Mitchel, Synthesis

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PART SIX 

SYNTHESIS: THE OLIGARCHICAL TENDENCIES OPORGANIZATION

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CHAPTER I

THE CONSERVATIVE BASIS OF ORGANIZATION

 A t   this point in our inquiry two decisive questions presentthemselves. One of these is whether the oligarchical disease of

the democratic parties is incurable. This will be considered inthe next chapter. The other question may be formulated in thefollowing terrns. Is it impossible for a democratic party topractise a democratic poliey, for a revolutionary party to pursuea revolutionary poliey? Must we say that not soc ia l i sm   alone, 'but even a socialistic po l i e y ,  is utopian ? The present chapterwill attempt a brief answer to this inquiry.

‘Within certain narrow limits, the democratic party, even

when subjected to oligarchical control, can doubtless act uponthe state in the democratic sense.1 The old political caste ofsociety, and above ali the “ state” itself, are forced to undertakethe revaluation of a considerable number of values—a revalua-tion both ideal and practical. The importance attributed tothe masses increases, even when the leaders are demagogues.The legislature and the executive become accustomed to yield, notonly to claims proceeding from above, but also to those proceed

ing from below. This may give rise, in practice, to great in-conveniences, such as we recognize in the recent history of alithe states under a parliamentary regime;2 in theory, however,

1Especially where there exists universal, equal, and direct suffrage, and:

where the working-class is strongly organized and is awake to its owninterests. (Cf. Franco Savorgnan, Soziologische Fragmente,  Wagner, Inns-bruck, 1909, p. 105). In this case the leaders have every interest inexereising upon the state ali the pressure they can to render it more

democratic.3Cf., as far as Italy is concerned, the elassic work of Marco Minghetti,

 I Partiti politici e la Ingerensa loro nella Justicia e nell’ Amminis- trazione,  N. Zanichelli, Bologna, 1881, 2nd ed., pp. 17 et seq. In eonse-quence of the intimate relationships between the popular oligarchy(deputies) and the highest leveis of the bureaueratie oligarchy (govern

ment), the state officials of the second degree of importance, and especially the prefects, are apt to become entirely dependent upon the popular

oligarchy. The deputy threatens, overtly or taeitly, to go over to the

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this new order of things signifies an incalculable progress inrespect of public rights, which thus come to conform better with

the principies of social justice. This evolution will, however,be arrested from the moment when the governing classes suc-ceed in attracting within the governmental orbit their enemiesof the extreme left, in order to convert them into collaborators.Political organization leads to power. But power is alwaysconservative. In any case, the influence exercised upon thegovernmental machine by an energetic opposition party is neces-sarily slow, is subject to frequent interruptions, and is always

restricted by the nature of oligarchy.The recognition of this consideration does not exhaust ourproblem, for we have further to examine whether the oligarchicalnature of organization be not responsible for the creation ofthe externai manifestations of oligarchical activity, whether itbe not responsible for the production of an oligarchical policy.The analysis here made shows clearly that the internai policyof the party organizations is to-day absolutely conservative, oris on the way to become such. Yet it might happen that theexternai policy of these conservative organisms would be boldand revolutionary; that the anti-democratic centralization ofpower in the hands of a few leaders is no more than a tacticalmethod adopted to effect the speedier overthrow of the ad-versary; that the oligarchs fulfil the purely provisional func-tion of educating the masses for the revolution, and that organization is after ali no more than a means employed in the Serviceof an amplified Blanquist conception.

This development would conflict with the nature of party,with the endeavour to organize the masses upon the vastestscale imaginable. As the organization increases in size, thestruggle for great principies becomes impossible. It may benoticed that in the democratic parties of to-day the great con-flicts of view are fought out to an ever-diminishing extent inthe field of ideas and with the weapons of pure theory, thatthey therefore degenerate more and more into personal struggles

and invectives, to be settled finally upon considerations of apurely superficial character. The efforts made to cover internai

opposition if the minister will not speedily remove from his constituency

a prefect to whom he (the deputy) has taken a dislike, and the minister,who has to think of maintaining his majority in the ehamber, is apt to

give way. (Cf. also Annibale Marazio, D el G ov er n o p a r l em en t a r e I t a l i a n o , 

TJnione Tip. Ed. Torinese, Turin, 1904, p. 168.)

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BASIS OF ORGANIZATION 367

dissensions with a pious veil are the inevitablc outcome of organization based upon bureaucratic principies, for, since thechief aim of such an organization is to enrol the greatest pos-sible numher of members, every struggle on behalf of ideas with-in the limits of the organization is necessarily regarded as anobstacle to the realization of its ends, an obstacle, tberefore,which must be avoided in every possible way. This tendencyis reinforced by the parliamentary character of the politicalparty. “ Party organization” signifies the aspiration for thegreatest number of members. “ Parliamentarism” signifies theaspiration for the greatest number of votes. The principal fieldsof party activity are electoral agitation and direct agitation tosecure new members. What, in fact, is the modern politicalparty ? It is the methodical organization of the electoral masses.The socialist party, as a political aggregate endeavouringsimultaneously to recruit members and to recruit votes, findshere its vital interests, for every decline in membership andevery loss in voting strength diminishes its political prestige.Consequently great respect must be paid, not only to new members, but also to possible adherents, to those who in Germanyare termed m i t l ãu fer , in Italy s im p a t i z z a n t i , in Holland geest ver -  

w a n t e n , and in England s ympa t h i s e r s .  To avoid alarming theseindividuais, who are still outside the ideal worlds of socialismor democracy, the pursuit of a policy based on strict princijjleis shunned, while the consideration is ignored whether the nu-merical increase of the organization thus effected is not likely tobe gained at the expense of its quality.

The last link in the long chain of phenomena which confera profoundly conservative character upon the intimate essenceof the political party (even upon that party which boasts itselfrevolutionary) is found in the relationships between party andstate. Generated to overthrow the centralized power of thestate, starting from the idea that the working class need merelysecure a sufficiently vast and solid organization in order to

triumph over the organization of the state, the party of theworkers has ended by acquiring a vigorous centralization ofits own, based upon the same cardinal principies of authorityand discipline which characterize the organization of the state.3

3 Albert Schàffle believes that socialism needs merely to produce a great

general at the right moment in order to inherit the power of the centralizedmilitary organization (Sehãffle, Qu i n t e ssen z d es Sosi a l i sm u s,  Perthes, Gotha,

1879, 7th ed., p. 68).

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368 POLITICAL PARTIES

It thus becomes a govemmental party, that is to say, a partywhich, organized itself like a government on the small scale,

hopes some day to assume the reins of government upon thelarge scale. The revolutionary political party is a state withinthe state,4 pursuing the avowed aim of destroying the existingstate in order to substitute for it a social order of a funda-mentally different character.5 To attain this essentially po-litieal end, the party avails itself of the socialist organization,whose sole justifieation is found precisely in its patient butsystematic preparation for the destruction of the organization

of the state in its existing form. The subversive party organizes the  framework of the social revolution. For this reasonit continually endeavours to strengthen its positions, to extendits bureaucratic meehanism, to store up its energies and itsfunds.

4 The same is true of the revolutionary trade unions (French style).

“ U n éta t d an s Vét a t !    C ’était bien là, en effet, le bút poursuivi. On

voulait que, dans tous les évènements, 1'organisation ouvrière püt, à unsignal, adopter uue attitude identique et, au besoin, prendre 1'ofEensif ’ ’

(Eugène Guérard, L a C on féãér a t i on ãu T r a va i l ,  “ Mouvement Soeialiste, ”May 15, 3899, p. 555).

EDevoting ali its energies to the imitation of the outward apparatus ofpower charaeteristic o f the “ class-state,' ' the socialist party allots no

more than a secondary importance to psyehologieal enfranchisement from

the mentality which dominates this same class-state. This neglect o f

the psyehical faetor is disastrous to the democratic principie, especially

in so far as it springs from psyehologieal sources. Eaphael Friedeberg,who íinds fault with historieal materialism because it ‘ ‘  starts from the

monstrous error that the mode of produetion of material life is the sole

cause o f ali sociological happenings,” because it leads to the atrophy ofali spiritual faculties, and consequently to the decay of socialist thought,

has opposed this doctrine by that which he calls the doctrine of his-

torical psychism, namely, “ the psychical enfranchisement o f the proletariatfrom ali the intrinsic conditions of class dominion” (see his preface to theGerman edition of Gustave Hervé ’s work,  Leur Patrie [Das Vaterlani 

der Seiehen], Zurich, 1907, p. vii) . But Friedeberg’s charge against

historieal materialism is unsound, for the following reason. This doctrine,

based upon the idea of class, teaches the masses of the workers that justas they exist in a state of economic antagonism to the dominant class,

so also their spiritual and psychical life (the “ superstrueture ” ) is (orat least ought to be) in irreeoneilable conflict with the spiritual and

psyehic life o f the bourgeoisie. Another argument against historiealmaterialism is adduced elsewhere by Friedeberg. It conflicts, he says,with the class struggle, which depends upon the fact that those who

are removed from the mental environment of their material sphere ofproduetion become psychical dêclassés.  He goes so far as to maintain

that the more independent the human brain becomes, the more manifest

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BASIS OF ORGANIZATION 369

Every new official, every new secretary, engaged by the,partyis in theory a new agent of the revolution; in the same way

every new section is a new battalion; and every additionalthousand franes furnislied by the members’ subscriptions, bythe profits of the socialist press, or by the generous donations ofsympathetic benefactors, constitute fresh additions to the war-chest for the struggle against the enemy. In the long run, however, the directors of this revolutionary body existing withinthe authoritarian state, sustained by the same means as thatstate and inspired by the like spirit of discipline, cannot fail

to pereeive that the party organization, whatever advances itmay make in the future, will'never succeed in becoming morethan an ineffective and miniature copy of the state organization. For this reason, in ali ordinary circumstances, and as faras prevision is humanly possible, every attempt of the partyto measure its forces with those of its antagonists is foredoomedto disastrous failure. The logical consequence of these con-siderations is in direet conflict with the hopes entertained by the ,

founders of the party. Instead of gaining revolutionary energy |as the force and solidity of its strueture has increased, the ,precise opposite has occurred; there has resulted, pa r i pas su  

with its growth, a continued increase in the prudence, the tirnid-ity even, which inspires its policy. The party, continuallythreatened by the state upon which its existence depends, care-fully avoids (once it has attained to maturity) everything which

is the fallacy of Marxism (E. Friedeberg, E i s t o r i s c h e M a t e r i a l i s m u s u nãK l a s s e n k a m p f ,  “ Polis,” a review published at Zurich, 1907, i, No. 5).But this reasoning is erroneous, for in the class situation of the proletariat,

a situation elearly recognized by Marxism, there exist ali the elementswhich combine to make the proletariat the natural enemy (in the in

tellectual sphere) of the bourgeoisie, and thus lead to the “ class struggle.” Ideologically to remove the members o f the working class from

the world of their material sphere of produetion could not mean any-thing else than to impose upon them an essentially strange mentality, to

embou rgeo i s e r    them. In actual fa ct this proeess occurs to-day upon a

large scale, not in consequence, however, of historical materialism, butin opposition to it, being due above ali to the suggestive influence exer-

eised upon the masses by leaders who have themselves become em -  

bou r g eoi sés.  I t is true that the proeess of embourgeoisement can itself

be explained in conformity with the doctrine of historical materialism,on the ground that it depends upon the changed mode of life and

changed position in life of the leaders, upon the organization that isnecessary for the conduct of the class struggle, and upon the consequences

inherent in this organization which have been studied in the text.

