as trade unions and cooperatives are the economic backbone of revisionist theory, so the ever-increasing development democracy is her most important political premise. All reactionary outbursts of the present time are for revisionism only "convulsions", in his opinion, accidental and transient, which should not be taken into account when establishing the general direction of the struggle of the working class.
Bernstein, for example, sees democracy as a necessary step in the development of modern society; even more, for him, just as for the bourgeois theoretician of liberalism, democracy is the great fundamental law of social development in general, and the implementation of this law should be served by all the active forces of political life. But expressed in such an absolute form, this view is fundamentally erroneous and is nothing more than a superficial petty-bourgeois erection into a template of the results of a very small tip of bourgeois development over the past 25-30 years. Looking more closely at the development of democracy in history and with the political history of capitalism, one comes to a completely different conclusion.
As for democracy, we meet it in the most diverse social formations: in primitive communist societies, in ancient slave states and in medieval urban communes. Similarly, we meet absolutism and constitutional monarchy in the most diverse economic combinations. On the other hand, capitalism in its beginning of its development - in the form of commodity production - creates a purely democratic structure in urban communes; later, in its more developed form, manufacturing, it finds its corresponding political form in an absolute monarchy. Finally, as a developed industrial economy, he creates in France alternately a democratic republic (1793), an absolute monarchy of Napoleon I, an aristocratic monarchy of the restoration period (1815-1830), a bourgeois-constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe, then again a democratic republic, again a monarchy of Napoleon III and finally, for the third time the republic. In Germany, the only truly democratic institution, universal suffrage, is not a conquest of bourgeois liberalism, but a means of political cohesion of individual small states, and only in this respect is significant for the development of the German bourgeoisie, which is generally quite satisfied with a semi-feudal constitutional monarchy. In Russia, capitalism also flourished for a long time under the Eastern autocracy, and the bourgeoisie still does not show any aspirations for democracy. In Austria, universal suffrage has largely played the role of a lifeline for a crumbling monarchy. Finally, in Belgium the democratic conquest of the working-class movement - universal suffrage - is undoubtedly connected with the weakness of militarism, and consequently with the special geographical and political position of Belgium: and, above all, it is a "piece of democracy" won not by the bourgeoisie, but against the bourgeoisie.
Thus the uninterrupted rise of democracy, which to our revisionism and bourgeois liberalism appears to be the great fundamental law of human or at least modern history, turns out to be a mirage on closer examination. No absolute general connection can be established between capitalist development and democracy. The political form is each time the result of a whole sum of political internal and external factors, containing within its boundaries the entire political scale - from an absolute monarchy to a democratic republic, inclusive.
If in this way, having abandoned the general historical law of the development of democracy even within the framework of modern society, we turn only to the modern phase of bourgeois history, then here, too, in a political situation we encounter factors that lead not to the implementation of the Bernstein scheme, but rather, on the contrary, to the rejection of on the part of bourgeois society from all the gains achieved so far.
On the one hand, which is very important, democratic institutions have already played their part in the development of bourgeois society to a large extent. To the extent that they were needed for the merging of individual small states and the emergence of modern large states (Germany, Italy), economic development led to internal organic fusion.
The same must be said about the transformation of a semi- or completely feudal political-administrative state machine into a capitalist mechanism. This transformation, historically inextricably linked with democracy, has also advanced so far that the purely democratic institutions of the state system - universal suffrage, the republican form of government - could disappear without any danger that administration, finance, military affairs, etc. will return again. to pre-March forms.
If in this respect liberalism has become completely superfluous for bourgeois society, then, on the other hand, in many respects it has become a direct hindrance to it. At the same time, two factors that literally dominate the entire political life of modern states should be borne in mind: world politics and labor movement; both of them represent only different aspects of the present phase of capitalist development.
The development of the world economy, the aggravation and general nature of competition in the world market have made militarism and marineism, as instruments of world politics, the main moments of the external and internal life of all large states. But if world politics and militarism are currently ascending trend, then bourgeois democracy must move along the line descending. In Germany, the era of large-scale armaments, which began in 1893, and the beginning of world politics laid in Kiao Chao, cost bourgeois democracy two victims: the collapse of liberalism and the transformation of the Center Party from opposition to government. The recent elections to the Reichstag (1907), which were held under the sign of colonial policy, were at the same time the historical funeral of German liberalism.
And if foreign policy pushes the bourgeoisie into the arms of reaction, then domestic policy no less influences the aspirations of the working class. Bernstein himself admits this, making the tale of a certain Social-Democratic "devourer", i.e., the socialist aspirations of the working class, responsible for the betrayal of the liberal bourgeoisie to its banner. Therefore, he advises the proletariat to abandon the idea of a socialist final goal in order to lure the frightened-to-death liberalism out of the mousehole of reaction again. But considering the destruction of the socialist working-class movement a vital condition and social precondition for the existence of bourgeois democracy, Bernstein himself very clearly shows that this democracy is as contrary to the internal trend of development of modern society as the socialist working-class movement is. its direct product.
But it also proves something else. Setting the main condition for the resurrection of bourgeois democracy to be the renunciation of the socialist ultimate goal by the working class, he himself points out how little bourgeois democracy can serve as a necessary prerequisite and condition for the socialist movement and socialist victory. Here Bernstein's reasoning forms a vicious circle in which the conclusion "devours" the first premise.
The way out of this circle is very simple: the fact that bourgeois liberalism died out of fear of the developing working-class movement and its ultimate goals only proves that it is now the only the support of democracy is and can only be the socialist working-class movement, and that the fate of the socialist movement does not depend on bourgeois democracy, but, on the contrary, the fate of democratic development depends entirely on the socialist movement; furthermore, that the viability of democracy will increase not as the working class abandons the struggle for its emancipation, but, on the contrary, as the socialist movement becomes strong enough to fight against the reactionary consequences of world politics and bourgeois betrayal. Whoever wishes to strengthen democracy must wish not to weaken, but to strengthen the socialist movement, and the rejection of socialist aspirations means the rejection of both the working-class movement and democracy.
3. CONQUERING POLITICAL POWER
The fate of democracy is linked, as we have seen, with the fate of the labor movement. But does the development of democracy, even at best, make the proletarian revolution superfluous or impossible in the sense of seizing state power, winning political power?
Bernstein resolves this issue by carefully weighing the good and bad sides of legislative reform and revolution; he performs this operation with a pleasantness reminiscent of hanging cinnamon and pepper in a cooperative shop. In the legitimate course of development, he sees the manifestation of reason, in the revolutionary - the action of feeling; he regards reform work as slow, but revolutionary work as a rapid method of historical progress; in legislation, he sees systematic work, in a coup - a spontaneous force (p. 183).
Old story! The petty-bourgeois reformer always sees the "good" and the "bad" side of everything; he takes a little bit of everything from everywhere. But it is just as old a story that the actual course of things does not in the least take into account these petty-bourgeois combinations and that a carefully collected bunch of “good sides” from everything that exists in the world crumbles to dust at one breath. In fact, we see that in history legislative reform and revolution are determined by deeper causes than the merits or demerits of this or that method.
In the history of bourgeois society, legislative reforms have always served to gradually strengthen the developing class until the latter felt mature enough to seize political power and destroy the entire existing legal system in order to build a new one. Bernstein, who denounces the theory of the seizure of political power as a Blanquist theory of violence, has a misfortune: what for centuries was the axis and driving force of human history, he took for a simple Blanquist mistake. Since there has been a class society and the class struggle has been the main content of its history, the conquest of political power has always been the goal of all rising classes and has been the starting and ending point of every historical period. We see this in the long struggle of the peasantry with money capital and patricians in ancient Rome, and in the struggle of patricians with bishops, and in the struggle of artisans with patricians in medieval cities, and in the struggle of the bourgeoisie with feudalism in modern times.
Thus, legislative reform and revolution are not at all different methods of historical progress, which can be chosen at will in the buffet of history, like hot or cold sausages; it is different moments in the development of class society, which condition and complement or exclude each other to the same extent as, for example, the South and North Poles, or the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
This or that state structure established by law is only product revolution. While revolution is the politically constructive act of class history, legislation maintains the political existence of society. Legislative reformatory activity does not have its own driving force independent of the revolution; in each historical epoch, it continues its movement in the direction given as long as the kick received by it in the last upheaval is in effect, or, more specifically, in framework created by the revolution of the social form. That is the essence of the issue.
It is completely wrong and ahistorical to think of legislative reforms as an extended revolution, and the revolution as a condensed reform. Social upheaval and legislative reform represent moments that are different from each other. by duration, a essentially. The whole secret of the historical upheavals carried out by political power lies precisely in the transformation of simple quantitative changes into a new quality, in the transition of one historical period from one social system to another.
Who speaks for the legal path of reforms instead of and in opposite the conquest of political power and social upheaval, chooses in fact no more calm, no more reliable and slow path to the same goals, but absolutely another the goal, namely, instead of the implementation of a new social order, only minor changes in the old one. Thus, the political views of revisionism lead to the same conclusion as its economic theory: in essence, it does not aim at realizing socialist building, but only for transformation capitalist not to abolish the system of hiring, but only to establish greater or lesser exploitation, in a word, to eliminate only the outgrowths of capitalism, but not capitalism itself.
