TALKING MARXISM

Parliament and power

by Abbie Bakan

With the electoral breakthrough of the NDP in the federal election, attention to the nature of social democracy has returned to the political agenda. What do socialists say about the NDP and social democracy today?

There are two main views about parliamentary—or electoral—democracy in the history of the socialist movement. The social democratic view sees the liberal democratic state as a neutral body that can be peopled by delegates of the right or the left. Marxists, however, have stressed the limitations of the liberal democratic state. This view dates back to Marx’s analysis stated simply in the Communist Manifesto.

Contemporary social democratic parties, like the NDP or the Labour Party in the UK, keep a close eye on every aspect of parliamentary practice. Social movements, student activism and trade union struggles are seen as important at times. But what is considered “extra-parliamentary” work is seen as a means to influence “political” outcomes, which are narrowly defined in terms of parliamentary elections, debates or policies.

But the difference between a reformist, or social democratic, view, and a revolutionary, or Marxist, one, has not always been easy to discern.

World War One

When World War One broke out in Europe in 1914, “social democracy” was the term used to describe both revolutionary socialists and those committed to state reform.

This was not just a game of words. It was the test of war itself that brought out the fundamental differences between the two perspectives.

The events compelled those on the left to choose between a patriotic defence of their local ruling class in a bloody imperialist war, or an internationalist commitment to a revolutionary alternative.

Social democratic parties all over the world had held to the latter position in party policy for years before World War One. As late as 10 days before the outbreak of war between Germany and Austria in August of 1914, the German Social Democratic Party issued a statement declaring:

“The class conscious German proletariat raises a flaming protest against the machinations of the war mongers…. Not a drop of German soldiers’ blood must be sacrificed to the power hunger of the Austrian ruling clique, to the imperialist profiteer.”

But when met with the practical challenge of implementing a strategy which opposed their own ruling classes, the party leaderships in Germany and across most of the international socialist movement capitulated. They tragically rallied behind the flags of their own countries.

Only in Russia was the movement successful in turning their anti-war policies into a mass fight for peace. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was the largest and most effective peace movement the world has ever seen.

But the mass of the international “social democratic” movement opposed the Bolsheviks and the drive for peace. The term “social democracy” stuck to those who continued to support their states in the war.
As the great powers mobilized all the resources of capitalist industry to produce deadly weapons of destruction, thousands upon thousands of soldiers died in trench warfare to gain a few yards of territory.

The conquered land was to be labeled for the expanse of industry, the exploitation of raw materials, and to expand colonial possessions and markets. But then as the months and years of war continued, the same land was only to be lost in the next bloody battle, changing hands from one imperialist state to another.

And the soldiers, most of whom were young working-class boys clad in the uniforms of “their” imperialist state, kept on dying.

To this day, the British Labour Party, the German Social Democratic Party and the New Democrats in Canada continue the tradition of the abandonment of genuine socialist principles that marked their defence of the First World War.

How did this come about?

Germany

The largest and most influential of the social democratic parties of the time was in Germany. The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was a mass party. It had formal commitment to Marxist politics. But the practical orientation of the party and the majority of its leadership did not follow the basic Marxist premise, that socialism was based on the self-emancipation of the working class.

Rather than organizing its activities based on the goal of working-class power, the German section of the social democratic movement concentrated on winning reforms from the still undeveloped parliamentary system.

When war broke out, the role of the state as the ultimate defender of the interests of capitalist industry rather than the workers became starkly clear.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia carried on a sharp argument with the leadership of the German SPD. And so did a minority of leaders in the German Social Democrats. Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin and Karl Leibknecht were almost entirely isolated in their commitment to challenge the reactionary role of the German state and the war that resulted from it.

In liberal democratic conditions today, the lines between reform and revolution are again challenging to discern. But the lessons of history indicate how centrally important such distinctions can be in moments of heightened class conflict.