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370 POLITICAL PARTIES

might irritate the state to excess. The party doctrines are,whenever requisite, attenuated and deformed in aecordance withthe externai needs of the organization.6 Organization becomesthe vital essenee of the party. During the first years of itsexistence, the party did not fail to make a parade of its revolu-tionary character, not only in respect of its ultimate ends, butalso in respect of the means employed for their attainment—although not always in love with these means. But as soon asit attained to political maturity, the party did not hesitate tomodify its original profession of faith and to affirm itself revolu-tionary only ‘ ‘ in the best sense of the word, ’ ’ that is to say, no

longer on lines which interest the police, but only in theoryand on paper.7 This same party, which at one time did not

6 A classical example of the extent to which the fear o f injuring the

socialist organization will lead even the finest intelligences of the partyto play tricks with socialist theory is afforded by the history of that

celebrated preface which in 1895 Frederick Engels wrote for a posthumousedition of Marx ’s book,  Die Klassenlcãmpfe in Frankreich, 1848-9.  Thispreface became the subject o f great international discussions, and has

been justly considered as the first vigorous manifestation of reformismin German socialism. For Engels here declares that socialist taeties willhave more success through the use of legal than of illegal and revolutionarymeans, and thus expressly repudiates the Marxist conception of the socialistrevolution. It was not till some years later that Kautsky published a

letter from Engels in which the latter disavowed his preface, saying:

“ My text had to suffer from the timid legalism of our friends in Berlin,

who dreaded a second edition of the anti-socialist laws—a dread to whichI was forced to pay attention at the existing political juncture” (Karl

Kautsky,  Der Weg sur Macht,  Buchhandlung “ Yorwãrts, ” 1909, p. 42).

From this it would appear that the theory (at that time brand-new) thatsocialism could attain to its ends by parliamentary methods— and this

was the quintessence of Engels’ preface—carne into existence from a fearlest the socialist party organization (which should be a means, and not

an end in itself) might suffer at the hands of the state. Thus Engels was

fêted, on the one hand, as a man of sound judgment and one willing tolook facts in the face (cf. W. Sombart,  Friedrich Engels, Ein Blatt sur 

 EntwicklungsgescMchte des Sozialismus,  Separat-Abdruck der ‘ ‘ Zukunft, ’ ’Berlin, 1895, p. 32), and was attacked, on the other hand, as a pacifist

utopist (cf. Arturo Labriola,  Eiforme e Eivoluzione sociale,  ed. eit., pp. 181

and 224) ; whereas in reality Engels would seem to have been the victimof an opportunist sacrifice of principies to the needs of organization, a sac-

rifice made for love of the party and in opposition to his own theoreticalconvictions.

1 Maximilian Harden is not far wrong when he compares the revolutionary

parties in their attitude towards the state authorities to a cock which is asit were glued to its place because a chalk-line has been drawn in front of

its beak, a line which to the bird represents an insuperable obstacle.

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BASIS OF ORGANIZATION; 371

hesitate, when the triumphant guns of the bourgeois governorsof Paris were still smoking, to proclaim with enthusiasm its

solidarity with the eommunards,s now announces to the wholeworld that it repudiates anti-militarist propaganda in any formwhich may bring its adherents into conflict with the penal code,and that it will not assume any responsibility for the conse-quences that may result from such a conflict. A sense of responsibility is suddenly becoming active in the socialist party.Consequently it reacts with ali the authority at its disposalagainst the revolutionary currents which exist within its own

organization, and which it has hitherto regarded with an in-dulgent eye. In the name of the grave responsibilities attach-ing to its position it now disavows anti-militarism, repudiates thegeneral strike, and denies ali the logical audacities of its past.

The history of the international labour movement furnishes .innumerable esamples of the manner in which the party becomes increasingly inert as the strength of its organizationgrows; it loses its revolutionary impetus, becomes sluggish, not

in respect of action alone, but also in the sphere of thought.9More and more tenaeiously does tbe party cling to what it callsthe “ ancient and glorious tactics,” the tactics which have led

s As is well-known, in 1871 Bebei, in open Keichstag, declared himself

opposed to the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, an annexation which hadalready been completed, and, with the sole support of Liebknecht, pushed

his theoretical opposition to war to the point of voting, in war-time, against

the military eredits. Bakunin cherished no affection either for the Marx

ista or for the Germans, but he was unable to refuse his admiration to

the youthful Marxist party in Germany, which had had the sublime courageto proclaim “ in Germany, in the country where freedom is least known,

under the triumphant military regime of Bismarek, its ardent sympathiesfor the principies and heroes o f the Commune” (II. Bakunin,  II Socialismo 

 e Mazsini, ed. cit., p. 9).'I n this connection it may be observed that the intelleetual deeadence

of the socialist party, and its ineapacity for producing men of talent, or atleast for attracting such men to its ranks, are often demonstrated by erities

who dwell upon the contrast between the present and the past. Ludwig

Stein writes (Die soziale Frage, ini Lichte der PMlosopMe,  Encke, Stutt-

gart, 1897, p. 438) : “ The intelleetual growth of the socialist party is ininverse ratio to its geographical extension. What an intelleetual vacuum

has existed since the death of Engels. Millions of votes, but not a singleman. A vast number of respectabilities, but not one leading intelligence.

The columns o f the 'Neue Zeit7 are largely íilled with matter which isnothing better than an insipid Alexandrianism. ” A similar opinion by

Sombart has been previously quoted (c f. p. 63, note 2).— There is at leastthis amount of truth in such accusations, that everywhere in the socialist

parties the new generation is weakly and intellectually insignifieant.

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372 POLITICAL PARTIES

to a continued increase in membership. More and more invin-eible becomes its aversion to ali aggressive action.

The dread of the reaction by which the socialist party ishaunted paralyses ali its activities, renders impossible ali mani-festation of force, and deprives it of ali energy for the dailystruggle. It attempts to justify its misoneism by the false pre-tence that it must reserve its strength for the final struggle.Thus we find that the conservative tendencies inherent in aliforms of possession manifest themselves also in the socialistparty. For half a century the socialists have been working inthe sweat of their brow to ereate a model organization. Now,when three million workers have been organized—a greater number than was supposed necessary to secure complete victoryover the enemy10 —the party is endowed with a bureaucracywhich, in respect of its consciousness of its duties, its zeal, andits submission to the hierarchy, rivais that of the state itself;the treasuries are fu ll; 11 a complex ramification of financial and

“ In 1893, in a speech at Bielefeld, Liebknecht, referring to the Cologne

congress, made a comparison between the political-soeialist and trade-nnionmovements, saying: “ I do not believe that the trade-union organizationsin Germany will ever attain a degree of development eomparable with that

of the kindred organizations in England; for I am of opinion that before

such a development can be reached the red flag of victorious socialism willbe waving over the Bastille of capitalism and the eutrenchments of the

German bourgeoisie" (Wilhelm Liebknecht, üéber ãen Kolner Parteitag,  etc.,  ed. cit., p. 18 ). To-day, the German trade unionists are as numerous

as the English, while in the intervening years the numerical strength of the

socialist movement has more than doubled, but the conquest of power seems

more remote than ever.11 In the year 1906 the total funds of the German trade unions amounted

to about 16,000,000 marks. The richest union, that o f the eompositors,

had accumulated funds amounting to 4,374,013 marks. Next came the

bricklayers’ union, with 2,091,681 marks; the metalworkers’ union, with1,543,353 marks; and the woodworkers’ union, with 1,452,215 marks (Karl

Kautsky,  Der neue Tarif ãer Buchãrucker,  “ Neue Zeit,” anno xxv, vol. 1,No. 4, p. 129). Since then, notwithstanding the intervening years of crisis

involving exceptionally high claims for out-of-work pay, the financial position of the unions has become yet stronger. In 1909 the eompositors owned

7,929,257 marks; the bricklayers, 6,364,647 marks; the metalworkers, 6,248,251 marks; the woodworkers, 3,434,314 marks (Statistisches Jahrbuch fiir 

das ãeutsche Beich,  1910, anno xxxi, pp. 376—7). These ample funds areof great importance for defensive purposes, but their value for offensivepurposes is extremely restricted. It would be utterly absurd.for the union

to pursue the poliey of heaping up funds in the hope of thus overthrowing

capitalism. In Germany there are hundreds of capitalists in whose private

treasuries are available means exceeding those of ali the unions put to-

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BASIS OF ORGANIZATION 373

moral interests extends ali over the country. A bold and enter-prising tactic would endanger ali this: the work of many dee-

ades, the social existence of thousands of leaders and sub-leaders,the entire party, would be compromised. For these reasons thaidea of such a tactic becomes more and more distasteful. Itconflicts equally with an unjustified sentimentalism and a justi-fied egoism. It is opposed by the artist ’s love of the work hehas ereated with so much labour, and also by the personal in-terest of thousands of honest bread-winners whose economic lifeis so intimately associated with the life of the party and who

tremble at the thought of losing their employment and the conse-quences they would have to endure if the government shouldproceed to dissolve the party, as might readily happen in caseof war.

Thus, from a means, organization becomes an end. To theinstitutions and qualities which at the outset were destinedsimply to ensure the good working of the party machine (sub-ordination, the harmonious cooperation of individual members,

hierarchical relationships, discretion, propriety of conduct), agreater importance comes ultimately to be attached than to theproductivity of the machine. Henceforward the sole preoccu-pation is to avoid anything which may clog the machinery.Should the party be attacked, it will abandon valuable positionspreviously conquered, and will renounce ancient rights ratherthan reply to the enemy’s offensive by methods which might“ compromise” its position. Naumann writes sarcastically:

“ The war-cry ‘ Proletarians of ali countries unite!’ has had itsdue effect. The forces of the organized proletariat have gaineda strength which no one believed possible when that war-crywas first sounded. There is money in the treasuries. Is thesignal for the final assault never to be given ? . . . Is the workof preliminary organization to go on for ever ? ” 12 As the

gether. Moreover, on the present system of depositing savings with private

banks, the earnings o f this accumulated capital yield profit, not to the trade

unionist, but to the enemies of the working class who are shareholders inthese banks, so that the trade-union funds are ‘ 1ultimately employed againstthe labour movement’ ’ (Bruno Buchwald,  J)ie Gewerkschaftsbanfcj i  Die

neue Gesellsehaft,” anno iii, fase. x ). Hence the trade-union funds helpto strengthen the opponents of the trade unions. For this reason a scheme

has long been on foot among trade unionists to institute a bank of their

“ Friedrich Naumann,  Das Schicksal ães Marxisrmis,  “ Hilfe,” October

11, 1908, p. 657.

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party’s need for tranquillity increases, its revolutionary talonsatrophy. We have now a finely conservative party whieh (sincethe effect survives the cause) continues to employ revolutionaryterminology, but which in actual praetice fulfils no other func-tion than that of a eonstitutional opposition.

 Ali this has deviated far from the ideas of Karl Marx, who,were he still alive, ought to be the first to revolt against sucha degeneration of Marxism. Yet it is quite possible that, car-ried away by the spectacle of an army of three million menacting in his name, swearing on solemn occasions i n v e r b a   

mag i s t r i ,  he also would find nothing to say in reprobation of sograve a betrayal of his own principies. There were incidentsin Marx’s life whieh render such a view possible. He cer-tainly knew how to close his eyes, in public at any rate, to theserious faults committed by the German social democracy in1876.13

In our own day, which may be termed the age of the epigonesof Marx, the character of the party as an organization evergreedy for new members, ever seeking to obtain an absolute

majority, cooperates with the eondition of weakness in whichit finds itself vis-à-vis the state, to effect a gradual replace-ment of the old aim, to demolish the existing state by the newaim, to permeate the state with the men and the ideas of theparty. The struggle carried on by the socialists against theparties of the dominant classes is no longer one of principie,but simply one of competition. The revolutionary party has be-come a rival of the bourgeois parties for the conquest of power.