But perhaps the aforementioned propositions regarding the functions of legislative reform and revolution are valid only in relation to the class struggle that was waged before? Perhaps from now on, thanks to the improvement of the bourgeois legal system, legislative reform is also called upon to transfer society from one historical phase to another, and the theory of the seizure of political power by the proletariat has become "a empty phrase", as Bernstein argues on p. 183 of his book?
However, quite the opposite is observed. How does modern bourgeois society differ from the class societies of antiquity and the Middle Ages? The fact that class domination is currently based not on "firmly acquired rights", but on actual economic relations and that the system of hiring is not a legal, but a purely economic relation. In our entire legal system there is not a single formula of modern class domination expressed in law. And if there are traces of it, such as, for example, the statute on servants, then this is nothing more than a relic of feudal relations.
How can wage slavery be gradually abolished "by legal means" if it is not at all expressed in laws? Bernstein, who is about to embark on legislative reform work, hoping in this way to put an end to capitalism, finds himself in the position of that Russian policeman at Uspensky, who tells his adventure: “I quickly grab him by the collar. And what? The scoundrel doesn't even have a scruff!..” That's where the dog is buried.
“All hitherto existing societies were based, as we have seen, on the antagonism between the oppressor and the oppressed classes” (“Communist Manifesto”). But in previous phases of modern society, this contradiction was expressed in certain legal relations, and because of this, it could to a certain extent give place to the developing new relations within the former framework. “A serf in the state of serfdom has made it to the position of a member of the commune ...” How? The gradual abolition within the city of all those petty rights in the form of corvee, various duties paid by the heirs of a serf to his master, poll tax, compulsory marriage, the right to participate in an inheritance, etc., the totality of which constituted serfdom.
Likewise, "the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, rose to the position of a bourgeois." How? By partially formally destroying or actually weakening the fetters of the guilds and by gradually transforming the administration, finance and military affairs in an amount that meets the most urgent need.
So, if we consider the question abstractly, and not historically, then with the former class relations one can at least suppose that the transition from feudal society to bourgeois society was accomplished through purely legislative reforms. But in fact we see that even there the legislative reforms served not to make the seizure of political power by the bourgeoisie superfluous, but, on the contrary, to prepare for and carry it out. A real political and social revolution was just as necessary for the abolition of serfdom, for the abolition of feudalism.
The situation is different now. It is not the law that compels the proletarian to submit to the yoke of capital, but the need and the absence of the means of production. But no law in the world can provide him with these funds within the framework of bourgeois society, since he lost them not by virtue of the law, but by virtue of economic development.
Further, exploitation in employment relations is not based on laws, since the level of wages is determined not by legislation, but by economic factors. Indeed, the very fact of exploitation is determined not by legislative decrees, but by the purely economic fact that labor power, acting as a commodity, has, among other things, the pleasant property of creating value, and even more than it itself absorbs. In a word, all the fundamental relations of capitalist class rule cannot be changed by means of legislative reforms on the basis of the bourgeois system, because they were not created by bourgeois laws and did not receive their form from them. Bernstein apparently does not know all this if he hopes for a socialist "reform"; but, unknowingly, he nevertheless speaks of it himself on p. 10 of his book: "The economic motive now appears freely where it was previously hidden by relations of domination and all kinds of ideologies."
But one more consideration. Another feature of the capitalist system is that in it all the elements of the future society, developing, first take on a form that does not bring them closer, but moves them away from socialism. In production, the social character begins to manifest itself more and more. But in what form? In the form of large enterprises, joint-stock companies, cartels, in which capitalist contradictions, exploitation and oppression of the labor force reach their highest degree.
In military affairs, this development leads to the spread of universal military service and a reduction in the period of service, i.e., materially brings it closer to the people's army. But all this is in the form of modern militarism, in which the dominance of the military state over the people and the class character of the state are most strikingly revealed.
In the field of political relations, the development of democracy, insofar as it is in favorable conditions, leads to the participation of all sections of the population in political life, and therefore, to a certain extent, to the creation of a "people's state". But this is expressed in the form of bourgeois parliamentarism, where class contradictions and class domination are not only not abolished, but rather developed and revealed. Since all capitalist development thus proceeds in contradictions, in order to strip the core of socialist society out of the capitalist shell, one has to resort to the seizure of political power by the proletariat and the complete destruction of the capitalist system.
But Bernstein, of course, comes to different conclusions here too. If the development of democracy leads to an aggravation, and not to a weakening, of capitalist contradictions, then, he says, “Social Democracy, if it does not want to complicate its work, should try as far as possible to prevent social reforms and the expansion of democratic institutions” (p. 71). . This would undoubtedly be the case if the Social Democracy, like the petty bourgeois, found a taste for such a useless occupation as picking up the good and throwing out the bad sides of history. But in order to be consistent, it would then have to "strive" to the destruction of capitalism itself, since is he, is undoubtedly the main villain, putting up all sorts of obstacles to her on her way to socialism. In fact, capitalism, together with and simultaneously with obstacles creates the only possibility carry out the socialist program. All this applies to the full extent to democracy.
If democracy has become partly superfluous and partly restrictive for the bourgeoisie, then it is necessary and obligatory for the working class. It is necessary, firstly, because it creates political forms (self-government, suffrage, etc.) that will serve as starting points and strongholds for the proletariat in its transformation of bourgeois society. It is also obligatory because only in it, in the struggle for democracy, in the enjoyment of its rights, can the proletariat come to a realization of its class interests and historical tasks.
In a word, democracy is necessary not because it makes redundant the seizure of political power by the proletariat, but, on the contrary, because it makes this seizure both necessary and the only possible. When Engels, in his preface to The Class Struggle in France, revised the tactics of the modern working-class movement, opposing the barricades to struggle on the basis of legality, then as it appears from every line of the preface, he considered not the question of the final seizure of political power, but the question of the daily struggle of the present moment; he was not interested in the actions of the proletariat in relation to the capitalist state at the moment of seizing political power, but in its actions within capitalist state. In a word, Engels gave instructions enslaved not the victorious proletariat.
On the other hand, the well-known expression of Marx on the land question in England, to which Bernstein also refers, that “in all probability it would be cheaper to buy the land from the landlords,” does not refer to the actions of the proletariat. before, a after his victory. After all, redemption from the ruling classes can, of course, be discussed only when the working class has become at the helm of the government. By this, Marx only expressed the possibility of peaceful implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than replacing this dictatorship with capitalist social reforms.
The very need for the seizure of political power by the proletariat always remained undeniable for both Marx and Engels. Therefore, it remains Bernstein's privilege to regard the chicken coop of bourgeois parliamentarianism as an organ designed to carry out the most powerful world-historical revolution - the transition of society from capitalist to socialist form.
But, after all, Bernstein began his theory only with a fear and a warning lest the proletariat become too early at the helm of the board! In that case, in his opinion, the proletariat would have left the entire bourgeois system exactly as it is now, and would only itself suffer a severe defeat. From this fear, it is first of all clear that Bernstein's theory gives the proletariat, in case circumstances force it to take control of the government, only one "practical" instruction - to go to bed. But by doing so, it itself passes judgment on itself, as a theory that dooms the proletariat at the most important moment of the struggle to inactivity, and consequently to passive betrayal of its own cause.
Our whole program would be a miserable piece of paper if it were not able to serve us in all accidents and everyone moment of struggle, serve the way applications her, and not by forgetting about her. If our program provides a formula for the historical development of society from capitalism to socialism, then it must, of course, also formulate all the transitional phases of this development, presenting them in general terms; consequently, it must be capable of pointing out to the proletariat everyone at the moment appropriate behavior in order to approach socialism. It follows from this that there can never be a moment for the proletariat when it would be compelled to abandon its program, or, conversely, when this program would leave it to the mercy of fate.
In practice, this is expressed in the fact that there can be no moment when the proletariat, placed by the course of events at the helm of government, would not be able or would not be obliged to take certain measures for the implementation of its program or transitional measures leading to socialism. . Behind the assertion that the socialist program may, at some point in the political domination of the proletariat, turn out to be completely useless and incapable of giving any indication of its implementation, lies another assertion: that the socialist program is generally and never feasible.
What if transitional measures prove premature? This question conceals a whole tangle of errors regarding the actual course of social upheavals.
The seizure of political power by the proletariat, i.e., by the broad masses of the people, cannot, above all, be carried out artificially. The mere fact of the seizure of political power presupposes a certain degree of maturity of political and economic relations, unless we are talking about such cases as it once was in the Paris Commune: the domination of the proletariat was not the result of its conscious struggle for a certain goal, but fell to it in as an exception, like abandoned ownerless good. This is the main difference between the Blanquist coup d'état carried out by a "decisive minority", each time unexpected and always untimely, from the seizure of political power by a large and class-conscious mass of the people. Such a seizure can only be a product of the incipient collapse of bourgeois society, and because of this, it bears in itself the economic and political law of its appearance.
If, therefore, the seizure of political power by the working class, from the point of view of social prerequisites, can by no means occur "too early", then, on the other hand, from the point of view of political effect - holding power it must necessarily take place "too early." The premature revolution, which keeps Bernstein awake, hangs over us like a sword of Damocles, and neither requests, nor entreaties, nor fear, nor warnings can prevent it. It should be so for two very simple reasons.
Firstly, such a huge upheaval as the transition of society from the capitalist to the socialist system is completely unthinkable as one hit like one victorious action of the proletariat. To assume something like this is again to reveal a purely Blanquist understanding. A socialist revolution presupposes a long and stubborn struggle, and the proletariat will in all probability be thrown back more than once, so that, from the point of view of the final result of the whole struggle, it must necessarily be "too early" at the helm of government for the first time.
