V. I.

Lenin

The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart [1] ( Kalendar dlya vsekh, 1908 )

The recent Congress in Stuttgart was the twelfth congress of the proletarian
International. The first live congresses belong to the period of the First
International (1866-72), which was guided by Marx, who, as Bebel aptly observed,
tried to achieve international unity of the militant proletariat from
above. This attempt could not be successful until the national socialist parties
were consolidated and strengthened, but the activities of the First
International rendered great services to the labour movement of all countries
and left lasting traces.

The Second International was inaugurated at the International Socialist
Congress in Paris in 1889. At the subsequent congresses in Brussels (1891),
Zurich (1893), London (1896), Paris (1900), and Amsterdam (1904), this new
International, resting on strong national parties, was finally consolidated. In
Stuttgart there were 884 delegates from 25 nations of Europe, Asia (Japan and
some from India), America, Australia, and Africa (one delegate from South
Africa).

The great importance of the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart lies
in the fact that it marked the final consolidation of the Second International
and the transformation of international congresses into business like meetings
which exercise very considerable influence on the nature and direction of
socialist activities throughout the world. Formally, the decisions of the
International congresses are not binding on the individual nations, but their
moral significance is such that the non-observance of decisions is, in fact, an
exception which is rarer than the non-observance by the individual parties of the decisions of their own
congresses. The Amsterdam Congress succeeded in uniting the French
socialists, and its resolution against ministerialism [2] really expressed the will of the class-conscious
proletariat of the whole world and determined the policy of the
working-class parties.

The Stuttgart Congress made a big stride forward in the same direction, and on a
number of important issues proved to be the supreme body determining the
political line of socialism. The Stuttgart Congress, more firmly even than the
Amsterdam Congress, laid this line down in the spirit of revolutionary
Social-Democracy as opposed to opportunism. Die Gleichheit , the organ
of the German Social-Democratic women workers, edited by Clara Zetkin, justly
observed in this connection:

“ On all questions the various deviations of certain socialist parties
towards opportunism were corrected in a revolutionary sense with the
co-operation of the socialists of all countries.”

The remarkable and sad feature in this connection was that German
Social-Democracy, which hitherto had always upheld the revolutionary standpoint
in Marxism, proved to be unstable, or took an opportunist stand. The Stuttgart
Congress confirmed a profound observation which Engels once made concerning the
German labour movement. On April 29, 1886, Engels wrote to Sorge, a veteran of
the First International:

“ In general it is a good thing.that the leadership of the Germans is being
challenged, especially after they have elected so many philistine elements
(which is unavoidable, it is true). In Germany everything becomes philistine in
calm times; the sting of French competition is thus absolutely necessary. And
it will not be lacking.” [3]

The sting of. French competition was not lacking at Stuttgart, and this sting
proved to be really necessary, for the Germans displayed a good deal of
philistinism. It is especially important for the Russian
Social-Democrats to bear this in mind, for our liberals (and not only the
liberals) are trying their hardest to represent the least creditable features
of German Social-Democracy as a model worthy of imitation. The most thoughtful
and outstanding minds among the German Social-Democrats have noted this fact themselves and,
casting aside all false shame, have definitely pointed to it as a warning.

“ In Amsterdam,” writes Clara Zetkin’s journal, “the revolutionary leit-motiv of all the debates in the parliament of the
world proletariat was the Dresden resolution; in Stuttgart a jarring opportunist
note was struck by Vollmar’s speeches in the Commission on Militarism, by
Pup low’s speeches in the Emigration Commission, and by David’s
[and, we would add, Bernstein’s] speeches in the Colonial Commission. On this
occasion, in most of the commissions and on most issues, the representatives of
Germany were leaders of opportunism.” And K. Kautsky, in appraising the
Stuttgart Congress, writes: ". . .the leading role which German
Social-Democracy has actually played in the Second International up to now was
not in evidence on this occasion.”

Let us now examine individual questions that were discussed at the
Congress. The differences of opinion on the colonial question could not be
ironed out in the Commission. The dispute between the opportunists and the
revolutionaries was settled by the Congress itself, settled in favour of
the revolutionaries by a majority of 127 votes against 108, with 10
abstentions. Incidentally, let us note the gratifying fact that the
socialists of Russia all voted unanimously on all questions in a revolutionary spirit. (Russia had 20 votes of which 10 were
given to the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party without the Poles, 7 to
the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and 3 to the representatives of the trade
unions. Poland had 10 votes: the Polish Social-Democrats—4, and the
Polish Socialist Party and the non-Russian parts of Poland—6. Finally
the two representatives of Finland had 8 votes.)