It therefore opens its doors to ali those persons who may assistin the attainment of this end, or who may simply swell itsbattalions for the struggle in whieh it is engaged. With thenecessary modifications, we may well apply to the internationalsocialist party the words which de Maupassant puts into themouth of the N eveu d e 1’ On c le Sost h èn e   in order to describe theessence of French freemasonry: “ Au lieu de détruire, vousorganisez la coneurrence: ca fait baisser les prix, voilà tout.

Et puis eneore, si vous n ’admettiez parmi vous que des librespenseurs, je comprendrais; mais vous recevez tout le monde. Vous avez des catholiques en masse, même des chefs du parti.Pie IX fut des vôtres avant d ’être pape. Si vous appelez une

“ Karl Kautsky, Preface to Karl Marx,  Eanãglossen sum Programm der 

ãeutschen Arbeiterpartei  (1875), “ Neue Zeit,” anno ix, vol. 1, pp. 508et seq.

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société ainsi composée une citadelle contre le cléricalisme, jela trouve faible, votre citadelle. . . . Ah! oui, vous êtes des

malins! Si vous me dites que la Franc-Maçonnerie est une usineà élections, je vous 1’accorde; qu’elle sert de machine à fairevoter les candidats de toutes nuances, je ne le nierai jamais;qu’elle n ’a d ’autre fonction que de berner le bon peuple, de1’enrégimenter pour le faire aller à Fume comme on envoie aufeu les soldats, je serai de votre avis; qu’elle est utile, indis-pensable même à toutes les ambitions politiques parcequ’ellechange chaeun de ses membres en agent électoral, je vous crierai:

‘ C ’est elair comme le soleil!’ Mais si vous me prétendez qu’ellesert à saper l ’esprit monarchique, je vous ris au nez.” 14

Thus the hatred of the party is directed, not in the first placeagainst the opponents of its own view of the world order, butagainst the dreaded rivais in the political field, against thosewho are competing for the same end—power. It is above aliin the electoral agitation carried on by the socialist parties whenthey have attained what is termed ‘ ‘ political maturity ’ ’ that this

characteristic is most plainly manifest. The party no longerseeks to fight its opponents, but simply to outbid them. Forthis reason we observe a continuai recurrence in socialistspeeches of a claim which harmonizes ill with socialist principies, and which is often untrue in fact. Not the nationalists,they say, but we, are the best patriots; not the men of the gov-ernment, but we, are the best friends of the minor civil servants[in Italy] or of the peasants [in Germany]; and so on. Evi-

dently among the trade unions of diverse political colouring,whose primary aim it is to gain the greatest possible number ofnew members, the note of competition will be emphasized yetmore. This applies especially to the so-called “ free unions” ofGermany, neutrally tinted bodies which on principie hold inhorror ali definiteness in respect of political views or eonceptionsof the world order, and which are therefore distinguishable inname only (a few triíling terminological differences apart) from

the Christian unions. I f we study the speeches and polemicwritings directed by the leaders of the free unions against theleaders of the Christian unions, we find that these speechesand writings contain no declarations of principie and no theo-retical expositions, but merely personal criticisms and accusa-

14 Guy de Maupassant,  Mademoiselle Fifi,  Libr. OUendorff, Paris, 1907,

p. 69.

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tions, and above ali aeeusations of treachery to the cause oflabour. Now it is obvious that these are no more than the means

vulgarly employed by competitors who wish to steal one an-other’s customers.15By such methods, not merely does the party sacrifice its

political virginity, by entering into promiscuous relationshipswith the most heterogeneous political elements, relationshipswhich in many cases have disastrous and enduring eonsequences,bnt it exposes itself in addition to the risk of losing its essentialcharacter as a party. The term “ party” presupposes thatamong the individual eomponents of the party there shouldexist a harmonious direction of wills towards identical objectiveand practical aims.16 Where this is lacking, the party becomesa mere ‘ ‘ organization. ’ ’

15An article was published not long ago in the “ Neue Ze it” (anno xxv,

No. 5) entitled  Zur TaktiTc gegenüber ãen gewerkschaftlichen Korikurrenz- 

Organisationen  [Taetics to be employed against the competing  Trade-UnionOrganizations].

10 Antonio Labriola, Scritti varí ãi filosofia e Politica  (collected by B.

Croce), Laterza, Bari, 1906, p. 321.

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CHAPTER II

DEMOCRACY AND THE IRON LAW OP OLIGARCHY 

W h i l s t   the majority of the socialist schools believe that in afuture more or less remote it will be possible to attain to agenuinely democratic order, and whilst the greater number ofthose who adhere to aristocratic political views consider thatdemocracy, however dangerous to society, is at least realizable,we find in the scientific world a conservative tendency voicedby those who deny resolutely and once for ali that there is any

such possibility. As was shown in an earlier chapter,1 thistendency is particularly strong in Italy, where it is led by aman of weight, Gaetano Mosca, who declares that no highlydeveloped social order is possible without a “ political class,”that is to say, a politically dominant class, the class of a minority. Those who do not believe in the god of democracy arenever weary of affirming that this god is the creation of achildlibe mythopoeic faculty, and they contend that ali phrases

representing the idea of the rule of the masses, such terms asstate, civic rights, popular representation, nation, are descrip-tive merely of a legal principie, and do not correspond to anyactually existing facts. They contend that the eternal struggles between aristocracy and democracy of which we read inhistory have never been anything more than struggles betweenan old minority, defending its actual predominance, and a newand ambitious minority, intent upon the conquest of power, de-

siring either to fuse with the former or to dethrone and replaceit. On this theory, these class struggles consist merely of struggles between successively dominant minorities. The socialclasses which under our eyes engage in gigantic battles uponthe scene of history, battles whose ultimate causes are to be foundin economic antagonism, may thus be compared to two groupsof dancers executing a ch a ssécr oi sé in a quadrille.

1Cf.  supra,  p. 41.

377

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378 POLITICAL PARTIES

The democraey has an inherent preference for the authori-tarian solution of important questions.2 It thirsts simultane-

ously for splendour and for power. When the English burghershad eonquered their liberties, they made it their highest ambi-tion to possess an aristocracy. Gladstone declared that the loveof the English people for their liberties was equalled only bytheir love for the nobility.3 Similarly it may be said that it isa matter of pride with the socialists to show themselves capableof maintaining a discipline which, although it is to a certainextent voluntary, none the less signifies the submission of the

majority to the orders issued by the minority, or at least tothe rules issued by the minority in obedience to the majority’sinstructions. Yilfredo Pareto has even recommended socialismas a means favourable for the creation of a new working-classél i t e,   and he regards the courage with which the socialist leaders face attack and persecution as a sign of their vigour, andas the first eondition requisite to the formation of a new “ political class.” 4 Pareto’s t héor i e ãe la ci r cu l a t i on ães el i t es  

must, however, be accepted with considerable reserve, for inmost cases there is not a simple replacement of one group ofe l i t es   by another, but a continuous process of intermixture, theold elements incessantly attracting, absorbing, and assimilatingthe new.

This phenomenon was perhaps recognized at an earlier date,in so far as the ci r cu l a t i on ães él i t es   was effected within thelimits of a single great social class and took place on the politicalplane. In states where a purely representative govemment pre-

vails, the constitutional opposition aims simply at such a circula-tion. In England, for instanee, the opposition possesses the samesimple and resistant structure as the party which holds the reinsof government; its programme is clearly formulated, directedto purely practical and proximate ends; it is thoroughly dis-ciplined, and is led by one lacking theoretical profundity butendowed with strategic talent; ali its energies are devoted tooverthrowing the government, to taking the reins of power into

its own hands, while in other respects leaving matters exactly asthey were; it aims, in a word, at the substitution of one cliqueof the dominant classes for another. Sooner or later the com-petition between the various cliques of the dominant classes

JW. E. H. Lecky,  Democracy anã Liberty,   ed. cit., vol. i, p. 267.

* Quoted by  J.  Novicow, Conscience et Volonté sociales,  ed. cit., p. 42.4V. Pareto,  Les Systèmes socialistes,  ed. cit., vol. i, pp. 62 et seq.

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THE IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY 379

ends in a reconciliation, which is effected with the instinctiveaim of retaining dominion over the masses hy sharing it among

themselves. The opinion is very generally held that as a resultof the French Revolution, or that in any case in the ThirdRepublic, the old order had socially speaking been completelysuppressed in France. This view is utterly erroneous. In thepresent year of grace we find that the French nobility is repre-sented in the cavalry regiments and in the republican diplo-matic Service to an extent altogether disproportionate to itsnumerical strength; and although in the French Chamber

there does not exist, as in Germany, a deelared conservativeparty of the nobility, we find that of 584 deputies no less than61 belong to the old aristocracy ( n ob l esse d ’épée   and nóblesse  

ãe r ob e).

 As we have said, the theory that a directive social group isabsolutely essential is by no means a new one. Gaetano Mosca,the most distinguished living advocate of this soeiologieal con-\ception, and, with Yilfredo Pareto, its ablest and most authorita-

tive exponent, while disputing priority with Pareto, recognizesas precursors Hippolyte Taine and Ludwig Gumplowicz.5 It isa less familiar faet, but one no less interesting, that the leadingintellectual progenitors of the theory of Mosea and Pareto areto be found among the members of the school against which thesewriters more especially direct their attacks, namely among socialist thinkers, and especially among the earlier French socialists. In their work we discover the germs of the doctrine

which at a later date was elaborated by Mosca and Pareto into .a soeiologieal system.The school of Saint-Simon, while holding that the concept

of class would some day cease to be charaeterized by any economic attribute, did not look for a future without class dis-tinctions. The Saint-Simonians dreamed of the creation ofa new hierarchy which was to be founded, not upon the privilegesof birth, but upon acquired privileges. This class was to con-

sist of “ les plus aimants, les plus intelligents, et les plus forts,

5 Gaetano Mosca,  Piccola Polemica, ‘ ‘  Biforma Soeiale, ’ ’   anno xiv, vol.xvii, fase. 4.—Among the followers of Mosca may be mentioned Carmelo

Caristia, who in his book  Analisi oãierna ãel Costitutionalismo  (Bocca,Turin, 1908), whilst he does not deny that an absolutist regime of the oldgtyle cannot pass into a modern republican regime by a simple process of

gradual differentiation (p. 107), nevertheless concludes that every demo-

cratie principie ends by generating an aristoeratic principie (p. 229).

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personnification vivante du triple progrès de la société, ’ ’ aud“ eapables de la diriger dans une plus vaste carrière.” 6 At

the head of their socialist state the Saint-Simonians desired toplace those whom they termed “ hommes généraux,” who wouldbe able to prescribe for each individual his quantum of sociallabour, the individual’s special aptitudes being taken into ac-count in this connection; here it is obvious that dependeneemust be plaeed upon the discretion of these supermen.7 Oneof the most ardent followers of Saint-Simon, an enthusiastic ad-vocate of the “ nouvelle dynastie, ” when forced to defend himself against the accusation that his doctrine paved the way fordespotism, did not hesitate to declare that the majority of humanbeings ought to obey the orders of the most capable; they shoulddo this, he eontended, not only for the love of God, but also ongrounds of personal egoism, and finally because man, even if hecould live in isolation, would always need some externai sup-port. The necessity for issuing orders on one side and thenecessity for complying with them on the other are furnishedwith metaphysical justification. Such authority would only

be “ une transformation politique de l ’amour qui unit tous leshommes en Dieu. Et pouvez-vous lui préférer cette triste in-dépendance qui aujourd’hui isole les sentiments, les opinions,les efforts, et qui, sous un nom pompeux, n ’est rien autre choseque 1’égoisme accompagnée de tous les maux qu’il enfante?” “The Saint-Simonian system is authoritarian and hierarchicalthrough and through. The disciples of Saint-Simon were solittle shocked by the Cassarism of Napoleon III that most of

them joyfully accepted it, imagining that they would find init the principies of economic socialization.