Secondly, such a "premature" seizure of state power cannot be avoided, for the reason that these "premature" attacks by the proletariat are themselves a very important factor creating political conditions for final victory, and only in the course of the political crisis that will accompany the seizure of power by the proletariat; only in the fire of long and stubborn battles can the proletariat achieve the necessary degree of political maturity, which will enable it to carry out the final great revolution. Thus, the "premature" attacks of the proletariat on the political state power turn out to be in themselves important historical moments that create the conditions and determine time final victory. With this point of view, the very concept of the premature seizure of political power by the working people seems to be a political absurdity, arising from a mechanical understanding of the development of society and suggesting the presence of a certain external and independent from the class struggle to the moment of its victory.
But in view of the fact that the proletariat, therefore, cannot seize political power except "too early", or, in other words, since it must once or several times without fail seize it "too early" in order to finally firmly conquer it, then the opposition is against "premature" the seizure of power is nothing but opposition in general against the aspirations of the proletariat. seize political power.
As all roads lead to Rome, so from this point of view we quite consistently come to the conclusion that the revisionist advice to abandon the ultimate socialist goal is tantamount to advice to abandon everything socialist. movement.
4. Crash
Bernstein began his revision of the social democratic program by rejecting the theory of the collapse of the capitalist system. But since the collapse of bourgeois society is the cornerstone of scientific socialism, the removal of this cornerstone must logically lead to the collapse of Bernstein's entire socialist worldview. During the debate, he, wanting to defend his first assertion, successively surrenders one position of socialism after another. Without the collapse of capitalism, the expropriation of the capitalist class is also impossible, and Bernstein renounces expropriation, making the goal of the labor movement the gradual realization of the "principle of partnership."
But the cooperative principle cannot be realized under the capitalist mode of production, and Bernstein renounces the socialization of production and arrives at a reform in the field of trade, towards consumer societies.
The transformation of society with the help of consumer societies and together with trade unions is not reconciled with the actual material development of capitalist society, and Bernstein rejects the materialistic understanding of history.
But his theory of the course of economic development is incompatible with Marx's law of surplus value, and Bernstein renounces the law of value and surplus value, and with it, the entire economic theory of Karl Marx.
But in the absence of a definite final goal and economic basis, a proletarian class struggle is impossible in modern society - and Bernstein renounces the class struggle and preaches reconciliation with bourgeois liberalism.
But in a class society, the class struggle is a completely natural and inevitable phenomenon, and Bernstein consistently denies even the existence of classes in modern society: the working class for him is only a mass of individuals who are not connected with each other not only politically or spiritually, but also economically. Similarly, the bourgeoisie, according to Bernstein, is politically bound not by internal economic interests, but by external pressure from above or below.
But if the class struggle has no economic basis, if, in essence, there are also no classes, then not only the future struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, but also the struggle that has been going on up to now, turns out to be impossible; then the existence of social democracy and its successes are inexplicable. Or can it be explained only as the result of political pressure from the government? According to Bernstein, it can be understood not as a natural result of historical development, but as an accidental product of the Hohenzollern course, not as a legitimate child of capitalist society, but as an illegitimate child of reaction. So Bernstein, with inexorable logic, moves from a materialistic understanding of history to an understanding of it in the spirit of the Frankfurter Zeitung and Vossische Zeitung.
Having discarded all socialist criticism of capitalist society, it remains for Bernstein to find the present situation satisfactory, at least in general terms. But that doesn't scare him either. He finds that at present the reaction in Germany is not so strong; “in the Western European states, political reaction is almost imperceptible; in almost all Western states, the bourgeois classes adhere to the socialist movement, at most, only a defensive policy, but not a policy of violence.” The workers are not getting poorer, but, on the contrary, more and more wealthy, the bourgeoisie is politically progressive and even morally healthy, there is no reaction and oppression - everything is going for the best in this best of all worlds ...
Thus Bernstein descends quite logically and consistently from A to Z. He began by refusing to ultimate goal for the sake of movement. But since in reality there can be no Social-Democratic movement without a socialist goal, he, of necessity, ends up renouncing even the very movement.
Thus, Bernstein's entire socialist theory collapsed. All the majestic, symmetrical marvelous edifice of the Marxian system turned into a big heap of rubbish, in which fragments of all systems, fragments of thoughts of all great and small minds found a common grave. Marx and Proudhon, Leo von Buch and Franz Oppenheim, Friedrich-Albert Lange and Kant, Prokopovich and Dr. Baron von Neupower, Herkner and Schulze-Gevernitz, Lassalle and prof. Julius Wolf - everyone contributed to Bernstein's system, he learned something from everyone. And nothing surprising! Leaving the class point of view, he lost his political compass; having abandoned scientific socialism, he lost the spiritual axis of crystallization around which individual facts are grouped into an organic whole of a consistent worldview.
This theory, concocted indiscriminately from the crumbs of various systems, seems at first glance completely impartial. Bernstein does not even want to hear about any kind of "party science," or rather, about class science, about class liberalism, about class morality. He hopes to present universal, abstract science, abstract liberalism, abstract morality. But since in reality society consists of classes that have diametrically opposed interests, aspirations and views, then universal human science in the field of social issues, abstract liberalism and abstract morality is still only fantasy, self-deception. What Bernstein considers to be universal human science, democracy, morality, is only the dominant, that is, bourgeois, science, bourgeois democracy, bourgeois morality.
Indeed! Renouncing the economic system of Marx in order to swear by the teachings of Brentano, Boehm-Jvons, Say, Julius Wolff, does he not replace the scientific basis for the emancipation of the working class with an apology for the bourgeoisie? Speaking about the universal character of liberalism and turning socialism into its variety, does it not deprive socialism of its class character, i.e., of its historical content, and consequently, of any content in general; and vice versa, doesn't it thereby turn the historical bearer of liberalism, the bourgeoisie, into a representative of universal human interests?
And when he launches a campaign against “raising material factors to a power of omnipotent forces of development”, against the “contemptuous attitude towards the ideal” (p. 187) in the Social Democracy, when he comes out in defense of idealism and morality and at the same time rises up against the only source of the moral rebirth of the proletariat - the revolutionary class struggle, does this not mean, in essence, preaching to the working class the quintessence of bourgeois morality: reconciliation with the existing system and transferring hopes to the other world of moral ideas?
Finally, directing his sharpest arrows against dialectics, is he not fighting against the specific way of thinking of the rising class-conscious proletariat? Is it not fighting against the weapon that helped the proletariat to dispel the darkness of its historical future, against the spiritual weapon with which, still economically oppressed, it defeats the bourgeoisie, proving to it its fragility and the inevitability of its victory; Is he not fighting against the weapons with which the revolution in the world of ideas has already been accomplished?
Having said goodbye to dialectics and having mastered the balancing act of thought according to the principle: “on the one hand - on the other hand”, “true - but”, “although - but nevertheless”, “more or less”, Bernstein quite consistently perceives the historically conditioned way of thinking of the dying bourgeoisie, a method that is an exact spiritual reflection of its social existence and its political activity. The political "on the one hand - on the other hand" and "if - but" of the modern bourgeoisie looks exactly like Bernstein's way of thinking, which is the best and surest symptom of the bourgeoisness of his worldview.
But Bernstein now also finds that the word "burgher" is not a class expression, but a concept referring to the whole of society. It only means that he consistently puts an end to the i, that together with science, politics, morality and way of thinking, he also replaced the historical language of the proletariat with the language of the bourgeoisie. Denoting the word "burgher" indifferently both the bourgeois and the proletarian, therefore, simply a person, he actually identifies a person in general with the bourgeois, and human society - with the bourgeois
5. OPPORTUNISM IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE
Bernstein's book was of great historical significance for the entire German and international working-class movement: it was the first attempt to provide a theoretical justification for the opportunist currents in Social Democracy.
Opportunist currents have long been present in our movement, given their sporadic manifestations, for example, in the question of subsidies for the construction of the fleet. As a clearly expressed whole trend, opportunism appears only at the beginning of the 1990s, after the abolition of the law on socialists and the re-establishment of legal conditions. Vollmar's state socialism, the vote of the budget in Bavaria, South German agrarian socialism, Heine's proposals for compensation, and finally Schippel's views on tolls and militia are milestones in the development of opportunist practice.
What distinguished them primarily from the outside? Hostility to "theory". And this is quite understandable, since our theory, i.e., the principles of scientific socialism, sets the exact boundaries of practical activity both in relation to the persecuted goals, as well as for the applied funds struggle and, finally, way struggle. Hence, those who pursue only practical success have a natural tendency to untie their hands, that is, to separate our practice from theory, to make the former completely independent of the latter.
But this same theory beats them at every attempt at practical work: state socialism, agrarian socialism, the policy of compensation, the question of the militia - all this is at the same time the defeat of opportunism. It is clear that if this trend wanted to hold out in the struggle against our principles, then it had to decide to come close to the theory itself, to its foundations; instead of ignoring it, it should have tried to shake it up and create its own theory.
