THE SOCIALIST RIFT IN GERMANY.
IT is not often that political prophecy is fulfilled, but we think we may take credit to ourselves for a prophecy which is, at least, in course of fulfilment. In dealing last year with the powerful attack levelled by the " Austrian school " against the central dogma of Marx— that of " surplus value "—we said that no political move- ment could long survive the destruction of its funda- mental principles ; that when the brains were out, the man must and would die, sooner or later. Hitherto the Socialist party in Germany has, on its economic side, been founded absolutely on the Marxite economic analysis, which has been described as the " Bible of Social De- mocracy," and which has really been treated by some Socialists in much the same way that the older Evan- gelicals treated the Bible. Marx had once for all settled the question, and nothing more was to be said. The mildest critic was treated with the scorn which Huxley in his militant days measured out to all and sundry who did not at once accept every item in the biological teachings of Darwin.
But the Socialist Congress at Hanover has revealed the presence of the disintegrating element concerning which we wrote last year. For, following the unanswerable analysis of Professor Bohm-Bawerk, a veritable bomb- shell was thrown into the Socialist camp by Mr. Edward Bernstein, a German newspaper correspondent in London, in the form of a little book written from the Socialist point of view, but in which the whole analysis of Marx, with its inevitable political inferences, was traversed and condemned. Let us explain the controversy shortly. Marx taught that the labourer in a factory produced a " surplus value" over and above his wage and the cost of machinery, which was appropriated by the capitalist, who returned to labour just enough to enable the labourer to exist ; that this process would develop itself with accelerating speed until a " hunger " problem arose among the workers of the world which could only be solved by a forcible political revolution which should take the instruments of production from the hands of capitalists and vest them in the hands of the community ; that all other solutions of the economic problem were mere quackery, and that, consequently, remedial measures, such as factory legislation, co-operation, and 'Trade- Unionism, must fail. The condition of the masses would grow worse and worse, culminating in universal poverty and in a universal commercial crisis, until revolu- tion brought to an end this bankrupt society, and man- kind started afresh on the lines of complete Collectivism. We who see how the events of the last half-century have entirely upset the Marxian hypothesis, must not merely deride its author when we recall the utterly false con- clusions confidently proclaimed as truths by some of our own " classic" economists. The truth is that Marx generalised from the early industrial conditions of England which he had studied with diligence, from our own " classic " political economy, and from certain doctrines as to the interpretation of history which he held with confidence and expounded with power. His error is an object-lesson in the fatal facility of dogmatism. Well for him had he recalled that famous reply of Crom- well to the dogmatic Puritan divines—" I beseech you, in the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ, think it possible that ye may be mistaken." Mr. Bernstein, in his book addressed to the German Socialists, had no difficulty in showing them that their prophet was largely mistaken. Hunger is not increasing but diminishing, and in no country more so than in Germany. The working classes, by higher wages, are getting a larger share of the total product ; while, by insurance laws and laws dealing with accidents, their lives are more secure than they ever were before. There are strikes, it is true, but they are less violent, and are more and more settled by arbitration. In a word, the economic vista as seen by Marx half a century ago is not that into which, as a matter of fact, we have entered. Many evils attach to our industrial system, but they are not of the kind which Marx anticipated and predicted.
Mr. Bernstein, therefore, appealed to the German Socialists to admit proven facts, to abandon dogma and a barren revolutionary formula, to substitute constitutional methods, to welcome all ameliorative agencies, and to work with the Liberals against the autocratic policy of the Kaiser. The line of cleavage which has existed for some time inside the party was thus revealed, and the issue was made clear. Revolution on the one hand, evolution on the other ; on the one side blind adherence to an economic shibboleth riddled. with criticism to which no competent Socialist writer has yet replied, on the other recognition of living facts and intelligent co- operation with living social agencies. Such was the issue which came before the Hanover Congress, and which led to a debate of immense interest and of great ability. Speaking generally, the older leaders, who, like the Bourbons, have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing, were on the Marxite side, while the younger men took the more broad and moderate course,—an important fact which speaks much for the future of Germany. There was also a partial geographical cleavage, North Germany going with its leading repre- sentatives, Herren Bebel and Liebknecht, South Germany going moderate with Herr Volmar, one of the Deputies from Munich. Herr Bebel spoke for six hours, his chief antagonist being Herr David. Ultimately, by a vote of 218 to 22, Herr Bebel's resolution was adopted, but scarcely in the form which its author would have approved had he not seen how near to a split the party was getting. As a matter of fact, the resolution was a compromise. It adhered, on the one hand, to the revolutionary Erfurt programme— that is, to the doctrine of a class war, violent expropria- tion, and all the items of the Marxite creed—but it prac- tically cancelled this by admitting " the utility of combi- nations with the bourgeois parties for electioneering purposes," and it adopted " a neutral attitude towards co-operative associations on the ground that they tend to elevate and educate working men." The Berlin corre- spondents seem to agree that, in reality, the compromise has gone much farther, and is far more significant of the effect which Mr. Bernstein's treatise has produced than would appear from the actual words of this resolution. Manifestly the leaven of criticism has begun to work.
We repeat what we said last year, that on the lines of mere revolutionary Socialism the German Social Demo- cratic party has reached the end of its tether. It has, with remarkable energy and ability, so exploited the whole of industrial Germany that it can yield no more converts. Its attempt to capture rural Germany is the admitted failure which Herr Volmar predicted it would be. It has secured the temporary adherence of many who are not Socialists in the Marxite sense, but who desire to protest against bureaucratic insolence and Imperial preten- sions, and who find no party but the Socialists as a point d'appui against the Government. The Liberals are no longer a great force as in the days of Lasker, and if a German is strongly " agin the Government " he can only express his feelings through the Social Democratic party. That is essentially the situation, and consequently if the party is to serve as a really powerful Opposition, commanding the confidence and support of all progressive thinkers, it must perforce become less of a Socialist and more of a Democratic party, as Mr. Bernstein suggests. It must abandon untenable and disproved dogmas, it must ally itself with progressive forces, it must look living issues in the face, it must adjust itself to political actualities, it must cease to prate about forcible revolution in the presence of overwhelming military force. If it can rise to the occasion, it may secure before many years have gone by an absolute majority in the Reichstag. If it cannot, it will dwindle to the dimensions of a mere sect.
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