The school of Fourier went further still. With a wealthof detail bordering on pedantry and exhibiting more than onegrotesque feature, Fourier thought out a vast and complexsystem. To-day we can hardly restrain a smile when we studythe tables he drew up describing his “ spherical hierarchy,”consisting of a thousand grades and embracing ali possible forms

of dominion from “ anarchie” to “ omniarchie,” each of themhaving its special “ hautes dignités,” and its appropriate

E. Barrault,  La Bierarchie,  in Tteligion Saint-Simonienne,  Keceuil etPredieations, Aux bureaux du “ Globe,” Paris, 1832, vol. i, p. 196.

(Euvres ãe Saint-Simon et Enfantin,  vol. xli,  Doctrines Saint-Simonien- nes.  Exposition par Bozard, Leroux, Paris, 1877, p. 275.

8 E. Barrault,  La Hierarchie, etc.,  ed. cit., p. 196.

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THE IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY 381

“ hautes fonctions.” 9 Sorel has well shown that the socialismof the days prior to Louis Blanc was intimately connected withthe Napoleonic era, so that the Saint-Simonian and Fourieristutopias eould not live and prosper elsewhere than in the soil ofthe idea of authority to which the great Corsican had furnisheda new splendour.10 According to Berth, Fourier ’s whole systempresupposes for its working the invisible but real and indis-pensable ubiquity of Fourier himself, for he alone, the Napoleon,as it were, of socialism, would be capable of activating and har-monizing the diverse passions of humanity.11

Socialists of the subsequent epoch. and above ali revolutionarysocialists, while not denying the possibility, in the remote future,of a democratic government by ma.jority, absolutely denied thatsuch a government could exist in the concrete present. Bakuninopposed any participation of the working class in elections. Hewas convinced that in a society where the people, the massof the wage-earners. is under the eeonomic dominion of aminority consisting of possessors, the freest of electoral systemscould be nothing more than an illusion. “ Qui dit pouvoir, ditdomination, et toute domination présume 1'existence d ’une massedommée. ” 12 Democracy is even regarded as the worst of alithe bourgeois regimes. The republic, which is presented to usas the most elevated form of bourgeois democracy, was said byProudhon to possess to an extreme degree that fanatical andpetty authoritative spirit ( zèl e gou ver n em en t a l )    which believesthat it can dare everything with impunity, being always ready

to justify its despotic acts under the convenient pretext thatthey are done for the good of the republic and in the generalinterest.13 Even the political revolution signifies merely "undéplacement de 1’autorité.” 14

The only seientific doctrine which can boast of ability tomake an effective reply to ali the theories, old or new, affirming 

•Ferdinand Guillon,  Accorã des Príncipes. Travail des Ecoles socié- 

taires. Charles Fourier,  Libr. Phalanst., Paris, 1850, p. 97.wPrefaee by Georges Sorel to the work of Fernand Pelloutier,  Histoire 

des Bourses du Travail,  ed. cit., pp. 7 et seq.“ Edouard Berth,  Marchands, intellectuels et pclitiques,  “ Mouvement

Socialiste, ” anno ix, No. 192, p. 385.“ Bakunin,  L ’Empire Enouto-Germanique et la Révolution sociale,  ed.

eit., vol. ii, p. 126.13Proudhon,  Iãée générale de la Hévolution oux X IX siècle,  vol. x of

CEuvres completes de Proudhon, Paris, 1S68, p. 65.“ Proudhon,  Les Confessions d ’un liévolutionnaire,  ed. cit., p. 24.

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the immanent necessity for the perennial existence of the “ political class” is the Marxist doctrine. In this doctrine the state

is identified with the ruling class—an identification from whichBakunin, Marx’s pupil, drew the extreme consequences. Thestate is merely the executive committee of the ruling class; or,to quote the expression of a recent neo-Marxist, the state ismerely a “ trade-union formed to defend the interest of thepowers-that-be. ’ ’ 15 It is obvious that this theory greatly re-sembles the conservative theory of Gaetano Mosca. Mosca, infact, from a study of the same diagnostic signs, deduces a similar

prognosis, but abstains from lamentations and recriminationson account of a phenomenon which, in the light of his generalpolitical views, he regards not merely as inevitable, but asactually advantageous to society. Aristide Briand, in the dayswhen he was an active member of the socialist party, and before he had become prime minister of the “ class-state, ” pushedthe Marxist notion of the state to its utmost limits by recom-mending the workers to abandon isolated and local economicstruggles, to refrain from dissipating their energies inpartial strikes, and to deliver a united assault upon the state inthe form of the general strike, for, he said, you can reach the"bourgeoisie with your weapons in no other way than by at-tacking the state.16

The Marxist theory of the state, when conjoined with a faithin the revolutionary energy of the working class and in thedemocratic effects of the socialization of the means of produc-tion, leads logically to the idea of a new social order which to

the school of Mosca appears utopian. According to the Marxiststhe capitalist mode of production transforms the great ma jority of the population into proletarians, and thus digs itsown grave. As soon as it has attained maturity, the proletariatwill seize political power, and will immediately transformprivate property into state property. ‘ ‘ In this way it will elimi-nate itself, for it will thus put an end to ali social diíferences,and consequently to ali class antagonisms. In other words, the

proletariat will annul the state, qu a   state. Capitalist society,divided into classes, has need of the state as an organizationof the ruling class, whose purpose it is to maintain the capitalist

15Angelo Oliviero Olivetti,  Problema dei Socialismo Contemporâneo,  ed.cit., p. 41.

” Aristide Briand,  La Grève Générale et la liêvolution.  Speech publishedin 1907. Girard, Paris, p. 7.

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THE IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY 383

system of produetion in its own interest and in order to effect

the continued exploitation of the proletariat. Thus to put anend to the state is synonymous with putting an end to the exist-enee of the dominant class.” 17 But the new eollectivist society,the society without classes, which is to be established upon theruins of the ancient state, will also need elective elements. Itmay be said that by the adoption of the preventive rules formu-lated by Kousseau in the Con t r a t So c i a l e ,  and subsequentlyreproduced by the French revolutionists in the Dêcl a r a t i on d es  

D r o i t s d e 1 ’ H omme ,  above ali by the strict application of

the principie that ali offices are to be held on a revocabletenure, the activity of these representatives may be confinedwithin rigid limits.18 It is none the less true that social wealthcannot be satisfactorily administered in any other manner thanby the creation of an extensive bureaucracy. In this way weare led by an inevitable logic to the flat denial of the possibilityof a state without classes. The administration of an immeas- .urably large capital, above ali when this capital is collective iproperty, confers upon the administrator influence at least equalto that possessed by the private owner of capital. Consequentlythe critics in advance of the Marxist social order ask whetherthe instinct which to-day leads the members of the possessingclasses to transmit to their children the wealth which they (theparents) have amassed, will not exist also in the administratorsof the public wealth of the socialist state, and whether theseadministrators will not utilize their immense influence in orderto secure for their children the succession to the offices which

they themselves hold.19

11 Friedrich Engels,  Die EntwicMung des Sosialismus von der Utopie zur 

Wissenschaft,  Buchhandlung “ Vorwãrts,” Beilin, 1891, 4th ed., p. 40.18Many believe with Hobson ( Booâle anã Cant,  ed. cit., pp. 5S7 and 590)

that the socialist state will require a larger number of leaders, including

political leaders, than any other state that has hitherto existed. Bernsteindeclares that the administrative body of socialist society will for a long

time differ very little from that of the existing state (Eduard Bernstein, Zur Geschichte, etc.,  ed. cit., p. 212). ,

1S Gaetano Mosca, Sisposta ad un’ Inchiesta sul Socialismo,  published m

the annual “ Bios,” Marescotti, Milan, 1904.— This is a point to which the

critics of collectivism have drawn attention with much emphasis (c f. PaulLeroy-Beaulieu,  Le Collectivisme,  Paris, 1884, vol. i, pp. 350 et seq.; F. S.

Merlino  Pro e contro il Socialismo,  ed. cit., p. 194). Jean Jaurès proposeda national council of labour which, with many safeguards, was to direet

produetion in the socialist state (Jaurès, Organisation Socialiste,  “ RevueSocialiste ” August 1895); such a body, however, would have a fatal ten-

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The constitution of a new dominant minority would, in addi-tion, be especially facilitated by the manner in which, according

to the Marxist conception of the revolution, the social trans-formation is to be effected. Marx held that the period betweenthe destruction of capitalist society and the establishment ofcommunist society would be bridged by a period of revolutionary transition in the economic field, to which would eor-respond a period of political transition, “ when the state couldnot be anything other than the revolutionary dictatorship ofthe proletariat.” 20 To put the matter less euphemistically,

there will then exist a dictatorship in the hands of thoseleaders who have been sufficiently astute and sufficiently power-ful to grasp the sceptre of dominion in the name of socialism, and to wrest it from the hands of the expiring bourgeois

society. A revolutionary dictatorship was also foreshadowed in the

minimum programme of Mazzini’s republican party, and thisled to a rupture between Young Italy and the socialist ele-

ments of the carbonari. Filippo Buonarroti, the Florentine,friend and biographer of Gracchus Babeuf, a man who at onetime played a heroic part in the French Revolution,21 and whohad had opportunities for direct observation of the way inwhich the victorious revolutionists maintained inequality andendeavoured to found a new aristocracy, resisted with ali hismight the plan of concentrating the power of the carbonariin the hands of a single individual. Among the theoretical

reasons he alleged against this concentration, the principal wasthat individual dictatorship was merely a stage on the wayto monarchy. To Mazzini and his friends, Buonarroti objectedthat ali the political changes they had in view were purelyformal in character, aiming simply at the gratification of 

dency to concentrate power in the hands of a few.— Joseph Sarratne, the

reformist socialist, describes the collectivist form of socialist society as

“ une tâche audacieuse dont on voudrait investir non pas un Dieu, mais

un tyran ou un comitê de salut publique entre les mains de qui devraitnécessairement abdiquer la nation souveraine” (Sarratne, Socialisme ã ’ Op- 

 position, Sociálisine ãe Oouvernement et Lutte ãe Classe,  Jacques, Paris,1901, p. 46).

“ Karl Marx, Sanãglossen zum Programm ãer ãeutschen Arbeiterpartei, “  Waffenkammer des Sozialismus, ” lOth semi-annual vol., Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1908, p. 18.

21 Filippo Buonarroti, Conspiration pour VEgalitê, ãites ãe Babeuf,  Brus-sels, 1828. Cf. especially p. 48.

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THE IR01ST LAW OF OLIGARCHY 385

personal needs, and above ali at the acquirement and exerciseof unrestricted authority. For this reason Buonarroti opposed

the armed rising organized by Mazzini in 1833, issuing a seeretdecree in which he forbade his comrades of the earbonari togive any assistance to the insurgents, wliose triumph, he said,eould not fail to give rise to the creation of a new ambitiousaristoeraey. ‘ 1The ideal republic of Mazzini, ’ ’ he wrote, ‘ ‘  dif-fers from monarchy in this respeet alone, that it possesses adignity the less and an elective post the more.” 22

There is little differenee, as far as practical results are

concerned, between individual dictatorship and the dictatorshipof a group of oligarchs. Now it is manifest that the conceptd i c t a t o r s h i p    is the direct antithesis of the concept democ r a c y . 