Bernstein's theory was an attempt of this kind, and therefore at the Stuttgart Party Congress all the opportunist elements immediately gathered around its banner. If, on the one hand, opportunist trends in practice seem to be a completely natural phenomenon and can be explained by the conditions of our struggle and its growth, then, on the other hand, Bernstein’s theory is an equally understandable attempt to give these trends a general theoretical expression, to find their own theoretical prerequisites for them and settle accounts with scientific socialism. Therefore, Bernstein's theory from the very beginning was a theoretical test for opportunism, its first scientific substantiation.
But what are the results of this test, we have already seen. Opportunism is not able to create a positive theory capable of withstanding criticism to some extent. All he can do is, starting with the refutation of the individual foundations of Marx's teaching, then moving on to the destruction of the entire system from top to bottom, since this teaching is a solidly built building. This proves that opportunist practice is fundamentally and essentially incompatible with Marx's system.
But it further proves that opportunism is generally incompatible with socialism, that by its inner tendency it strives to push the working-class movement onto the bourgeois path, i.e., to completely paralyze the proletarian class struggle. It is clear that historically it is impossible to identify the proletarian class struggle and the system of Marx. Before Marx and independently of him, there was a labor movement and various socialist systems, each of which was in its own way the appropriate condition of its time, the theoretical expression of the emancipatory aspirations of the working class. The justification of socialism by moral concepts of justice, the struggle against the mode of distribution instead of the struggle against the mode of production, the understanding of class contradictions as contradictions between the poor and the rich, the desire to combine the principle of "partnership" with the conditions of the capitalist economy, all that we encounter in Bernstein's theory - all it has already been in history. And all these theories in my time, for all their insufficiency, were valid theories of the proletarian class struggle; those gigantic children's shoes in which the proletariat learned to walk on the stage of history.
But. after the development of the class struggle itself and its social conditions led to the rejection of these theories and to the formulation of the principles of scientific socialism, after that there can be no other socialism, at least in Germany, other than the socialism of Marx, there can be no socialist class struggle outside social democracy. Now socialism and Marxism, the proletarian liberation struggle and social democracy are identical concepts. Therefore, a return to the former theories of socialism that existed before Marx does not even mean a return to the gigantic children's shoes of the proletariat at the present time: no, it means again to get into the trampled dwarf shoes of the bourgeoisie.
Bernstein's theory was first, but at the same time and latest an attempt to give opportunism a theoretical justification. We say "the latter" because in Bernstein's system opportunism has gone so far - both on the negative side, in the sense of renunciation of scientific socialism, and on the positive side, in the sense of a disorderly combination of all kinds of theoretical confusion - that there is nowhere to go further. In Bernstein's book, opportunism completed its development in theory and reached its final conclusions.
And Marx's theory is not only capable of theoretically refuting opportunism, but it, and only it, can explain him as a historical phenomenon in the formation of the party. The world-historical advance of the proletariat towards victory is indeed "not such a simple thing." The whole peculiarity of this movement lies in the fact that here, for the first time in history, the masses themselves and against of all the ruling classes defend their aspirations, but these strivings must be transferred outside modern society, beyond its limits. But these strivings of the masses, again, can develop in themselves only in a constant struggle with the existing system, only within its own framework. Uniting the broad masses of the people with a goal that transcends the entire existing order, uniting the daily struggle with the great world reform—such is the great problem of the Social-Democratic movement, which, along its entire path of development, must therefore fight its way forward between two pitfalls: between the renunciation of its mass character and the abandonment of the ultimate goal of the movement, between the return to the position of a sect and the transformation into a bourgeois reform movement, between anarchism and opportunism.
True, half a century ago Marx's theory forged in its theoretical arsenal a deadly weapon against both of these extremes. But since our movement is precisely a mass movement, and since the dangers that threaten it are created not in human heads, but in social conditions, then Marx's theory could not, from the very beginning, once and for all prevent all anarchist and opportunist deviations to the side. They must be defeated by the movement itself, of course with the help of the weapons created by Marx, after they have manifested themselves in practice. The lesser danger - the anarchist measles - the Social Democracy has already overcome, having coped with the "movement of independents", the greater danger - opportunist dropsy - it is fighting at the present time.
With the tremendous growth in breadth that characterizes the movement of recent years, with the complexity of the conditions and tasks for which one has to struggle, a moment must have come when skepticism about the achievement of the great final goal and wavering towards the ideal element of the movement began to appear in the movement. Thus, and not otherwise, the great proletarian movement must advance, and all these moments of hesitation and despondency are not unexpected for the teachings of Marx: on the contrary, Marx long ago foresaw and predicted them.
“Bourgeois revolutions,” Marx wrote half a century ago in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, “like, for example, the revolutions of the 18th century, rapidly rush from success to success, in them the dramatic effects are one more dazzling than the other, people and things are, as it were, illuminated by sparklers , breathes ecstasy every day, but they are fleeting, quickly reach their climax, and society is seized with a long hangover before it has time to soberly master the results of its period of storm and stress. On the contrary, the proletarian revolutions, the revolutions of the nineteenth century, are constantly criticizing themselves, now and then stop in their movement, return to what seems already accomplished in order to start it over again, with merciless thoroughness ridicule the half-heartedness, weaknesses and worthlessness of their first attempts, knock down their opponent from his feet, as if only so that he from the earth absorbs fresh strength and again rises to his full height against them even more powerful than before, again and again retreat before the indefinite immensity of their own goals, until a a situation that cuts off every path to retreat, until life itself declares authoritatively:
Hie Rhodus, hie salta!
Here is a rose, dance here!
This remained true even after the theory of scientific socialism was created. Thanks to it, the proletarian movement has not yet immediately become Social-Democratic, either in Germany or elsewhere; it becomes more social democratic every day; it becomes such in the course of the struggle and thanks to the incessant struggle against sharp leaps towards anarchism and opportunism, which are only moments of the movement of social democracy, considered as process.
In view of all this, it is not the emergence of an opportunist trend that is unexpected, but rather its impotence. As long as opportunism broke through only in individual cases of party practice, one could still assume that it had some serious theoretical foundation. But now, when this current has received quite clear expression in Bernstein's book, everyone involuntarily escapes with a surprised question: how! and is that all you have to say? Not a single hint of a new idea! Not a single thought that decades ago would not have been refuted, trampled, ridiculed and destroyed by Marxism!
It was enough for opportunism to speak to show that it had nothing to say. This, in fact, is the party-historical significance of Bernstein's book.
Parting with the way of thinking of the revolutionary proletariat, with dialectics and the materialist understanding of history, Bernstein can thank them for finding extenuating circumstances for his transformation. After all, only the dialectic and the materialistic understanding of history in their magnanimity explain that it appeared as a qualified, but unconscious instrument, through which the rising proletariat expressed its momentary indecision, so that after carefully examining it, sarcastically smiling and shrugging its shoulders, it would be thrown far away from itself.
22nd of May 1957. At a meeting of representatives of collective farmers, Khrushchev put forward the famous slogan “ Catch up and overtake America!” for the production of meat and dairy products. The speech was the beginning of the policy of "jumping forward", putting forward impossible goals.
Presentation of the next awards to N.S. Khrushchev by L.I. Brezhnev
During the period 1957 - 1959. were held administrative reforms, most of which were not successful.
AT 1957. a law was adopted on the restructuring of industry management, according to which, instead of ministries, the country created the Council of the National Economy - economic councils. 105 economic regions were created in the country on the basis of the existing administrative division. All industrial enterprises and construction sites located on their territory were transferred to the jurisdiction of the economic councils. But the transition to a territorial management system did not bring the expected economic results.
AT agriculture two administrative reforms were carried out, the purpose of which was to increase the efficiency of agriculture. First was to eliminate MTS and the transfer of equipment (tractors and agricultural machines) to the ownership of collective farms, which assumed its better use. From an economic point of view, this measure undoubtedly enabled many collective farms to improve their organization and raise labor productivity; however, for others, equipment rental was more beneficial. At the same time, the reform forced all collective farms to immediately buy out the MTS fleet, which many collective farms could not afford. A negative consequence of this reform was the departure of a large number of technical specialists to the cities.
Second reform consisted in new consolidation of collective farms(83,000 in 1955, 68,000 in 1957, 45,000 in 1960), which was to lead to the formation of powerful "collective-farm unions" capable of becoming the beginning of the industrialization of agriculture. This project, which revived the idea of agro-cities and its underlying desire to accelerate the social transformation of the countryside through the development of the “socialist” aspects of the way of life, required large investments in which the collective farms were not able to participate due to a lack of funds caused by the buyout of the MTS. This was the reason for the failure of the first serious attempt to achieve a real integration of collective farm agriculture.
At the end of the 50s. a line was drawn to curtailment of personal subsidiary plots, to reduce the personal livestock, a campaign began against the "parasites" and "speculators".