On the colonial question an opportunist majority was formed in the Commission,
and the following monstrous phrase appeared in the draft resolution: “The
Congress does not in principle and for all time reject all colonial policy,
which, under a socialist regime, may have a civilising effect.” In
reality this proposition was tantamount to a direct retreat towards bourgeois
policy and a bourgeois world outlook that justifies colonial wars and
atrocities.

It was a retreat towards Roosevelt, said one of the American delegates. The
attempts to justify this retreat by the tasks of a “socialist colonial
policy” and of constructive reform work in the colonies were unfortunate
in the extreme. Socialism has never refused to advocate reforms in the colonies
as well; but this can have nothing in common with weakening our stand in
principle against conquests, subjugation of other nations, violence, and
plunder, which constitute “colonial policy”. The minimum programme
of all the socialist parties applies both to the home countries and the
colonies. The very concept “socialist colonial pol icy” is a
hopeless muddle. The Congress quite rightly deleted the above-quoted words
from the resolution and substituted for them a condemnation of colonial policy
that was sharper than that contained in former resolutions.

The resolution on the attitude of the socialist parties towards the trade unions
is of particularly great importance for us Russians. In our country this
question is on the order of the day. The Stockholm Congress settled it in favour
of non-Party trade unions, i.e., it confirmed the position of our
neutralists , headed by Plekhanov. The London Congress took a step
towards Party trade unions as opposed to neutrality. As is
known, the London resolution gave rise to a violent dispute and dissatisfaction
in some of the trade unions and especially in the bourgeois-democratic press.

In Stuttgart the actual issue at stake was this: neutrality of the trade unions
or their still closer alignment with the Party? And, as the reader may gather
from the resolution, the International Socialist Congress went on record for
closer alignment of the unions with the Party. There is nothing in the
resolution to suggest that the trade unions should be neutral or
non-party. Kautsky, who in the German Social-Democratic Party advocated
alignment of the. unions with the Party as opposed to the neutrality advocated
by Bebel, was therefore fully entitled to announce to the Leipzig workers in his
report on the Stuttgart Congress ( Vorwärts , [4] 1907, No. 209, Beilage ):

“ The resolution of the Stuttgart Congress says all that we need. It puts an end to neutrality for ever .”

Clara Zetkin writes:

“ In principle, no one [in Stuttgart] any longer disputed the basic
historical tendency of the proletarian class struggle to link the political
with the economic struggle, to unite the political and economic
organisations as closely as possible into a single socialist working-class
force. Only the representative of the Russian Social-Democrats, Comrade
Plekhanov [she should have said the representative of the Mensheviks, who
delegated him to the Commission as an advocate of “neutrality”] and
the majority of the French delegation attempted, by rather unconvincing
arguments, to justify a certain limitation of this principle on the plea
that special conditions prevailed in their countries. The overwhelming
majority of the Congress favoured a resolute policy of unity between
Social-Democracy and the trade unions.

It should be mentioned that Plekhanov’s unconvincing (as Zetkin
rightly considered it) argument went the rounds of the Russian legally
published papers in this form. In the Commission of the Stuttgart Congress
Plekhanov referred to the fact that “there are eleven revolutionary
parties in Russia”; “which one of them should the trade unions
unite with?” (We are quoting from Vorwärts , No. 196,1. Beilage .) This reference of Plekhanov’s is wrong
both in fact and in principle. Actually no more than two parties in every
nationality of Russia are contending for influence over the socialist
proletariat: the Social-Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Polish

Social-Democrats [5] and the Polish Socialist

Party, [6] the Lettish Social-Democrats and the Lettish
Socialist-Revolutionaries (known as the Lettish Social-Democratic League),
the Armenian Social-Democrats and the

Dashnaktsutyuns, [7] etc. The Russian delegation in Stuttgart also at once
divided into two sections. The figure eleven is quite arbitrary and misleads
the workers. From standpoint of principle Plekhanov is wrong because the
struggle between proletarian and petty-bourgeois socialism, in Russia is
inevitable everywhere, including the trade unions. The British delegates, for
example, never thought of opposing the resolution, although they, too, have two
contending socialist parties—the Social-Democratic Federation and the
Independent Labour Party.

That the idea of neutrality, which was rejected in Stuttgart, has already
caused no little harm to the labour movement is clearly borne out by the
example of Germany. There, neutrality has been advocated and applied more than
anywhere else. As a result, the trade unions of Germany have deviated so
obviously towards opportunism that this deviation was openly admitted even by
Kautsky, who is so cautious on this question. In his report to the Leipzig
workers he bluntly stated that the “conservatism” displayed by the
German delegation in Stuttgart “becomes understandable if we bear in mind
the composition of this. delegation. Half of it consisted of representatives of
the trade unions, and thus the ‘Right wing’ of the Party appeared to have more
strength than it actually has in the Party.”