The attempt to make dictatorship serve the ends of democracyis tantamount to the endeavour to utilize war as the mostefficient means for the defence of peace, or to employ alcoholin the struggle against alcoholism.23 It is extremely probablethat a social group which had secured control of the instruments

of collective power would do ali that was possible to retainthat control.24 Theophrastus noted long ago that the strongestdesire of men who have attained to leadership in a popularlygoverned state is not so much the acquirement of personalwealth as the gradual establishment of their own sovereigntyat the expense of popular sovereignty.25 The danger is immi-nent lest the social revolution should replace the visible andtangible dominant classes which now exist and act openly, by

a clandestine demagogic oligarchy, pursuing its ends under thecloak of equality.

The Marxist economic doctrine and the Marxist philosophyof history cannot fail to exercise a great attraction upon think-ers. But the defects of Marxism are patent directly we enterthe practical domains of administration and public law, without speaking of errors in the psychological field and even in

22 Giuseppe Romano-Catania,  Filippo Buonarroti,  Sandron, Palermo, 1902,2nd ed., pp. 211-12, 213, 218, and 228. _ _

23“ There continually recurs the dream of Sehiller’ s Marquis Posa (in Don Carlos),  who endeavours to make ahsolutism the instrument of libera-

tion; or the dream of the gentle Abbé Pierre (in Zola ’s  Fom e),  who wishesto use the church as a lever to secure socialism” (Kropotkin,  Die histo- 

rische Solle ães Staates,  Grunau, Berlin, 1898, p. 52)." Those among the reformists who have been scientifícally trained begm

to recognize this (cf. Fourniere,  La Sociocratie,  ed. cit., p. 10).

25Labruyère, Ctoractères,  ed. cit., p. 38.

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more elementary spheres.2® Wherever socialist theory has en-deavoured to furnish guarantees for personal liberty, it has in

the end eitlier lapsed into the cloudland of individualist an-archism, or else has made proposals which (doubtless in opposition to the excellent intentions of their authors) could notfail to enslave the individual to the mass. Here is an example:to ensure that the literature of socialist society shall be ele-vated and moral, and to exclude a, p r i o r i    ali licentious books,

 August Bebei proposed the nomination of a committee of ex-perts to decide what might and what might not be printed. Toobviate ali danger of injustice and to secure freedom of thoughtand expression, Bebei added that every author must have theright of appeal to the collectivity.27 It is hardly necessary topoint out the impracticability of this proposal, which is ineffect that the books, however large, regarding which an appealis made, must be printed by the million and distributed to thepublic in order that the public may decide whether they areor are not fit for publication!

The problem of socialism is not merely a problem in eco-

nomics. In other words, socialism does not seek merely todetermine to what extent it is possible to realize a distributionof wealth which shall be at once just and economically produc-tive. Socialism is also an administrative problem, a problemof democracy, and this not in the technical and administrativesphere alone, but also in the sphere of psychology. ' In theindividualist problem is found the most difficult of ali thatcomplex of questions which socialism seeks to answer. Rudolf

Goldscheid, who aims at a renascence of the socialist movement by the strengthening of the more energetic elements inthat movement, rightly draws attention to a danger whichsocialism incurs, however brilliantly it may handle the prob-lems of economic organization. I f socialism, he says, fails tostudy the problem of individual rights, individual knowledge,and individual will, it will suffer shipwreck from a defectiveunderstanding of the significance of the problem of freedom

for the higher evolution of our species—will suffer shipwreckno less disastrous than that of earlier conceptions of worldreform which, blinded by the general splendour of their vision,

MGeorge Sorel,  Dove va il Marxismo?,  ed. cit., p. 17.21A. Bebei,  Die Frau unã ãer Sozialismus,  J. H. W. Dietz Xaehf., Stutt-

gart, 34th ed., 1903, p. 423.

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THE IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY 887

have ignored the individual liglit-sources which combine toproduce that splendour.28

The youthful German labour party had hardly suceeeded indetaching itself, at the cost of severe struggles, from the bourgeois democracy, when one of its sineerest friends drew at-tention to certain urgent dangers. In an open letter to the Leip-zig committee of the Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiterverein, Rod-bertus wrote: “ You are separating yourselves from a political party because, as you rightly believe, this political partydoes not adequately represent your social interests. But you

are doing this in order to found a new political party. "Whowill furnish you with guarantees against the danger that in thisnew party the adversaries of your class ( d i e an t i sozi a l en E l e-   

men t e )    may some day gain the upper hand?” 29 In this ob-servation Rodbertus touches the very essence of the politicalparty. An analysis of the elements which enter into the com-position of a party will show the perfect justice of his criticism.

 A party is neither a social unity nor an economic unity. It

is based upon its programme. In theory this programme maybe the expression of the interests of a particular class. Inpractiee, however, anyone may join a party, whether his interests coincide or not with the principies enunciated in theparty programme. The socialist party, for example, is theideological representative of the proletariat. This, however,does not make it a class organism. From the social point ofview it is a mixture of classes, being composed of elements

fulfilling diverse functions in the economic process. But sincethe programme has a class origin, an ostensible social unity isthereby eonferred upon the party. Ali socialists as such, what-ever their economic position in private life, admit in theorythe absolute pre-eminence of one great class, the proletariat.Those non-proletarians affiliated to the party, and those whoare but partial proletarians, “ adopt the outlook of the working elass, and reeognize this class as predominant.” 30 It is

tacitly presupposed that those members of a party who do notbelong to the class which that party represents will renounce

28Rudolf Goldscheid, Grunãlinien zu einer Kritih der Willenskraft,  W.

Braumiiller, Yienna and Leipzig, 1905, p. 143.MRodbertus, Offener Brief, etc.,  in F. Lassalle’s  Politisclie Eeãen u. 

Schriften,  ed. cit., vol. ii, p. 15. . . .so Eduard Bernstein, Wird die Sozialã&niolcratie VolJcspartei?  <fbozial.

Monatshefte,” August 1905, p. 670.

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their personal interests whenever these conflict with the interests of the proletarian class. On principie, the heterogeneouselements will subordinate themselves to the “ idea” of a classto which they themselves do not belong. So much for theory.In practice, the acceptance of the programme does not sufficeto abolish the conflict of interests between capital and labour. Among the members belonging to liigher social strata who havemade their adhesion to the political organization of the workingclass, there will be some who will, when the occasion demandsit, know how to sacrifice themselves, who will be able to unclasswill continue to pursue economic interests opposed to those ofthemselves. The majority of such persons, however, notwith-standrng their outward community of ideas with the proletariat,the proletariat. There is, in fact, a conflict of interests, andthe decision in this conflict will be determined by the relation-ship which the respective interests bear towards the principalnecessities of life. Consequently it is by no means impossiblethat an economic conflict may arise between the bourgeois members and the proletarian members of the party, and that as this

conflict extends it will culminate in political dissensions. Eco-nomic antagonism stifles the ideological superstructure. Theprogramme then becomes a dead letter, and beneath the bannerof “ socialism” and within the bosom of the party, a veritableclass struggle goes on. We learn from actual experience thatin their conduct towards persons in their employ the bourgeoissocialists do not always subordinate personal interests to thoseof their adoptive class. When the party includes among its

members the owners of factories and workshops, it may benoticed that these, notwithstanding personal goodwill and not-withstanding the pressure which is exercised on them by theparty, have the same economic conflict with their employeesas have those employers whose convictions harmonize with theireconomic status, and who think not as socialists but as bourgeois.

But there exists yet another danger. The leadership of thesocialist party may fali into the hands of persons whose prac-

tical tendencies are in opposition with the programme of theworking class, so that the labour movement will be utilized forthe Service of interests diametrically opposed to those of theproletariat.31 This danger is especially great in countries where

11 Cf. Arturo Labriola,  Biforme e Rivoluzione Sociale,  ed. cit., pp. 225-6.

— Labriola applies his hypothesis to the socialist leaders of bourgeois ori-

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THE IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY 389

the working-class party eannot dispense with the aid and guid-ance of capitalists who are not economically dependent upon the

party; it is least conspicuous where the party has no need ofsuch elements, or can at any rate avoid admitting them toleadership.

When the leaders, whether derived from the bourgeoisie orfrom the working class, are attached to the party organism asemployees, their eeonomic interest coincides as a rulc withthe interest of the party. This, however, serves to eliminateonly one aspect of the danger. Another aspect, graver because

more general, depends upon the opposition which inevitablyarises between the leaders and the rank and file as the partygrows in strength.

The party, regarded as an entity, as a piece of mechanism,is not necessarily identifiable with the totality of its members,and still less so with the class to which these belong. Theparty is created as a means to secure an end. Having,however, become an end in itself, endowed with aims and in-

terests of its own, it undergoes detachment, from the teleologicalpoint of view, from the class which it represents. In a party,it is far from obvious that the interests of the masses whichhave combined to form the party will coincide with the interests of the bureaucracy in which the party becomes personified.The interests of the body of employees are ahvays conservative,and in a given political situation these interests may dictate adefensive and even a reactionary policy when the interests of

the working class demand a bold and aggressive policy; inother cases, although these are very rare, the rôles may bereversed. By a universally applicable social law, every organof the collectivity, brought into existence through the need forthe division of labour, creates for itself, as soon as it becomesConsolidated, interests peculiar to itself. The existence of thesespecial interests involves a necessary conflict with the interests 

of the collectivity. Nay, more, social strata fulfilling peculiar

functions tend to become isolated, to produce organs fitted for the defence of their own peculiar interests. In the long run theytend to undergo transformation into distinct classes.

The sociological phenomena whose general characteristicshave been discussed in this chapter and in preceding ones

gin, whereas, for the reasons previously discussed, it should he made gen

erally applicable, disregarding the social origin of the labour leaders.

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offer numerous vulnerable points to the scientific opponentsof democracy. These phenomena would seem to prove beyond

dispute that society cannot exist without a “ dominant” or“ political” class, and that the ruling class, whilst its elementsare subject to a frequent partial renewal, nevertheless consti-tutes the only factor of sufficiently durable efíicacy in the history of human development. Aecording to this view, the government, or, if the phrase be preferred, the state, cannot beanything other than the organization of a minority. It is theaim of this minority to impose upon the rest of society a “ legalorder, ’ ’ which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion andof the exploitation of the mass of helots effected by the rulingminority, and can never be truly representative of themajority.32 The majority is thus permanently incapable ofself-govemment. Even when the discontent of the masses cul-minates in a successful attempt to deprive the bourgeoisie ofpower, this is after ali, so Mosca contends, effected only inappearance; always and necessarily there springs from themasses a new organized minority which raises itself to the

rank of a governing class.33 Thus the majority of human be-ings, in a condition of eternal tutelage, are predestined bytragic necessity to submit to the dominion of a small minority, and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy.

The principie that one dominant class inevitably succeeds toanother, and the law deduced from that principie that oligarchyis, as it were, a preordained form of the common life of great

social aggregates, far from conflicting with or replacing thematerialist conception of history, completes that conception andreinforces it. There is no essential contradiction between thedoctrine that history is the record of a continued series of classstruggles and the doctrine that class struggles invariably cul-minate in the creation of new oligarchies which undergo fusionwith the old. The existence of a political class does not con-

“ This train of reasoning approximates to Mommsen ’s theory that

democracy continually destroys itself. 33 Gaetano Mosca,  Elemente de Scienza política,  ed. cit., p. 62.—Among

the socialists there are a few rare spirits who do not deny the truth of thisaxiom. One of these is the professor of philosophy, and socialist deputy

of the Swedish Upper House, Gustaf F. Steffen, who declares: “ Evenafter the victory, there will always remain in political life the leaders and

the led” (Steffen,  Die Demokratie in Englanã,  Diederichs, Jena, 1911,p. 59).

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THE IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY 391

flict with the essential content of Marxism, considered not asan economic dogma but as a philosophy of history; for in each

particular instance the dominanee of a political elass arises asthe resultant of the relationships between the different socialforces competing for supremacy, these forces being of courseconsidered dynamically and not quantitatively.