After the visit of N.S. Khrushchev in the USA ( 1959) all farms were forced to switch to sowing corn. A clear example of the catastrophic consequences of adherence to voluntaristic methods of coercion associated with the “chase for records” was “ Ryazan disaster". The impetus for it was a speech delivered in Leningrad on May 22, 1957, in which Khrushchev proposed to triple meat production in the country in three years. At the end of 1958, an order was sent to the regional party committees to take “decisive measures” to increase meat production in 1959. The first secretary of the Ryazan regional committee, A. Larionov, made an ambitious statement, promising to triple the state procurement of meat in the region in one year, and on January 9 In 1959, these promises were published in Pravda. The “challenge” was answered by several other areas. The Ryazan region had not yet had time to start implementing its grandiose program, as awards rained down on it. In February 1959, she received the Order of Lenin, and Larionov himself became a Hero of Socialist Labor a few months later. To keep the promise, the regional committee of the party ordered to slaughter the entire offspring of 1959, as well as most of the dairy cattle raised by the collective farmers on their farms. Livestock purchases were organized in neighboring regions at the expense of public funds intended for the purchase of machines, the construction of schools, etc. On December 16, local authorities solemnly reported on the 100% fulfillment of the plan: the region “sold” 150,000 tons of meat to the state, three times the supply of the previous year; obligations for 1960 were taken even higher - 180 thousand tons! However, in 1960, procurement did not exceed 30 thousand tons: after the mass slaughter of the previous year, the livestock decreased by 65%. By the end of 1960, it became impossible to hide the catastrophe, and Larionov committed suicide. Thus ended the “competition” with America.
The desire to achieve the most significant success in the economy was also reflected in the situation with the 6th five-year plan, when a year after the start of its implementation, it was urgently revised, a transition plan was drawn up for 1-2 years, and then was adopted. seven year plan" for a period of 1959 - 1965.
The obvious, obvious mistakes made by Khrushchev during the reforms were largely due to personality of the reformer himself. Khrushchev made numerous attempts at all kinds of reorganizations, looking for a way out of many problems left by the past. However, while remaining a political figure who came out of the "Stalinist era", brought up by this time, he remained a firm adherent of authoritarian methods of leadership. Hence and voluntarism, and intolerance to everything that did not understand and could not understand.
It is no coincidence that the objects of his ignorant criticism were artists, writers, filmmakers. At the same time, it was thanks to the easing of censorship during the Khrushchev thaw that the previously banned works of Remarque and Hemingway were published; the story of A.I. Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - the first description of Stalin's camps in legal literature; the Sovremennik Theater was opened; began to criticize the regime and the magazine Novy Mir, edited by A.T. Tvardovsky.
The course towards democratization included humanization of social policy, its turn to the needs and needs of the people. Since summer 1953. The Soviet state began to implement a whole range of measures aimed at improving the well-being of the people. By the mid 50s. they covered the streamlining of the system and an increase in wages, tax cuts, a radical improvement in pensions, a reduction in the working week, an increase in the production of consumer goods and an improvement in consumer services for the population, the beginning of a radical solution to the housing problem, etc. the regulation of wages in industry, construction, transport and communication organizations was completed. The country has introduced a system of rates and salaries linked to industries, industries and categories of working personnel.
By the end of 1960, all workers and employees switched to a seven to six hour working day. The average working week was about 40 hours. the foundation was laid for the establishment of a pension system for workers and employees.
An important task was the establishment of a state system of social security for collective farmers.
Among the most acute social problems faced by the country in the 1950s was housing issue.
Housing construction in the 50s
As a result of military destruction, 25 million people were left homeless. The scope of new construction has become significant. If in 1951 - 1955. in cities and towns, on average, a total living area of 30.4 million square meters was introduced per year. meters, then in 1957 52 million square meters were introduced. meters. Tens of millions of people moved into their own rooms, and those with many children moved into separate two- or three-room apartments.
Old and new South-West of the capital. 1958
Positive results have been achieved during this period Soviet science especially in the field of applied knowledge. Evidence of a high scientific and technical level has become launch of the first artificial earth satellite in 1957., the first manned flight into space in 1961 (Yu.A. Gagarin).
Yu.A.Gagarin and S.P.Korolev
At the same time, contradictions arose in science, which, constantly growing and aggravating, served as one of the main reasons for lagging behind those profound structural shifts in technology, quality and efficiency that occurred in the production of developed capitalist countries. The eminent Soviet scientist P.L. Kapitsa in his letters about science to N.S. Khrushchev in 1953-1958.
And yet, in the 1950s, despite the objective and subjective difficulties, mistakes and miscalculations of management, it was possible to make significant progress in solving global problems: noticeable shifts have taken place in social policy; in science and technology; greatly increased the country's defense power. Of course, many contradictions not only remained, but also grew. However, the high dynamism of development gave rise to great hopes for the future, especially since in those years it was mainly about meeting the most pressing, urgent problems.
The transformations of this period were the first and most significant attempt to reform Soviet society. But the reforms carried out did not bring the expected effect.
In the early 60s. the number of Khrushchev's opponents inexorably increased. Krepla opposition in the ranks of the party-state apparatus. Unrealistic plans, incompetence, the crisis of agricultural policy, reorganizations in industry, the aggravation of the foreign policy situation - all this caused discontent both in the center and on the periphery.
AT October 1964 when Khrushchev was resting on the Black Sea, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU prepared him bias. Suslov presented to the Presidium a whole list of accusations against the first secretary, who was forced to agree to leave for health reasons.
After the displacement of N.S. Khrushchev, L.I. was put at the head of the party and state leadership of the country. Brezhnev.
social revolution- a radical, sharp qualitative upheaval in the entire social structure of society; way of moving from one form of political organization to another
TYPES OF SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS:
- Anti-imperialist
- Anti-colonial
- National liberation
- bourgeois
- bourgeois-democratic
- People's and people's democratic
- socialist and others.
Social reform (evolution)- the process of progressive development of society and its elements from the simplest forms to complex ones.
The concept of social progress.
Progress- forward movement.
Turgot and Condorcet - pioneers of the ideas of progress (France)
Features of the first concepts:
1) the ideal beginning - the root cause of changes in the world - the improvement of human intelligence
2) the development of society was perceived smoothly, evolutionarily, in a straight line
3) within the same social formation
Progress criteria:
1) the development of the mind, morality, morality
2) consciousness of freedom (a measure of freedom that society can give to an individual)
3) progressive is that which contributes to the rise of humanism
The world-historical process of the ascent of human societies from the state of savagery to the heights of civilization is called social progress. This generalizing concept includes economic, technical and cultural progress. The foundation of social progress is technical. Science stimulates technological progress. Hand guns are being replaced by machines, which are giving way to automated systems.
Progress occurs when acceleration leads only to positive changes in society. Most societies, despite temporary deviations, develop progressively: there is not a single society in which the tools of labor would not be improved, but, on the contrary, deteriorated.
Distinguish reformist (gradual) and revolutionary (leap-like) types of social progress.
Reform is a partial improvement in some area of life, a series of gradual changes that do not affect the foundations of the existing social order.
A revolution is a complete or complex change in all or most aspects of social life, affecting the foundations of the existing social system, representing the transition of society from one qualitative state to another, the totality of a large number or complex of reforms carried out simultaneously, in order to change the foundations of the social order. Revolutions are short-term and long-term.
Reforms are called social if they relate to transformations in those areas of society or those aspects of public life that are directly related to people, are reflected in their level and lifestyle, health, participation in public life, access to social benefits.
concept<социальные изменения>is the starting point for describing the dynamic processes taking place in society. This concept does not contain an evaluative component and covers a wide range of various social changes, regardless of their direction. In the broadest sense, social change refers to the transition of social systems, their elements and structures, connections and interactions from one state to another. Sociologists distinguish four types of social change:
structural social changes (concerning the structures of various social formations - families, mass communities, social institutions and organizations, social strata, etc.);
procedural social changes (affecting social processes, reflecting the relations of solidarity, tension, conflict, equality and subordination between various subjects of social interactions);
functional social changes (concerning the functions of various social systems, structures, institutions, organizations, etc.);
motivational social changes (occurring in the sphere of motivations of individual and collective activity; for example, during the formation of a market economy, the interests and motivational attitudes of significant sections of the population change significantly).
According to their nature and degree of influence on society, social changes are divided into evolutionary and revolutionary.
Evolutionary refers to gradual, smooth, partial changes in society. They can cover all spheres of society's life - economic, political, social, spiritual and cultural. Evolutionary changes most often take the form of social reforms, which involve the implementation of various measures to transform certain aspects of public life. Social reforms, as a rule, do not affect the foundations of the social system of society, but change only its individual parts and structural elements.
Revolutionary refers to relatively fast (compared to the previous social evolution), third-party, fundamental changes in society. Revolutionary formations are spasmodic in nature and represent the transition of society from one qualitative state to another.
N.I. Kareev: the main areas of sociological creativity
4. The theory of progress in the sociological concept of N. I. Kareeva
Like most sociologists of his time, Kareev is a strict evolutionist. The essence of the historical process, according to Kareev, lies in the interaction of the individual and the environment ...
N.K. Mikhailovsky on social progress
Section 1. The idea of progress in the history of social thought
The idea of social progress is not new. Many thinkers addressed this issue - from Heraclitus and Empedocles to K. Marx and F. Engels Spirkin A.G. Philosophy. M., 2002. S.
720.. In the history of social thought, perhaps, there was not a single major thinker ...
Signs of a social institution in Christianity
1.1 Signs of a social institution
Each social institution has both specific features and common features with other institutions.
The following signs of social institutions are distinguished: attitudes and patterns of behavior (for the institution of the family - affection, respect ...
3. Reasons for the progress of morality
There are several hypotheses explaining the progress of morality: 1) In tolerant societies, the energy of people is directed towards cooperation, and not towards fighting among themselves.
Therefore, more moral societies are more economically efficient...
Progress and regression in morality
4. The problem of the progress of morality
Throughout history, morality has always been the main condition for the socialization of the individual, taking it beyond the limits of purely natural significance.