The resolution of the Stuttgart Congress should undoubtedly hasten a decisive
break of Russian Social-Democracy with the idea of neutrality so beloved by our
liberals. While observing the necessary caution and gradualness, and without
taking any impetuous or tactless steps, we must work steadily in the trade
unions towards bringing them closer and closer to the Social-Democratic Party.

Further, on the question of emigration and immigration, a clear difference of
opinion arose between the opportunists and the revolutionaries in the
Commission of the Stuttgart Congress. The opportunists cherished the idea of
limiting the right of migration of backward, undeveloped
workers—especially the Japanese and the Chinese. In the minds of these
opportunists the spirit of narrow craft isolation, of trade-union
exclusiveness, outweighed the consciousness of socialist tasks: the work of
educating and organising those strata of the proletariat which have not
yet been drawn into the labour movement. The Congress rejected everything that
smacked of this spirit. Even in the Commission there were only a few solitary
votes in favour of limiting freedom of migration, and recognition of the
solidarity of the workers of all countries in the class struggle is the keynote
of the resolution adopted by the International Congress.

The resolution on women’s suffrage was also adopted unanimously. Only
one Englishwoman from the semi-bourgeois Fabian Society defended the
admissibility of a struggle not for full women’s suffrage but for one limited to those
possessing property. The Congress rejected this unconditionally and
declared in favour of women workers campaigning for the franchise, not in
conjunction with the bourgeois supporters of women’s rights, hut in
conjunction with the class parties of the proletariat. The Congress
recognised that in the campaign for women’s suffrage it was
necessary to uphold fully the principles of socialism and equal rights for
men and women without distorting those principles for the sake of
expediency.

In this connection an interesting difference of opinion arose in the
Commission. The Austrians (Viktor Adler, Adelheid Popp) justified their
tactics in the struggle for universal manhood suffrage: for the sake of
winning this suffrage, they thought it expedient in their campaign not to
put the demand for women’s suffrage, too, in the fore ground. The
German Social-Democrats, and especially Clara Zetkin, had protested against
this when the Austrians were campaigning for universal suffrage. Zetkin
declared in the press that they should not under any circumstances have
neglected the demand for women’s suffrage, that the Austrians had
opportunistically sacrificed principle to expediency, and that they would
not have narrowed the scope of their agitation, but would have widened it
and increased the force of the popular movement had they fought for
women’s suffrage with the same energy. In the Commission Zetkin was
supported whole-heartedly by another prominent German woman
Social-Democrat, Zietz. Adler’s amendment, which indirectly justified
the Austrian tactics, was rejected by 12 votes to 9 (this
amendment stated only that there should be no abatement of the struggle for
a suffrage that would really extend to all citizens, instead of stating
that the struggle for the suffrage should always include the demand for
equal rights for men and women). The point of view of the Commission and of
the Congress may be most accurately expressed in the following words of the
above-mentioned Zietz in her speech at the International Social ist
Women’s Conference (this Conference took place in Stuttgart at the
same time as the Congress):

“ In principle we must demand all that we consider to be correct,”
said Zietz, “and only when our strength is inadequate for more, do we accept what we are able to get. That has always been
the tactics of Social-Democracy. The more modest our demands the more modest
will the government be in its concessions....” This controversy between
the Austrian and German women Social-Democrats will enable the reader to see how
severely the best Marxists treat the slightest deviation from the principles of
consistent revolutionary tactics.

The last day of the Congress was devoted to the question of militarism in which
everyone took the greatest interest. The notorious Hervé tried to defend a
very, untenable position. He was unable to link up war with the capitalist
regime in general, and anti-militarist agitation with the entire work of
socialism. Hervé’s plan of “answering” any war by strike action or
an uprising betrayed a complete failure to understand that the employment of one
or other means of struggle depends on the objective conditions of the
particular crisis, economic or political, precipitated by the war, and not on
any previous decision that revolutionaries may have made.