The Russian socialist Alexandre Herzen, whose chief perma-nent claim to significance is found in the psyehologieal interestof his writings, deelared that from the day in which man be-eame accessory to property and his life a eontinued struggle

for money, the political groups of the bourgeois world under-went division into two camps: the owners, tenaeiously keepinghold of their millions; and the dispossessed, who would gladlyexpropriate the owners, but lack the power to do so. Thushistorieal evolution merely represents an uninterrupted seriesof oppositions (in the parliamentary sense of this term), “ at-taining one after another to power, and passing from thesphere of envy to the sphere of avarice. ’ ’ 34

Thus the social revolution would not effect any real modifi-cation of the internai strueture of the mass. The socialistsmight conquer, but not socialism, which would perish in themoment of its adherents’ triumph. We are tempted to speakof this process as a tragicomedy in which the masses are contentto devote ali their energies to effeeting a change of masters. Alithat is left for the workers is the honour “ de participer aurecrutement gouvernemental. ’ ’ 35 The result seems a poor one,

especially if we take into account the psyehologieal fact thateven the purest of idealists who attains to power for a few yearsis unable to escape the corruption which the exercise of powercarries in its train. In France, in working-class circles, thephrase is current, h omm e él u , l i omm e f ou t u .  The social revolution, like the political revolution, is equivalent to an operationby which, as the Italian proverb expresses it: “ Si cambia ilmaestro di cappella, ma la musica è sempre quella.” 36

Fourier defined modern society as a mechanism in whieh theextremest individual licence prevailed, without affording anyguarantee to the individual against the usurpations of the mass,

34Alexandre Herzen,  Erinnerungen,  German translation by Otto Buefc,

Wiegandt u. Grieben, Berlin, 1907, vol. ii, p. 150.35Félicien Challaye, Synãicalisme rêvolutionnaire et Synãicalisme rêform-

iste,  Alcan, Paris, 1909, p. 16.» There is a new conduetor, but the musie is just the same.

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392 POLITICAL PARTIES

or to the mass against the usurpations of the individual.37History seems to teach us that no popular movement, however

energetic and vigorous, is capable of produeing profound andpermanent changes in the social organism of the civilized world.The preponderant elements of the movement, the men wholead and nourish it, end by undergoing a gradual detaehmentfrom the masses, and are attracted within the orbit of the“ political class.” They perhaps contribute to this class a certain number of “ new ideas,” but they also endow it with moreCreative energy and enhanced practical intelligence, thus pro-viding for the ruling class an ever-renewed youth. The “ political class” (continuing to employ Mosca’s convenient phrase)has unquestionably an extreme fine sense of its possibilities andits means of defence. It displays a remarkable force of at-traction and a vigorous capacity for absorption which rarelyfail to exercise an influence even upon the most embittered anduncompromising of its adversaries. From the historical pointof view, the anti-romanticists are perfectly riglit when theysum up their seepticism in such caustie phraseology as this:

‘ ‘ Qu ’est ce qu ’une révolution ? Des gens qui se tirent des coupsde fusil dans une rue: cela casse beaucoup de carreaux; il n ’ya guère que les vitriers qui y trouvent du profit. Le vent emportela fumée. Ceux qui reste dessus mettent les autres dessous. . . .C’est bien la peine de remuer tant d ’honnêtes pavés qui n ’enpouvaient mais!” 38 Or we may say, as the song runs inM a d a m e A n g o t :    “ Ce n ’est pas la peine de changer degouvernement! ” In France, the classic land of social theories

and experiments, such pessimism has struek the deepest roots.39

31Charles Fourier,  Be 1’Anarchie inãustrielle et scientiflque,  Libr. Pha-lanst., Paris, 1847, p. 40.

28Thcophile Gautier,  Les Jeunes-France,  Charpentier, Paris, 1878, p. xv.88The disillusionment of the French regarding democracy goes back to

the Kevolution. Guizot deelared that this terrible experiment sufficed “ à

dégoüter à jamais le monde de la recherche de la liberté, et sêeher, jusquadans leur source, les plus nobles espérances du genre humain” (F . Guizot,

 Du Gouvernement ãe la France, ed. cit., p. 165).

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CHAPTER III

PARTY-LIFE IN WAR-TIME

N e v e r   is the power of the state greater, and never are theforces of political parties of opposition less eífective, than atthe outbreak of war. This deplorable war, come like a stormin the night, when everyone, wearied with the labours of theday, was plunged in well-deserved slumber, rages ali over theworld with unprecedented violence, and with such a lack ofrespect for human life and of regard for the eternal creationsof art as to endanger the very corner-stones of a civilizationdating from more than a thousand years. One of the corner-stones of historical materialism is that the working classes aliover the world are united as if by links of iron through theperfect community of economico-social interests which theypossess in faee of the bourgeoisie, this commnnity of interestseffecting a horizontal stratification of classes which runs athwartand supersedes the vertical stratification of nations and of races.The greatest difference, in fact, in the views taken of economico-social classes and of linguistico-ethical nationalities, as betweenthe respective adherents of nationalistic theories and of thetheories of historical materialism, consists in this, that theformer propound the hypothesis that the concept “ nation” ismorally and positively predominant over the concept “ class,”whilst the latter consider the concept and reality “ nation”altogether subordinate to the concept “ class.” The Marxists,in fact, believed that the consciousness of class had become im-pressed upon the entire mentality of the proletariat imbued

with socialist theories.The war has shattered this theory at one terrible blow. The

German socialist party, the strongest, wealthiest, and best organized section of the working-class international, for thirtyyears past the leading spirit in that international, suddenly andemphatically declared its entire solidarity with the GermanEmperor. Throughout the proletarian mass there has not beenreported a single instance of moral rebellion against the struggle

393

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394 POLITICAL PARTIES

which enlists socialists to fight on behalf of German imperialismand to contend with the comrades of other lands. Unquestion-

ably, the tactics of the German socialists were largely due tothe oligarchical tendencies which manifest themselves in modem political parties, because these parties, even if they pursue arevolutionary aim, and indeed precisely because they do so,that is to say because they make war against the existing state-system and desire to replace it by another, have need of a vastorganization whose central strength is found in a trusted andstable bureaucracy, the members of which are well paid, and

which has at its disposal the powers of a journalistie systemand of a well-filled treasury.1 This organization constitutes astate within the state. Now the forces of party, however well-developed, are altogether inferior and subordinate to the forcesof the government, and this is especially true in such a countryas Germany. Consequently one of the cardinal rules governingthe policy of the socialist party is never to push its attacks uponthe government beyond the limits imposed by the inequality

between the respective forces of the combatants. In other words,the life of the party, whose preservation has gradually becomethe supreme objective of the parties of political action, mustnot be endangered. The result is that the externai form of theparty, its bureaucratic organization, definitely gains the upperhand over its soul, its doctrinal and theoretic content, and thelatter is sacrificed whenever it tends to involve an inopportuneconflict with the enemy. The outcome of this regressive evolu-tion is that the party is no longer regarded as a means for theattainment of an end, but gradually becomes an end-in-itself,and is therefore incapable of resisting the arbitrary exerciseof power by the state when this power is inspired by a vigorouswill.

Inevitably such a party is unable to sustain so terrible a testas that of upholding its faith in principies when the state, de-termined upon war, and resolved to crush anyone who gets inthe way, threatens the party in case of disobedience with the

dissolution of its branches, the sequestration of its funds, andthe slaughter of its best men. The party gives way, hastily

1 At the end of 1913 the central treasury of the German socialist trade

unions owned property amounting to 88,069,295 marks (£4,400,000), whilstthe local and independent unions owned 3,152,636 marks (£150,000). Now

a rebellion against the government and its foreign policy would have endangered ali these funds.

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PARTY-LIFE IN WAR-TIME 395

sells its internationalist soul, and, impelled by the instinct ofself-preservation, undergoes transformation into a patriotie

party. The world-war of 1914 has afforded the most effectiveconfirmation of what the author wrote in the first edition ofthis book eoncerning the future of socialist parties.

This natural tendency of the modern political party is rein-forced, in the particular case under consideration, by the decision of the German socialists to support their government inali respects, owing to their fear and hatred of Czarism. Thisinvincible aversion, upon which is'dèpèndent the general agree-

ment with which the entire Germanic democracy has acceptedthe war, arises not solely from the foolish prejudice that theSlavs belong to an inferior race, but is also the outcome of aspecial historical theory held by Marx. Marx, in fact, regardedRússia as responsible for “ the reaction” wherever this becamemanifest. More particularly, he considered that the militaristregime of the Prussian nobles, which he ardently abhorred, wasmerely the vanguard of the Russian autocracy. He added that

the most infallible means for destroying the predominance ofthe German junkers would be to crush Russia, without whoseaid the rule of the Prussian reaction would be impossible. ThisMarxist conviction had become a party dogma, deep-rooted inthe mind of every individual member and diffused in a hundredwritings. The German socialists who enthusiastically obeyedthe mobilization order issued by the Emperor believed themselves to be fulfilling a sacred duty, not only from the patriotie

point of view, but also from the democratic, considering thatthey were thus hastening the day of their own final deliver-ance. It was by such a state of mind that were inspired theprincipal speeches delivered and the most authoritative articleswritten by the German socialists when William II declared

war against the Czar.Moreover, an attitude which harmonized ill with the theo-

retical principie of historical materialism was defended by the

socialists themselves as absolutely essential for the Germanproletariat. Substantially what the German socialists saidwas that, in the event of a defeat of the state to which theybelonged, the proletarians would necessarily suffer greatly fromunemployment and poverty; consequently it was their supremeinterest, and must be the supreme aim of their representatives,to avoid this eventuality; hence it was their first and greatestduty to aid the German army by ali the means at their disposal

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396 POLITICAL PARTIES

in its arduous task of defeating the enemy. Now, there is nolack of positive clearness about the view which underlies this

reasoning. Since the proletariat is an integral part of the state,)it cannot but suffer when the state falls upon evil days. Aboveali, the lot of the workers is dependent upon the degree towhich manufacture and commerce flourish. No doubt the mostprosperous eondition of manufacturing industry does not af-ford the workers an absolute guarantee that they will receivegood wages and be able to enjoy a high standard of life, sincethere is no proof that tbe curve of wages will always followthat of industrial profits; indeed, it is notorious that whilstafter 1870 the development of German manufacture was rapidand extensive, the eondition of the German workers remainedstationary for nearly two decades. But if the lot of the workersand that of the manufacturers are not always on the samefooting in the matter of good fortune, it cannot be doubtedthat when bad times come tliey have to share the same dis-tresses; if manufacturing industry is stagnant, any rise ofwages is exeluded a p r i o r i .  While, however, this view of a

community of interests in the national sphere between tliebourgeoisie and the proletariat has a basis of reality, there canbe no doubt that not only is it absolutely antagonistic to thei ãea l i sm   of class, that is to say, to the fraternal affection whichdenies national solidarity in order to affirm with enthusiasmthe international solidarity of the proletariat, tending and aim-ing at speedy class-emancipation; but further that it under-mines the very concep t   of class. In fact, the theoretical posi

tion assumed by the German socialists, and imitated more orless faithfully by their comrades in other lands, is dictated bya criterion altogether different from that wbich forms the basisof historical materialism. This latter doctrine presupposes theexistence of a working class by nature one and indivisible,whereas in the nationalist view there exists only a national proletariat, included within a given state, living within definite geo-graphical boundaries, and subject to ali the influences of force

or of destiny. Indeed, the social democratic concept of class(as manifested under stress of war by the majority of the German socialists) constitutes the negation of the Marxist concept,in so far as the former degrades the latter, and, instead of be-coming the instrument of world liberation as it was conceivedby the internationalist theorists, is made the instrument ofpatriotic, social, and military cooperation. Historical material-