The problems of moral progress and its criteria are located at the intersection of various sciences: history and ethics...
Modern methods of social forecasting
1.3 Basic principles and criteria of social forecasting methodology
The basis for the formation of forecasts is static information and an information array - the concept of scientifically determined characteristics and factors that comprehensively characterize the object of forecasting ...
social progress
Chapter 1. Essence of social progress
social progress
2.1 Concepts of social progress
society change social progress Sociology began with attempts to unravel the "meaning" of history and establish the laws of social change. The founders of sociology O. Comte and G. Spencer set as their goal to achieve an understanding of that ...
social progress
2.2 Drivers of social progress
The essence of any process of reality is the development of dialectical systems that form this process.
The process of development of human society is, first of all, the development of the dialectical system "society - nature" ...
1. O. Comte and other classics of sociology on the essence and functions of social progress in the development of society
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), having developed a three-stage model of the development of society (religious, metaphysical and positive stages), believed that contemporary society was on the verge of transition to the third stage ...
Social progress and social modernization of society
2.
Reformist and revolutionary types of social progress in the past and present
By its nature, social development is divided into evolutionary and revolutionary. The nature of this or that social development depends primarily on the method of social change ...
Statistical reporting
The role of technological progress in organizing surveillance
The development of economic reforms in Russia poses new challenges for state statistics in the field of methodology and organization of statistical observation…
Structure of social interactions
1.1 Signs of social action
The problem of social action was introduced by Max Weber.
He gave the following definition of it: “A social action is such an action, which, in accordance with its subjective meaning, includes in the protagonist attitudes towards that ...
Organization social development management
1.4. Indicators and criteria of social development
Quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the level of development, state, trends and directions of social Dynamics, used in planning to assess the compliance of the actual situation with scientifically based requirements ...
Factors and stages of the formation of a social institution
1.2 Signs, functions, structure and criteria for the classification of social institutions
Among the general features of a social institution are: - the allocation of a certain circle of subjects entering into relationships in the process of activity ...
There are two forms of social progress: revolution and reform - section History, Philosophy of History Revolution - This is a Complete Or Complex Change of All Or More ...
The revolution- this is a complete or complex change in all or most aspects of public life, affecting the foundations of the existing social order. Until recently, the revolution was seen as a universal "law of transition" from one socio-economic formation to another.
But scientists could not find signs of a social revolution in the transition from a primitive communal system to a class one. It was necessary to expand the concept of revolution so much that it was suitable for any formational transition, but this led to the emasculation of the original content of the term.
The "mechanism" of a real revolution could only be discovered in the social revolutions of modern times (during the transition from feudalism to capitalism).
According to Marxist methodology, a social revolution is understood as a radical change in the life of society, changing its structure and signifying a qualitative leap in its progressive development.
The most general, deepest cause of the advent of the era of social revolution is the conflict between the growing productive forces and the established system of social relations and institutions. The aggravation of economic, political and other contradictions in society on this objective basis leads to a revolution.
A revolution is always an active political action of the popular masses and has as its first aim the transfer of the leadership of society into the hands of a new class.
The social revolution differs from evolutionary transformations in that it is concentrated in time and the masses directly act in it.
The dialectic of the concepts of "reform - revolution" is very complex. A revolution, as a deeper action, usually "absorbs" the reform: the action "from below" is supplemented by the action "from above".
Today, many scholars call for abandoning the exaggeration in history of the role of the social phenomenon that is called "social revolution", from declaring it an obligatory regularity in solving urgent historical problems, since the revolution has not always been the main form of social transformation.
Much more often, changes in society occurred as a result of reforms.
Reform- this is a transformation, reorganization, a change in any aspect of social life that does not destroy the foundations of the existing social structure, leaving power in the hands of the former ruling class. Understood in this sense, the path of gradual transformation of existing relations is opposed to revolutionary explosions that sweep away the old order, the old system, to the ground. Marxism considered the evolutionary process, which preserved for a long time many remnants of the past, too painful for the people.
And he argued that since reforms are always carried out “from above” by forces that already have power and do not want to part with it, the result of reforms is always lower than expected: the transformations are half-hearted and inconsistent.
Today great reforms (i.e. revolutions "from above") are recognized as the same social anomalies as great revolutions.
Both of these ways of resolving social contradictions are opposed to the normal, healthy practice of "permanent reform in a self-regulating society."
The dilemma "reform - revolution" is replaced by the clarification of the relationship between permanent regulation and reform. In this context, both the reform and the revolution “treat” an already advanced disease (the first with therapeutic methods, the second with surgical intervention), while constant and possibly early prevention is necessary.
Therefore, in modern social science, the emphasis is shifted from the antinomy of "reform - revolution" to "reform - innovation".
Innovation is understood as an ordinary, one-time improvement associated with an increase in the adaptive capabilities of a social organism in given conditions.
All topics in this section:
Philosophy of history
Exam questions No. 42-44, 57 Society is a historically developing system, the study of which is the subject of a complex of social sciences and humanities.
In philosophy
Formative approach
World-historical progress was presented by K. Marx as a natural-historical process of changing socio-economic formations. Socio-economic formation - society, find
Civilization approach
Philosophy of Arnold Toynbee A. Toynbee put forward two hypotheses: 1.
There is no single process of development of human history; only specific local areas evolve.
Cultural approach
This approach to history was widely used by the German philosopher Oswald Schlengler. Each culture exists in isolation and closed. There are eight such cultures: Indian,
The problem of the source of social development
The meaning of the problem of the source of the development of society lies in the following questions: why is the historical dynamics of society possible?
What in society is an objective source that generates history
The problem of the subject and driving forces of the historical process
In a brief formulation, the essence of the problem posed can be expressed: "Who is the creator of history?".
In this regard, in the philosophy of history, two close ones are used,
Concepts of elites (elitism).
This concept took shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (V. Pareto, G. Mosca). Society is divided into two unequal parts, the smaller of which is the elite. Its main feature is the ability to create
crowd phenomenon.
This approach is associated with the analysis of the phenomenon of the crowd (mass), the negative impact of which on social events can be seen throughout world history and has been the subject of discussion.
History of the concept
The very idea of progress originated in ancient times.
Progress Criteria
Of particular difficulty is the problem of criteria for social progress. A comprehensive measure of progress should be applied to society. In fact, each sphere of society requires its own special
Social revolutions and social reforms. Concept of social progress
In the history of sociology, a variety of mechanisms (models, forms) for the transformation of society have been presented. For example, G. Tarde formulated the law of imitation, according to which it is "imitation" that is the main mechanism of social transformations.
However, the most commonly used terms to describe the mechanisms of transformation of society are the concepts of "revolution" and "reform" ("evolution").
Revolution (lat. - turn, coup) - a deep qualitative change in the development of any phenomena of nature, society or knowledge (geological revolution, industrial revolution, scientific and technological revolution, cultural revolution, etc.). A revolution means a break in gradualness, a qualitative leap in development.
Revolution differs from evolution (the gradual development of a process), as well as from reforms. The concept of revolution is most widely used to characterize social development.
A social revolution is a way of moving from a historically obsolete era to a more progressive one; a radical qualitative revolution in the entire social structure of society.
The question of the role of revolutions in social development is the subject of a sharp ideological struggle. Many representatives of the "sociology of the revolution" argue that the revolution as a form of social development is ineffective and fruitless, associated with enormous costs and inferior to evolutionary forms of development in all respects.
Representatives of Marxism, on the contrary, call social revolutions "the locomotive of history." They insist that social progress takes place only in revolutionary epochs. Thus, in Marxism the progressive role of social revolutions is emphasized in every possible way:
1) social revolutions resolve numerous contradictions that slowly accumulate during the period of evolutionary development, open up more scope for the progress of productive forces and society as a whole;
2) lead to a revolutionary emancipation of the forces of the people, raise the masses of the people to a new level of activity and development;
3) liberate the personality, stimulate its spiritual and moral development, increase the degree of its freedom;
4) they discard the obsolete, keep everything progressive from the old, thus social revolutions are a solid foundation for the successful progressive development of society.
In real development processes, evolution and revolution are equally necessary components and form a contradictory unity.
When describing a social revolution, two most characteristic features stand out:
1) social revolution as a break in gradualness, as a qualitative transition to the next stage of development, as a manifestation of the creativity of the masses and revolutionary elites (the Marxist doctrine of social revolution as a qualitative leap in the transition of society to a higher stage of development);
2) social revolution as rapid and large-scale transformations in society (here the revolution is opposed to reforms).
In social life, the term "reform" is added to the concepts of evolution and revolution.
reform (lat.
- transformation) - change, reorganization of any aspect of social life that does not destroy the foundations of the existing social structure.
From a formal point of view, reform means innovation of any content, but in practice, reform is usually understood as a progressive transformation.
Social (public) progress.
Most sociological theories of the 19th century were influenced by the concept of social progress. The idea that changes in the world occur in a certain direction arose in ancient times.
At the same time, progress was opposed to regress - in the sense that the progressive movement is characterized as a transition from the lower to the higher, from the simple to the complex, from the less perfect to the more perfect.
Attempts have been made to find the underlying laws of evolution. G. Spencer and other supporters of social Darwinism considered social evolution as an analogy of biological evolution. At the same time, evolution was interpreted as a unidirectional transition of society from homogeneous and simple structures to increasingly diverse and interdependent ones. Darwin's "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest" were considered the basic laws of the development of society. These laws of nature were likened to the laws of free competition.