But although Hervé did reveal frivolity, superficiality, and infatuation with
rhetorical phrases, it would be extremely short-sighted to counter him merely
by a dogmatic statement of the general truths of socialism. Vollmar in
particular fell into this error (from which Bebel and Guesde were not entirely
free). With the extraordinary conceit of a man infatuated with stereotyped
parliamentarism, he attacked Hervé without noticing that his own
narrow-mindedness and thick-skinned opportunism make one admit the
living spark in Hervéism, despite the theoretically absurd and
nonsensical way in which Hervé himself presents the question. It does happen
sometimes that at a new turning-point of a movement, theoretical absurdities
conceal some practical truth. And it was this aspect of the question, the appeal
not to prize only parliamentary methods of struggle, the appeal to act in
accordance with the new conditions of a future war and future crises, that was
stressed by the revolutionary Social-Democrats, especially by Rosa Luxemburg in
her speech. Together with the Russian Social-Democratic delegates (Lenin and
Martov—who here spoke in full harmony) Rosa Luxemburg proposed amendments to Bebel’s resolution, and these amendments
emphasised the need for agitation among the youth, the necessity of taking
advantage of the crisis created by war for the purpose of hastening the
downfall of the bourgeoisie, the necessity of bearing in mind the
inevitable change of methods and means of struggle as the class struggle
sharpens and the political situation alters. In the end Bebel’s
dogmatically one-sided, dead resolution, which was open to a Vollmarian
interpretation, became transformed into an altogether different
resolution. All the theoretical truths were repeated in it for the benefit
of the Hervéists, who are capable of letting anti-militarism make
them forget socialism. But these truths serve as an introduction not to a
justification of parliamentary cretinism, not to the sanction of peaceful
methods alone, not to the worship of the present relatively peaceful and
quiet situation, but to the acceptance of all methods of struggle, to the
appraisal of the experience of the revolution in Russia, to the development
of the active creative side of the movement.

This most outstanding, most important feature of the Congress resolution on
anti-militarism has been very aptly caught in Zetkin’s journal, to which
we have already referred more than once.

“ Here too,” Zetkin says of the anti-militarist resolution,
“the revolutionary energy [Tatkraft] and courageous faith of
the working class in its fighting capacity won in the end, winning, on
the one hand, over the pessimistic gospel of impotence and the hidebound
tendency to stick to old, exclusively parliamentary methods of struggle,
and, on the other hand, over the banal anti-militarist sport of the French
semi-anarchists of the. Hervé type. The resolution, which was
finally carried unanimously both by the Commission and by nearly 900
delegates of all countries, expresses in vigorous terms the gigantic
upswing of the revolutionary labour movement since the last International
Congress; the resolution puts forward as a principle that proletarian
tactics should be flexible, capable of developing, and sharpening
[Zuspitzung] in proportion as conditions ripen for that purpose.”

Hervéism has been rejected, but rejected not in favour of
opportunism, not from the point of view of dogmatism and passivity. The vital urge towards more and more resolute and new
methods of struggle is fully recognised by the international proletariat
and linked up with the intensification of all the economic contradictions,
with all the conditions of the crises engendered by capitalism.

Not the empty Hervéist threat, but the clear realisation that the social
revolution is inevitable, the firm determination to fight to the end, the
readiness to adopt the most revolutionary methods of struggle—that is the
significance of the resolution of the International Socialist Congress in
Stuttgart on the question of militarism.

The army of the proletariat is gaining strength in all countries. Its
class-consciousness, unity, and determination are growing by leaps and
bounds. And capitalism is effectively ensuring more frequent crises, which this
army will take advantage of to destroy capitalism.

---
Notes:
[1]
The article “ The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart ” was written by Lenin at the request of Zerno
Publishers, who had undertaken to issue Kalendar dlya vsekh, 1908
( Calendar for All for 1908 ) in an attempt to use a legal
opportunity for publishing illegal literature. Lenin received a prospectus
from the publishers together with a list of contributors, including
M.S. Olminsky, N.A. Rozhkov, and N.N. Baturin, who wrote articles for the
Kalendar on the history of the Russian workers’ movement, in
particular of the Northern League of Russian Workers as well as of the
Emancipation of Labour group. The Kalendar dealt with the economic
and political situation in Russia, the activities of the Second Duma,
questions of foreign policy, the activities of the trade unions, the strike
movement an he condition of the peasantry, and gave a chronicle of the
revolutionary struggle in Russia in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. The Kalendar was issued in an edition of 60,000 copies
and was distributed at factories and in the army and navy (not counting a
few dozen copies which were confiscated by the police).

[2]
Ministerialism (Millerandism)—an opportunist trend in
West-European socialist parties in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, given this name after the French socialist A. Millerand, who
joined the reactionary bourgeois government of France in 1899 and pursued
an imperialist policy in concert with the bourgeoisie.

[3]
Briefe end Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Philbecker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx und A. an Sorge end Andere ,
S. 220.