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PARTY-LIFE IN WAR-TIME 397

ism aimed at securing the solidarity of the human raee underthe guidance of the revolutionary proletariat and through theoverthrow of the bourgeoisie and of national governments. Thesocial democratic concept of class aims at the aggrandizement ofthe fatherland and at the prosperity of the proletariat and ofthe bourgeoisie tlierein, through the ruin of the proletariat andof the bourgeoisie of other lands. Between these two concep-tions there is, in fact, so great a gulf fixed, that the most learnedattempts to bridge it over will inevitably prove futile. If the warhas not demonstrated the fallacy of the theory that the workingclasses of various countries, considered as a whole, possess common interests in opposition to the interests of the various national bourgeoisies also considered as a whole, it has at leastdemonstrated the non-existence of the reaction which this sup-posed phenomenon ought to have exercised upon the mentalityand consequently upon the activity of the proletariat whichprolonged socialist propaganda had endeavoured to indoctrinate

with Marxist principies.But while the German socialists appealed to their right to

be guided by strictly economic interests and to make commoncause with those who had hitherto been their worst enemies,they had the bad taste to deny this right to their foreign eom-rades. Paul Lensch, socialist member of the Heichstag, editorof the ultra-Marxist “ Leipziger Volkszeitung,” has, with aseriousness worthy of a better cause, sustained the following re-markable assertions: that the vietory of Germany is necessaryfor the destruction of militarism, which will become superfluousas soon as the enemies of Germany have been definitely defeated,whilst the defeat of Germany will necessarily provide militarism with new aliment (since Germany will have to take her re-venge) ; for the German proletariat, the defeat of Germanywould be equivalent to an economic catastrophe, to the loss ofthe most essential means of subsistence, and to the rum of thefruits of many years of labour; whereas for the English proletariat, the consequences of the defeat of England would un-questionably be extremely beneficiai, by leading to the rapiddiffusion of socialist ideas, to the distribution of monopolies, andto “ the disappearanee of the stupid pride which characterizesthe English race.” 2 Aecording to this profound thinker, the

3Paul Lensch,  Die ãeutsche Sozialãemolcratie u. ãer WeltTcrieg,  Buch-

handlung “ Vorwãrts,” Berlin, 1915, pp. 26, 42, 58.

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398 POLITICAL PARTIES

same causes would produee different effects in England andFrance, on the one hand, and in Germany on the other. For

Germany a defeat must be avoided at ali costs, for its resultswould be disastrous, whilst in the case of England and Francethey could not fail to be salutary!

Speaking generally, it may be said that the war has furtheraccentuated the oligarchical eharaeter of party leadership. Inno country (Italy, of course, excepted, for Italy has had tenmonths for mature deliberation) were the rank and file of theparty active factors in the adoption of a poliey for which every

single member was accountable; in no country, except Italy, wasthe great question of the attitude of parties in relation to theproblem of peace or war laid before the ordinary members;everywhere the supreme decision was in the hands of the leaders, and the masses had merely to accept an accomplished fact.In most cases the majority of the leaders established their abso-lute supremacy over the minority by means of the so-calledparty discipline which obliges the minority to accept the willof the majority. This explains the almost incredible unanimitywith which, in the Reichstag, in the memorable August sitting,the German socialist parliamentary group voted the war eredits.In the secret session of the group on the eve of the official sessionthe opponents of the war were in the minority, and were there-fore compelled on the following day, by the obligations of partydiscipline, to confound themselves publicly with the majority,and to give a vote which ran counter to their most sincere con-victions. This amounts to saying that party life involves strange

moral and intellectual sacrifices.Moreover, by not a few party leaders the war was looked

upon as a useful means of propaganda for the attraction of newrecruits. This applies above ali to the socialist party, eager tooverthrow the barriers which separate from the party manysympathizers among the manual, operative, and shopkeepingclasses, who are loth to join a party professing internationalistviews. In a great public meeting held at Stuttgart on February

22,1915, Heymann, a deputy to the diet of Würtemberg and oneof the best-known leaders of the socialist party in that state,triumphantly deelared: “ Many have ardently desired to joinour party. But there was an obstacle. Well, that obstacle nolonger exists!” 3 Unquestionably principies are often a stum-

3 Zwei Eeden,  by Hildebrand and W. Heine, Dietz, Stuttgart, 1915, p. 44.

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PARTY-LIFE IN WAR-TIME 399

bling-block to a party -whose main desire is to increase its mem-

bership; and to disregard ineonvenient principies may bringelectoral advantage, if at the cost of honour. The leaders arethe first to favour such a tendeney, for the more widely extendedthe foundations of their party, the greater grows their own individual power. In fact, the individual power of the leaders un-dergoes an immeasurable increase at a time when the majorityof the members of ali parties are under arms, and for thisreason may be considered as politically non-existent because they

are unable to exercise any influence upon the exeeutive of theparty to which they belong. On the Continent, even those members who have not been summoned to the eolours no longerpossess any power of controlling their leaders, owing to thesuppression of the freedom of the press and of the rights ofpublic meeting and of combination. ^Wherever martial law pre-

vails, the leader is omnipotent.

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CHAPTER IVi

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

“ A prendre le terme dans la rigneur de l ’aeeeption il n ’a jamais existé

de véritable démoeratie, et il n ’en existera jamais. II est eontre l ’ordrenaturel que le grand nombre gouverne, et que le petit soit gouverné. ” —

J. J. R o u s s e a u , Contrat Social.

L e a d e r s h i p   is a necessary phenomenon in every form of sociallife. Consequently it is not the task of Science to inquire whetherthis phenomenon is good or evil, or predominantly one or theother. But there is great scientific value in the demonstrationthat every system of leadership is incompatible with the most

essential postulates of democracy. We are now aware that thelaw of the historie neeessity of oligarchy is primarily based upona series of facts of experience. Like ali other scientific laws,sociological laws are derived from empirical observation. Inorder, however, to deprive our axiom of its purely descriptivecharacter, and to confer upon it that status of analytical ex-planation which can alone transform a formula into a law, itdoes not suffice to contemplate from a unitary outlook those

phenomena which may be empirically established; we mustalso study the determining causes of these phenomena. Suchhas been our task.

Now, if we leave out of consideration the tendency of theleaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests,and if we leave also out of consideration the gratitude of theled towards the leaders, and the general immobility and passivityof the masses, we are led to conclude that the principal cause of

oligarchy in the democratic parties is to be found in the technicalindispensability of leadership.

The process which has begun in consequence of the differentia-tion of functions in the party is completed by a complex ofqualities which the leaders aequire through their detachmentfrom the mass. At the outset, leaders arise s p o n t a n e o u s l y  ; their functions are a c c e s s o r y   and g r a t u i t o u s . Soon, however,

400

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they become p r o f e s s i o n a l   leaders, and in this second stage ofdevelopment they are s t a b l e   and i r r e m o v a b l e .

It follows that the explanation of the oligarchical phenome-non which thus results is partly p s y c h o l o g i c a l  ; oligarchy derives, that is to say, from the psychical transformations whichthe leading personalities in the parties undergo in the courseof their lives. But also, and still more, oligarchy depends uponwhat we may term the p s y c h o l o g y   o f    o r g a n i z a t i o n   i t s e l f  , thatis to say, upon the tactical and technical necessities which re-sult from the consolidation of every disciplined political aggre-

gate. Reduced to its most concise expression, the fundamentalsociological law of political parties (the term “ political” beinghere used in its most comprehensive significance) may be fonnu-lated in the following terms: “ It is organization which givesbirth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of themandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over thedelegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy.”

Every party organization represents an oligarchical power

grounded upon a democratic basis. We find everywhere electorsand elected. Also we find everywhere that the power of theelected leaders over the electing masses is almost unlimited.The oligarchical structure of the building suffocates the basicdemocratic principie. That which is oppresses t h a t   w h i c h  

o u g h t   t o   b e . For the masses, this essential difference betweenthe reality and the ideal remains a mystery. Socialists oftencherish a sineere belief that a new él i t e   of politicians will keep

faith better than did the old. The notion of the representation of popular interests, a notion to which the greatmajority of democrats, and in especial the working-class massesof the German-speaking lands, cleave with so much tenacityand confidence, is an illusion engendered by a false illumina-tion, is an effect of mirage. In one of the most delightfulpages of his analysis of modern Don Quixotism, AlphonseDaudet shows us how the “ brav’ commandant” Bravida,

who has never quitted Tarascon, gradually comes to persuadehimself, infiuenced by the burning Southern sun, that he hasbeen to Shanghai and has had ali kinds of heroic adventures.1Similarly the modern proletariat, enduringly infiuenced byglib-tongued persons intellectually superior to the mass, ends

1 Alphonse Daudet, Tartarin ãe Tarascon,  Marpon et Flammarion, Paris,

1887, p. 40.

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by believing that by flocking to the poli and entrusting itssocial and eeonomic cause to a delegate, its direct participation

in power will be assured.2The formation of oligarchies within the various forms ofdemocracy is the outcome of organic necessity, and consequentlyaffects every organization, be it socialist or even anarchist.Haller long ago noted that in every form of social life rela-tionships of dominion and of dependence are created by Natureherself> The supremacy of the leaders in the democratic andrevolutionary parties has to be taken into account in everyhistorie situation present and to come, even though only a fewand exceptional minds will be fully conscious of its existence.The mass will never rule except i n a b st r a c t o.  Consequently thequestion we have to discuss is not whether ideal democracy isrealizable, but rather to what point and in what degree democracy is desirable, possible, and realizable at a given moment. Inthe problem as thus stated we recognize the fundamental prob-lem of polities as a science. Whoever fails to perceive thismust, as Sombart says, either be so blind and fanatical as notto see that the democratic current daily makes undeniable ad-vance, or else must be so inexperienced and devoid of criticaifaculty as to be unable to understand that ali order and alicivilization must exhibit aristocratic features.4 The great errorof socialists, an error committed in consequence of their lackof adequate psychological knowledge, is to be found in theircombination of pessimism regarding the present, with rosy op-timism and immeasurable confidence regarding the future. A

realistic view of the mental condition of the masses shows be-yond question that even if we admit the possibility of moral

3Militant democrata will not admit this publicly. According to them

the power of the masses is unlimited. This unrealistic view, in its applica-

tion to political elections, will be found in a number of socialist writings,

although its expression is apt to be somewhat veiled. It is only in thework of Dr. P. Coullery, of La Chaux-de-Fonds, a somewhat eccentric Swiss

intemationalist, that we find a categorical expression of the thought: “ Par

le sufErage universel le peuple des travailleurs devient tout-puissant ”

(Coullery,  Jéms le Christ et sa Vie, sa Doetrine morale, politique, écono- 

mique et sociale. Les Lois naturelles et le Socialisme,  Schweizer, Bienne,1891, p. 303). In its application to party organization this same notion

makes no closer approximation to the real facts of the case.

3Ludwig von Haller,  Mestauration der Staatswissenschaften,  Winterthur,1816, vol. i, pp. 304 et seq.

* Wemer Sombart,  Dennocfi!, ed. cit., p. 90. Cf. also P. S. Merlino,  Pro  e contro il Socialismo, ed. cit., pp. 262 et seq.

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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 403

improvement in mankind, the hnman materiais with whose usepoliticians and philosophers eannot dispense in their plans of

soeial reeonstruction are not of a character to justify exces-sive optimism. Within the limits of time for whieh humanprovision is possible, optimism will remain the exclusiveprivilege of utopian thinkers.