So, social progress means the ascent to more complex forms of social life.
As applied to the topic under discussion, this means the growth of progressive social changes: the improvement of living conditions, the development of science, technology and education, the emergence of more rights and freedoms, etc. However, it is difficult to talk about progress in relation to many social phenomena, since the development of some phenomena of social life is non-linear.
For example, within the framework of art, religion and some other social phenomena, the highest models of development were created already several centuries or even millennia ago.
At the same time, with regard to such phenomena as engineering, technology, etc., one can quite unambiguously speak of constantly progressing phenomena. Therefore, social progress is spoken of as a trinity of several tendencies (progressiveness, regressivity, movement in a circle). Everything depends on which of these tendencies (as applied to a particular social phenomenon) prevails. Evaluation of progressivity or regressivity of a phenomenon should be based on objective indicators.
This raises the question of the criteria for progress. For example, in Marxism, the level of development of the productive forces and the nature of production relations were taken as a general historical criterion for the progressive development of mankind. In technocratic theories, the level of development of society is measured by the criterion of the development of technology and technology.
In a number of other social teachings, the level of development of human thinking, morality in society, religiosity, etc., serve as criteria.
In sociology, several common concepts are used to characterize the development of society.
Modernization. There are several definitions of modernization: dichotomous (modernization as a transition from one state of society - traditional - to another - industrial).
Historical (description of the processes through which modernization is carried out: transformations, revolutions, etc.). Instrumental (modernization as a transformation of tools and methods of development and control over the natural and social environment).
Mental (definition through a mental shift - a special state of mind, which is characterized by faith in progress, a tendency to economic growth, a willingness to adapt to change). Civilizational (civilization as modernity, i.e. modernization as the spread of a given civilization).
As elements modernization, the following processes are distinguished: industrialization, urbanization, bureaucratization, nation-building, commercialization, professionalization, secularization, literacy and mass media, the growth of social and professional mobility, etc.
Modernization acts primarily as the industrialization of society.
Historically, the emergence of modern societies is closely linked with the emergence of industry. All characteristics associated with the concept of modernity (modernity) can be correlated with the industrial type of society. Modernization is a continuous and endless process. It can take place over centuries, or it can happen quickly.
Since the development of different societies is characterized by irregularity and unevenness, there are always developed and lagging regions.
With modernization and industrialization, a noticeable transformation of the respective societies takes place (the types and nature of the social groups included in them are transformed, etc.). Thus, during the transition to bourgeois society, the former class organization of society gave way to a social class structure, and earlier, consanguineous primitive communities were replaced by castes and slavery.
Bureaucratization is the formation of a hierarchical social structure for managing organizations on the principles of rationality, qualification, efficiency and impersonality.
Urbanization is the process of moving the rural population to cities and the concomitant concentration of economic activity, administrative and political institutions, and communication networks in urban areas.
Urbanization is closely related to the decline in the share of the agricultural sector and the wide spread of industry.
In the history of sociology, several typologies of the historical development of society have developed:
a) two-tier: from pre-civilizational to civilizational form of hostel;
b) three-tier: agrarian society - industrial society - post-industrial society;
c) four-link: agrarian society - industrial society - post-industrial society - information (network) society;
d) five-link (Marxist typology): primitive communal society - slave society - feudal society - bourgeois society - communist society.
The five-link typology is based on the doctrine of socio-economic
formations. A socio-economic formation is a set of production relations determined by the level of development of the productive forces and determining superstructural phenomena.
Socio-economic formation
Characteristic
Primitive communal. Low level of development of productive forces, primitive forms of labor organization, lack of private property.
Social equality and personal freedom. Absence of public power isolated from society.
slaveholding. Private ownership of the means of production, including "talking tools" (slaves).
Social inequality and class stratification (slaves and slave owners). The state and the legal regulation of public life appear. Non-economic coercion prevails.
feudal.
Large landed property of the feudal lords. The labor of free, but economically (rarely politically) dependent peasants from the feudal lords. The main classes are feudal lords and peasants. Non-economic coercion is supplemented by economic labor incentives.
Capitalist. Highly developed productive forces. The main role of industry in the economy.
The class structure of society is based on the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Private ownership of the main means of production. Personal freedom of workers, economic coercion. Formal equality of citizens.
Communist. No private ownership of the means of production.
State (public) ownership of the means of production. Lack of exploitative classes. A fair and even distribution of the produced product among all members of society. High level of development of productive forces and high organization of labor. The withering away of the state and law.
All these typologies have a common feature - they recognize the steady and progressive nature of the development of society from one stage to another.
Usually, the analysis of the evolution of societies begins with a description of the society of hunters and gatherers. ,
where the main unit of social organization was the clan and the family.
Societies of hunters and gatherers were small (up to fifty people) and led a nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place as the food supply in a given territory was reduced.
These societies were egalitarian in nature; there was no social class stratification, state, law, etc.
Pastoral and horticultural societies emerged about 10-12 thousand years ago as two directions of progressive development and overcoming the past state. The domestication of animals and plants can be called the first social revolution. Food surpluses began to appear, which allowed social groups to come to a social division of labor that stimulated trade, and hence the accumulation of wealth.
All this was a prerequisite for the emergence of social inequality in society.
Agrarian societies appeared about 5-6 thousand years ago, when the second social revolution took place, associated with the invention of the plow.
These societies were based on extensive agriculture using draft animals.
Agricultural surpluses have become so large that they have led to an intensive increase in social inequality. The concentration of resources and power led to the emergence of the state and law.
Sometimes an agrarian society is called traditional, referring to pre-capitalist, pre-industrial society.
According to K. Saint-Simon, such a society is characterized by the following features: an agrarian way of life, a sedentary social structure, tradition as the main way of social regulation, etc. Traditional societies in history have a different social class structure. They may be poorly differentiated, estate, class, etc., but all are based on similar property relations (there is no indivisible private property), there is no individual freedom in them.
Sometimes a traditional society is designated as pre-industrial, then a three-term model of the development of society is built: pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial society (D. Bell, A. Touraine, etc.).
Industrial societies emerged as a result of the third social revolution (industrial), which began with the invention and use of the steam engine. A new source of energy (1765
- the first use of a steam engine) led to the replacement of the brute force of a person or animal by the power of a machine. Industrialization and urbanization began.
An industrial society is characterized by such features as a developed industrial production, a flexible social structure, social mobility, democracy, etc.
Post-industrial societies emerge at the end of the 20th century. based on the information revolution.
New information and telecommunication technologies are becoming the technological basis for a new structure of production and services. Service industries (education, health care, management, scientific research, etc.) become dominant compared to agriculture and industrial production.
This typology of societies has something in common with other typologies, but it emphasizes the trends in the development of modern society.
The pre-industrial society is dominated by agriculture, the church and the army; in an industrial society, industry, firms and corporations. In a post-industrial society, the production of knowledge becomes the main sphere of production. Here we have the information basis of society, the new elite (technocracy). Universities are starting to take over. Property as a criterion of social stratification loses its significance and gives way to knowledge and education.
There is a transition from a commodity-producing economy to a service economy (the superiority of the service sector over the production sector). For example, in tsarist Russia, agriculture accounted for 97%, while in modern Sweden it is only 7%.
The social composition and social structure of society is changing: class division gives way to professional, generational and other forms of stratification.
Planning and control over technical changes is introduced. Social technologies are developing widely. The main social contradiction in such societies is not between labor and capital, but between knowledge and incompetence.
There is also a division of societies into "closed" and "open"(classified by K.
Popper). This division of societies is carried out according to the ratio of social control and freedom of the individual. A “closed society” is a dogmatic, authoritarian, rigid society.
An "open society" is a democratic, pluralistic, and easily changing society. It is characterized by individualism and criticism.
Issues for discussion and discussion
1. How do social space and social time differ from physical space and time?
Expand the functions of social time.
2. Expand the concept, describe the structure and classify social processes.
3. Describe the main sources and main results of social change.
4. Compare social revolution and social reforms, highlight common and special features.
Exam questions No. 42-44, 57 Society is a historically developing system, the study of which is the subject of a complex of social sciences and humanities.
World-historical progress was presented by K. Marx as a natural-historical process of changing socio-economic formations. Socio-economic formation - society, find
Philosophy of Arnold Toynbee A. Toynbee put forward two hypotheses: 1.
This approach to history was widely used by the German philosopher Oswald Schlengler. Each culture exists in isolation and closed. There are eight such cultures: Indian,
The meaning of the problem of the source of the development of society lies in the following questions: why is the historical dynamics of society possible?
In a brief formulation, the essence of the problem posed can be expressed: "Who is the creator of history?".
This concept took shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (V. Pareto, G. Mosca). Society is divided into two unequal parts, the smaller of which is the elite. Its main feature is the ability to create
This approach is associated with the analysis of the phenomenon of the crowd (mass), the negative impact of which on social events can be seen throughout world history and has been the subject of discussion.
The very idea of progress originated in ancient times.
Of particular difficulty is the problem of criteria for social progress. A comprehensive measure of progress should be applied to society. In fact, each sphere of society requires its own special
Progress (from Latin - forward movement, success) means development with an upward trend, movement from lower to higher, from less perfect to more perfect. It leads to positive changes in society and manifests itself, for example:
in the improvement of the means of production and labor force;
in the development of the social division of labor and the growth of its productivity;
in new achievements of science;
in improving the living conditions of the people.