[4]
Vorwärts —a daily newspaper, the central organ of the German Social-Democratic Party, published in Berlin from 1891 according
to a decision of the Halle Congress of the Party as successor to the
Berliner Volksblatt (founded in 1884), under the name
Vorwärts . Berliner Volksblatt . Engels used its columns
to combat all manifestations of opportunism. In the late nineties, after
the death of Engels, the editorial hoard of the newspaper was in the hands
of the Right wing of the Party and regularly published articles by the
opportunists. Vorwärts gave a tendentious picture of the
fight against opportunism and revisionism in the R.S.D.L.P., supporting the
Economists, and later, after the split in the Party, the Mensheviks. During
the years of reaction in Russia it published slanderous articles by
Trotsky, while denying Lenin and the Bolsheviks the opportunity to
controvert him and give an objective account of the state of affairs within
the Party.

During the First World War Vorwärts took a social-chauvinist stand. After the Great October Socialist Revolution it
conducted anti-Soviet propaganda. It was issued in Berlin until
1933.

.

[5]
The Polish Social-Democrats members of the Social-Democracy of
the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (S.D.K.P.&L.), the revolutionary
party of the Polish working class, founded in 1893 as the Social-Democracy
of the Kingdom of Poland, and from August 1900, after the Congress of the
Social-Democratic organisations of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania,
where the Polish Social-Democrats merged with part of the Lithuanian
Social-Democrats, it became known as the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of
Poland and Lithuania. The party rendered a service in that it guided the
Polish workers’ movement towards an alliance with the Russian workers’
movement and opposed nationalism.

During the revolution of 1905-07 the S.D.K.P.&L. fought under
slogans that were close to those of the Bolshevik Party and took an
uncompromising stand in regard to the liberal bourgeoisie. At that time the
S.D.K.P.&L. was guilty of a number of errors:

it failed to understand Lenin’s theory of the socialist revolution
and the leading role of the Party in the democratic revolution, and it
underestimated the role of the peasantry as an ally of the working class
and the significance of the national-liberation movement. While criticising
the erroneous views of the S.D.K.P.&L., Lenin did not overlook the
services it had rendered to the revolutionary movement in Poland. He
pointed out that the Polish Social-Democrats had “created for the
first time a purely proletarian party in Poland and proclaimed the vitally
important principle of close union between the Polish and Russian workers
in their class struggle” (see present edition, Vol. 20, “The
Right of Nations to Self-Determination”). At the Fourth (Unity)
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in 1906 the S.D.K.P.&L. was admitted to the
R.S.D.L.P. in the capacity of a territorial organisation.

The S.D.K.P.&L. hailed the October Socialist Revolution and
developed a struggle for the victory of the proletarian revolution in
Poland. In December 1918, at the Unity Congress of the
S.D.K.P. & L. and the P.P.S. Left wing, the two parties
united, forming the Communist Workers’ Party of Poland.

[6]
The Polish Socialist Party ( P.P.S. — Polska Partia Socjalistyczna )—a reformist nationalist party founded in
1892.

[7]
Dashnaktsutyuns—members of the nationalist bourgeois party of that name. Founded in the early nineties of the nineteenth century
in Turkish Armenia with the aim of liberating the Turkish Armenians from
the Sultan’s yoke, this party was a bourgeois-democratic conglomerate
of representatives of different classes. Be sides the bourgeoisie, its
membership consisted largely of intellectuals, and included also peasants
and workers uninfluenced by Social-Democratic propaganda, and some
lumpen-proletarians, who made up the so-called “Zinvori”
squads.

On the eve of the 1905-07 revolution the Dashnaktsutyuns transferred
their activities to the Caucasus and established close ties with the
Socialist-Revolutionaries. The Left wing of the party, which formed the
“Young Dashnaktsutyun” group, joined the S.R. Party in 1907.

The activities of the Dashnaktsutyuns were anti-popular. Their
nationalist propaganda did much harm to the cause of the international
education of the proletariat and the working masses of Armenia and the
whole of Transcaucasia.

After the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February 1917 the Dashnaks
supported the policy of the bourgeois Provisional Government; after the
October Socialist Revolution they formed a counter-revolutionary bloc with
the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Musavatists against the
Bolsheviks. In 1918-20, the Dashnaks headed the bourgeois-nationalist
counter-revolutionary government of Armenia; all their actions helped to
convert Armenia into a colony of the foreign imperialists and a base for
the Anglo-French interventionists and Russian whiteguards in their fight
against the Soviet government. The working people of Armenia under the
leadership of the Bolshevik Party and with the assistance of the Red Army,
overthrew the Dashnak government in November 1920. With the victory of the
Soviets, the Dashnaktsutyun organisations in Transcaucasia were broken up
and suppressed.