The socialist parties, like the trade unions, are living formsof social life. As such they reaet with the utmost energyagainst any attempt to analyse their structure or their nature,as if it were a method of vivisection. When seienee attains to

results which conflict with their apriorist ideology, they revoltwith ali their power. Yet their defenee is extremely feeble.Those among the representatives of such organizations whosescientific earnestness and personal good faith make it impossible for them to deny outright the existence of oligarchicaltendencies in every form of democracy, endeavour to explainthese tendencies as the outcome of a kind of atavism in thementality of the masses, charaeteristic of the youth of the

movement. The masses, they assure us, are still infected bythe oligarchic virus simply because they have been oppressedduring long centuries of slavery, and have never yet enjoyedan autonomous existence.5 The socialist regime, however, will

6 Such an opinion has been expressed by the syndicalist theorists in especial, as, fo r instance, by Enrico Leone ( “ Divenire Sociale, ” vol. v, Nos.18, 19) in a criticism o f my own preliminary studies on this theme, and by

 Adolpho Momigliano ( “ Propaganda,” Naples, Deeember 2, 1910). Many

of the reformists give utterance to a similar opinion. In a lengthy criticaiexamination of my views (whose justice he by no means denies) Fausto

Pagliari comes to the conclusion that the oligarchical tendencies of the so

cialist movement are not indications o f what is going to continue in the

future, but merely transitional forms of a movement which is still wallsingin darkness; signs of youth, not of age (O ligar chia e Democrazia nell’ Or- 

 ganizzazione operaia,  “ Critica Sociale,” February 1, 1909). Others, like

the syndicalist Sergio Panunzio, accept my proposition without reserve butfail to apply its consequences to their own theory ( Synãicalisme et Jteprê- 

 sentation Ouvrière,  “ Mouvement Socialiste , ”   anno xii, No. 221). EduardBernstein, who also fails to rebut my demonstrations (cf.  Die Demolcratie 

in ãer Sozialãemokratie,  “ Sozial. Monatshefte,” 1908, fase. 18 and 19),

reproaches me with overstressing the psyehologieal note, but does not himself fali into the error of the Marxists and syndicalists. He continues tohold to-day the realistic coneeption of the future which he expressed in1897, when he compared the process of internai democratic administration

with that of industrial produetion, writing: “ A t the door o f the workshop

we may be equal, but are equal no longer when we have gone inside. Here

the engineer must issue his orders, and the various subordinate workmen

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404 POLITICAL PARTIES

soon restore them to health, and will furnish them with ali thecapaeity neeessary for self-government. Nothing could he more

anti-seientifie than the snpposition that as soon as socialistshave gained possession of governmental power it will suffice forthe masses to exereise a little control over their leaders toseeure that the interests of these leaders shall coincide perfectlywith the interests of the led.6 This idea may be comparedwith the view of Jules Guesde, no less anti-seientiflc than anti-Marxist (though Guesde proclaims himself a Marxist), thatwhereas Christianity has made God into a man, socialism will

make man into a god.7The objective immaturity of the mass is not a mere transitoryphenomenon which will disappear with the progress of de-mocratization au l enãem a i n ãu soc i a l i sm e.  On the eontrary, itderives from the very nature of the mass as mass, for this, evenwhen organized, suffers from an incurable ineompetence forthe solution of the diverse problems which present themselvesfor solution—beeause the mass p er se    is amorphous, and therefore needs division of labour, speeialization, and guidanee/“ L ’espèee humaine veut être gouvernée; elle le sera. J ’aihonte de mon espèce,” wrote Proudhon from his prison in1850.8 Man as individual is by nature predestined to be guided,and to be guided ali the more in proportion as the functions oflife undergo division and subdivision. To an enormously greaterdegree is guidanee neeessary for the soeial group.

From this chain of reasoning and from these scientifLc convie-tions it would be erroneous to eonclude that we should renounee

ali endeavours to aseertain the limits which may be imposedupon the powers exercised over the individual by oligarchies

must carry them out. The stofeer cannot act according to his own fancy

and draw the fires whenever it pleases him” ( Das demokratische Prinzip 

unã seine Anwenãung,  “ Neue Zeit,” anno xix, p. 25 [1897] ). Bernstein,however, has not attained to clearness of vision regarding the results of the

division of labour and of the differences in technical competence among the

democratic masses. Consequently he remains faith ful to a concept of

democracy which has little more than the name in common with the democracy advocated by the great democratic thinkers of the eighteenth centuryand the socialists of the nineteenth.

“ Cf. Léon Trochet (deputy of L iège), Socialãémocratie et Anarchisme, Discours, Brussels-Ghent-Liège, 1902, p. 42.

1Jules Guesde,  La Problème et la Solution,  Libr. du Parti Socialiste,Paris, p. 17.

8Charles Gide et Charles Eist,  Histoire des Doctrines économiques ãepuis les Physiocrates jusqu’a nos jours, Larose et Teuin, Paris, 1909, p. 709.

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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 405

(state, dominant class, party, etc.). It would be an error toabandon tbe desperate enterprise of endeavouring to discover

a social order which will render possible the complete realiza-tion of the idea of popular sovereignty. In the present work,as the writer said at the outset, it has not been his aim toindicate new paths. But it seemed necessary to lay considerable stress upon the pessimist aspect of democracy which isforced on us by historical study. We had to inquire whether,and within what limits, democracy must remain purely ideal,possessing no other value than that of a moral criterion which

renders it possible to appreciate the varying degrees of thatoligarchy which is immanent in every social regime. In otherwords, we have had to inquire if, and in what degree, democracy is an ideal which we can never hope to realize in practice.

 A further aim of this work was the demolition of some of thefacile and superficial democratic illusions which trouble scienceand lead the masses astray. Finally, the author desired tothrow light upon certain soeiologieal tendencies which oppose

the reign of democracy, and to a still greater extent oppose thereign of socialism.

The writer does not wish to deny that every revolutionaryworking-class movement, and every movement sincerely in-spired by the democratic spirit, may have a certain value ascontributing to the enfeeblement of oligarchic tendencies. Thepeasant in the fable, when on his death-bed, tells his sons thata treasure is buried in the field. After the old man’s death

the sons dig everywhere in order to discover the treasure. Theydo not find it. But their indefatigable labour improves the soiland secures for them a comparative well-being. The treasurein the fable may well symbolize democracy. Democracy is atreasure which no one will ever discover by deliberate search.But in continuing our search, in labouring indefatigably todiscover the indiscoverable, we shall perform a work which willhave fertile results in the democratic sense. We have seen,

indeed, that within the bosom of the democratic working-classparty are born thé very tendencies to counteract which thatparty came into existence. Thanks to the diversity and to theunequal worth of the elements of the party, these tendenciesoften give rise to manifestations which border on tyranny.We have seen that the replacement of the traditional legitimismof the powers-that-be by the brutal plebiscitary rule of Bonapartist parvenus does not furnish these tendencies with any

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moral or aesthetic superiority. Historical evolution mocks alithe prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the pre-

vention of oligarchy. If laws are passed to control the dominionof the leaders, it is the laws which gradually weaken, and notthe leaders. Sometimes, however, the democratic principie car-ries with it, if not a cure, at least a palliative, for the diseaseof oligarchy. When Yictor Considérant formulated his “ demo-cratico-pacificist” socialism, he declared that socialism signified,not the rule of society by the lower classes of the population, butthe government and organization of society in the interest of ali,through the intermediation of a group of citizens; and he addedthat the numerical importance of this group must increase p a r i   

passw   with social development.9 This last observation drawsattention to a point of capital importance. It is, in fact, ageneral characteristic of democracy, and hence also of thelabour movement, to stimulate and to strengthen in the individual the intellectual aptitudes for criticism and control. Wehave seen how the progressive bureaucratization of the democratic organism tends to neutralize the beneficiai effects of suchcriticism and such control. None the less it is true that thelabour movement, in virtue of the theoretical postulates it pro-claims, is apt to bring into existence (in opposition to the willof the leaders) a certain number of free spirits who, moved byprincipie, by instinct, or by both, desire to revise the base uponwhich authority is established. Urged on by conviction or bytemperament, they are never weary of asking an etemal ‘ ‘ Why ? ’ ’about every human institution. Now this predisposition towards

free inquiry, in which we cannot fail to recognize one of themost precious factors of civilization, will gradually increase inproportion as the economic status of the masses undergoes im-provement and becomes more stable, and in proportion as theyare admitted more effectively to the advantages of civilization.

 A wider education involves an increasing capacity for exercis-ing control. Can we not observe every day that among thewell-to-do the authority of the leaders over the led, extensive

though it be, is never so unrestricted as in the case of the leaders of the poor? Taking in the mass, the poor are powerlessand disarmed vis-à-vis their leaders. Their intellectual andcultural inferiority makes it impossible for them to see whither

'Victor Considérant,  Príncipes ãu Sodalisme. Manifeste ãe la Démo- 

cratie  ou  xix Siècle,  Librairie Phalanstérienne, Paris, 1847, p. 53.

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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 407

the leader is going, or to estimate in advance the significanceof his actions. It is, consequently, the great task of soeialeducation to raise the intelleetual levei of the masses, so thatthey may be enabled, within the limits of what is possible, toeounteract the oligarchical tendeneies of the working-classmovement.

In view of the perennial ineompetence of the masses, we haveto recognize the existenee of two regulative principies:—

1. The i d e o l o g i c a l    tendency of democracy towards criticismand control; -

2. The e f f ec t i ve   counter-tendency of democracy towards thecreation of parties ever more complex and ever more differen-tiated—parties, that is to say, which are increasingly based upon

the competence of the few.To the idealist, the analysis of the forms of contemporary

democracy cannot fail to be a source of bitter deceptions andprofound discouragement. Those alone, perhaps, are in a position to pass a fair judgment upon democracy who, withoutlapsing into dilettantist sentimentalism, recognize that ali scientific and human ideais have relative values. I f we wish toestimate the value of democracy, we must do so in comparisonwith its converse, pure aristocracy. The defects inherent indemocracy are obvious. It is none the less true that as a formof social life we must choose democracy as the least of evils.,The ideal government would doubtless be that of an aristocracyof persons at once morally good and technically efficient. Butwhere shall we disco ver such an aristocracy? We may find itsometimes, though very rarely, as the outcome of deliberate se-lection; but we shall never find it where the hereditary principieremains in operation. Thus monarchy in its pristine puritymust be considered as imperfection incamate, as the mostincurable of ills; from the moral point of view it is inferioreven to the most revolting of demagogic dictatorships, for the

corrupt organism of the latter at least contains a healthy principie upon whose working we may continue to base hopes ofsocial resanation. It may be said, therefore, that the morehumanity comes to recognize the advantages which democracy,however imperfect, presents over aristocracy, even at its best,the less likely is it that a recognition of the defects of democracy will provoke a return to aristocracy. Apart from certainformal differences and from the qualities which can be acquired

only by good education and inheritance (qualities in which aris*

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408 POLITICAL PARTIES

tocraey will always have the advantage over democracy—qualities which democracy either negleets altogether, or, attempting

to imitate them, falsifies them to the point of caricature), thedefects of democracy will be found to inhere in its inability toget rid of its aristocratic scorite. On the other hand, nothingbut a serene and frank examination of the oligarchical dangersof democracy will enable us to minimize these dangers, eventhough they can never be entirely avoided.

The democratic currents of history resemble suecessive waves.They breab ever on the same shoal. They are ever renewed.

This enduring spectacle is simultaneously encouraging and de-pressing. When democracies have gained a certain stage ofdevelopment, they undergo a gradual transformation, adoptingthe artistocratie spirit, and in many cases also the aristocraticforms, against which at the outset they struggled so fiercely.Now new accusers arise to denounce the traitors; after an eraof glorious combats and of inglorious power, they end byfusing with the old dominant class; whereupon once more they

are in their tum attaeted by fresh opponents who appeal tothe name of democracy. It is probable that this cruel gamewill continue without end.