The German Socialist Movement Before World War 1, Part III: Reform Vs. Revolution

People have argued about this forever, but in pre-war Germany there really were two options. The more radical view was advanced by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, among others. It entailed mass strikes, on the strength of a widespread perception of majority support. Repression of such strikes, which could feature insurgents taking charge of public services and occupying public facilities, would justify a fully armed takeover. The idea was that such takeover would enjoy the shield of defending democratic mobilization.

Like most of the SPD, I would have thought such efforts would end in disaster, even though the process accorded with orthodox Marxist doctrine. One dodge was that the idea was good, but conditions were not ripe. Indeed, they never were. My reading of SPD leader Karl Kautsky tells me this is where he got stuck.

Talk of such scenarios freaked out the social-democrats’ reformist wing, not to mention all the parties to their right. In fact, mere talk could provoke repressive measures. It had not been too long since socialists were outlawed, and the German people still did not enjoy full suffrage.

A delicate political question loomed. How far could the insurgents push, and how far was too far? In the fantasy-land of contemporary radical politics, such a question hardly comes up. It is dismissed by radicals in favor of automatic advocacy of militance, an advocacy that enjoys the indisciplined luxury of unreality. The calculus changes when real, mass actions that one has the actual power to foment generates concrete, damaging repressive measures the authorities can be counted on to invoke.

On the revisionist side, things were no simpler. The opportunity to gather allies, thanks to the collapse of the Rightist “Bulow Block” provided complex problems. What sort of arrangements slide from constructive to cooptive? Too easy a deal tends to dilute the socialist identity and disorganize the followers. Too much isolationist purity precludes deals that might advance one’s interests.

We get the same arguments now about what Bernie and The Squad are doing, and how radicals should relate to them. As things stand, the Democratic Socialists of America solves this problem by effectively abstaining from practical politics at the national level.

From where I sit, this purism is utterly contradicted by genuinely useful DSA participation in state and local politics. I like to cite DSA support for a reproductive rights initiative in Kansas that entailed implicit support for abortion restrictions that no DSA member in their right mind would accept in isolation. Real politics forces you to choose among available alternatives. The ideal alternative is never available; that’s why it’s called ideal.