Progress criteria are announced
1. Complicated social organizations of society (G. Spencer),
2. Changes in the system of social relations and the type of regulation of social relations (F. Tönnies),
3. Changes in the nature of production and consumption (W. Rostow, D. Bell),
4. The degree of mastery by society of the elemental forces of nature, expressed in the growth of labor productivity, the degree of liberation of people from the yoke of the elemental forces of social development (K. Marx).
Scientists consider the growing tendency towards the liberation of man - ᴛ.ᴇ, to be an important sign of social progress. release:
1. from suppression by the state;
2. from the dictates of the collective;
3. from any exploitation;
4. from the isolation of the living space;
5. from fear for their safety and future.
Regression (from Latin - reverse movement), on the contrary, involves development with a downward trend, backward movement, a transition from higher to lower, which leads to negative consequences. It can manifest itself, say, in a decrease in the efficiency of production and in the equalization of people's well-being, in the spread of smoking, drunkenness, drug addiction in society, the deterioration of public health, an increase in mortality, a drop in the level of spirituality and morality of people, etc.
Progress and regress are often inextricably intertwined.
When they fundamentally change the entire social structure as a whole, a social revolution takes place, ᴛ.ᴇ. when there is a need to carry out not one, two or three reforms, but a much larger number of them in such a way as to fundamentally change the nature of society, some party or association of people, for example, the military elite, carry out a social revolution. Revolution - ϶ᴛᴏ a set of a large number or complex of reforms carried out simultaneously in order to change the foundations of the social order.
In addition to evolution, revolution, the main form of social development of society is reform - it is a set of measures aimed at transforming, changing, reorganizing certain aspects of public life.
Reforms are called social if they relate to transformations in those areas of society or those aspects of public life that are directly related to people, are reflected in their level and lifestyle, health, participation in public life, access to social benefits. Changing the rules for using long-distance telephones, rail transport or the metro affects the interests of citizens. But it is unlikely that such reforms are called social. On the contrary, the introduction of universal secondary education, health insurance, unemployment benefits or a new form of social protection for the population does not just affect our interests. Such reforms concern the social status of numerous segments of the population, limit or expand access to social benefits for millions - education, health care, employment, guarantees.
Along with social, economic and political reforms are distinguished. The transition of the economy to market prices, privatization, the law on bankruptcy of enterprises, the new tax system are examples of economic reforms. Changing the constitution, the form of voting in elections, the expansion of civil liberties, the transition from a monarchy to a republic are examples of political reforms. The expression "legislative reforms" is also used, but it is wrong to speak of technical reforms. In this case, they write about technical innovations or inventions.
Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, reforms are partial changes that affect not the whole society, but its individual areas or institutions. Reforms are both progressive and regressive. The same can be said about revolutions. The introduction of the practice of censorship in the press is by no means a progressive measure. Reforms, as a rule, do not affect all countries, but each individually, since this is an internal affair of the state. Reforms always take place "from above", are carried out by the government, albeit under pressure from the broad masses of the population.
Control questions for self-examination of student knowledge:
1) What is the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary processes in society?
2). Why is the Marxist theory of the development of society attributed to both evolutionary and revolutionary theories?
3) What phases in the development of cultural-historical types are distinguished by N.Ya. Danilevsky?
4) What example from modern Russian theory would T. Parsons attribute to a social change of the "balance change" type?
5) What areas of social life cannot be evaluated from the point of view of progressive development?
6) What are the forms of cooperation and why are these social processes considered one of the most significant in human activity?
7) Why is competition often called the antipode of cooperation? What is the essence of the process of competition?
8) What are the processes of assimilation and amalgamation based on? What can hinder these processes?
Topic 18 Social changes. Social change is one of the most general sociological concepts. Depending on the research paradigm, social change can be understood as the transition of a social object from one state to another, a change ... [read more]
Social change is one of the most general sociological concepts. Depending on the research paradigm, social change can be understood as the transition of a social object from one state to another, a change in the socio-economic formation, ... [read more]
[read more]
Progress (from Latin - forward movement, success) means development with an upward trend, movement from lower to higher, from less perfect to more perfect. It leads to positive changes in society and is manifested, for example: in the improvement of the means of production... [read more]
-
1. 1. The concept of social change, their forms. 2. Social change and social stability. 3. The concept of social development. Nonlinear nature of social development and the problem of social progress. 1 Social change is a change in the way we organize... [read more]
1. 1. The concept of social change, their forms. 2. Social change and social stability. 3. The concept of social development. Nonlinear nature of social development and the problem of social progress. Literature. Sociology. Fundamentals of the general theory. Ed. G.V. Osipova...
The revolution- this is a complete or complex change in all or most aspects of public life, affecting the foundations of the existing social order. Until recently, the revolution was seen as a universal "law of transition" from one socio-economic formation to another. But scientists could not find signs of a social revolution in the transition from a primitive communal system to a class one. It was necessary to expand the concept of revolution so much that it was suitable for any formational transition, but this led to the emasculation of the original content of the term. The "mechanism" of a real revolution could only be discovered in the social revolutions of modern times (during the transition from feudalism to capitalism).
According to Marxist methodology, a social revolution is understood as a radical change in the life of society, changing its structure and signifying a qualitative leap in its progressive development. The most general, deepest cause of the advent of the era of social revolution is the conflict between the growing productive forces and the established system of social relations and institutions. The aggravation of economic, political and other contradictions in society on this objective basis leads to a revolution.
A revolution is always an active political action of the popular masses and has as its first aim the transfer of the leadership of society into the hands of a new class. The social revolution differs from evolutionary transformations in that it is concentrated in time and the masses directly act in it.
The dialectic of the concepts of "reform - revolution" is very complex. A revolution, as a deeper action, usually "absorbs" the reform: the action "from below" is supplemented by the action "from above".
Today, many scholars call for abandoning the exaggeration in history of the role of the social phenomenon that is called "social revolution", from declaring it an obligatory regularity in solving urgent historical problems, since the revolution has not always been the main form of social transformation. Much more often, changes in society occurred as a result of reforms.
Reform- this is a transformation, reorganization, a change in any aspect of social life that does not destroy the foundations of the existing social structure, leaving power in the hands of the former ruling class. Understood in this sense, the path of gradual transformation of existing relations is opposed to revolutionary explosions that sweep away the old order, the old system, to the ground. Marxism considered the evolutionary process, which preserved for a long time many remnants of the past, too painful for the people. And he argued that since reforms are always carried out “from above” by forces that already have power and do not want to part with it, the result of reforms is always lower than expected: the transformations are half-hearted and inconsistent.
Today great reforms (i.e. revolutions "from above") are recognized as the same social anomalies as great revolutions. Both of these ways of resolving social contradictions are opposed to the normal, healthy practice of "permanent reform in a self-regulating society." The dilemma "reform - revolution" is replaced by the clarification of the relationship between permanent regulation and reform. In this context, both the reform and the revolution “treat” an already advanced disease (the first with therapeutic methods, the second with surgical intervention), while constant and possibly early prevention is necessary. Therefore, in modern social science, the emphasis is shifted from the antinomy of "reform - revolution" to "reform - innovation". Innovation is understood as an ordinary, one-time improvement associated with an increase in the adaptive capabilities of a social organism in given conditions.
End of work -
This topic belongs to:
Philosophy of history
The development of human society is complex and multifaceted .. at least two points of view are distinguished on the problem of the unity and diversity of history ..
If you need additional material on this topic, or you did not find what you were looking for, we recommend using the search in our database of works:
What will we do with the received material:
If this material turned out to be useful for you, you can save it to your page on social networks:
| tweet |
All topics in this section:
Philosophy of history
Exam questions No. 42-44, 57 Society is a historically developing system, the study of which is the subject of a complex of social sciences and humanities. In philosophy
Formative approach
World-historical progress was presented by K. Marx as a natural-historical process of changing socio-economic formations. Socio-economic formation - society, find
Civilization approach
Philosophy of Arnold Toynbee A. Toynbee put forward two hypotheses: 1. There is no single process of development of human history, only specific local areas evolve.
Cultural approach
This approach to history was widely used by the German philosopher Oswald Schlengler. Each culture exists in isolation and closed. There are eight such cultures: Indian,
The meaning of the problem of the source of the development of society lies in the following questions: why is the historical dynamics of society possible? What in society is an objective source that generates history
The problem of the subject and driving forces of the historical process
In a brief formulation, the essence of the problem posed can be expressed: "Who is the creator of history?". In this regard, in the philosophy of history, two close ones are used,
Concepts of elites (elitism)
This concept took shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (V. Pareto, G. Mosca). Society is divided into two unequal parts, the smaller of which is the elite. Its main feature is the ability to create
crowd phenomenon
This approach is associated with the analysis of the phenomenon of the crowd (mass), the negative impact of which on social events can be seen throughout world history and has been the subject of discussion.
History of the concept
The very idea of progress originated in ancient times. The authors of this time come to the conclusion that there is only mental progress, in moral terms, humanity is regressing.
Progress Criteria
Of particular difficulty is the problem of criteria for social progress. A comprehensive measure of progress should be applied to society. In fact, each sphere of society requires its own special
- In contact with 0
- Google Plus 0
- OK 0
- Facebook 0
