Liebknecht asks Hirsch if he will take over the editorship of the Party organ which is to be newly established in Z rich. Hirsch wants information as to the finances of the paper: what funds are at its disposal and who provides them. The first, in order to know whether the paper will be bound to fade out after a few months. And then to make sure who holds the purse strings and with them the ultimate control over the line of the paper. Liebknecht s answer to Hirsch : Everything all right, you will hear the rest from Z rich (Liebknecht to Hirsch, July 28) does not reach him. But from Z rich comes a letter to Hirsch from Bernstein (July 24) in which Bernstein announces that we have been charged with the launching and supervision (of the paper). A discussion had taken place between Viereck and us in which it had been felt that your position, owing to the differences which you had with individual comrades when you were a Laterne [Lantern] man would be made rather difficult; but I do not attach much weight to this objection. Not a word about the financing. Hirsch replies by return on July 26, with the question as to the material position of the paper. What comrades have pledged themselves to cover the deficit? Up to what amount and for how long? The question of the editor s salary plays no part at all here, all Hirsch wants to know is if the means are ensured for guaranteeing the paper for at least a year. Bernstein answers on July 31: Any deficit will be covered by voluntary contributions, of which some (!) are already subscribed. To Hirsch s remarks about the line he thought of giving to the paper, dealt with below, he replies with disapproving remarks and instructions: On which the supervisory committee must insist all the more since it is itself in its turn under control, i.e., responsible. On these points you will therefore have to come to an understanding with the supervisory committee. An early and if possible telegraphic reply desired. Thus instead of an answer to his legitimate questions Hirsch receives the information that he is to edit the paper under a supervisory committee seated in Z rich, whose views differ very essentially from his own and whose members are not even named to him! Justly indignant at this treatment, Hirsch prefers to come to an understanding with the Leipzig people. His letter of August 2 to Liebknecht must be known to you, as Hirsch expressly required that you and Viereck should be informed. Hirsch is even willing to submit to a supervisory committee in Z rich, up to the point of agreeing that it should have the right to make written observations to the editor and to appeal to the decision of the Leipzig control committee. In the meantime Liebknecht writes on July 28 to Hirsch: Liebknecht s next letter again contains nothing about the finances, but the assurance instead that the Z rich committee is not an editorial committee at all but is only entrusted with the management and finances. Again on August 14 Liebknecht writes the same to me and demands that we persuade Hirsch to accept. Even on August 20 you yourself are so little informed of the true facts of the case that you write to me: He (H chberg) has no more voice in the editing of the paper than any other well-known Party comrade. At last on August 11 Hirsch gets a letter from Viereck in which it is admitted that the three residing in Z rich are to take the foundation of the paper in hand as an editorial committee and with the agreement of the three Leipzig members to choose an editor.... So far as I recollect, the decisions communicated to us also stated that the (Z rich) organisation committee mentioned in (2) should take over the political as well as the financial responsibility in relation to the Party! ...From this position of affairs it seems to me to follow that...there can be no question of taking over the editorship without the co-operation of the three domiciled in Z rich who have been commissioned by the Party to start the paper. Here at last Hirsch had at least something definite, if only regarding the relation of the editor to the Z rich people. They are an editorial committee; they also have the political responsibility; without their co-operation no one can take over the editorship. In short, an indication is simply given to Hirsch that he should come to an understanding with the three people in Z rich whose names are still not given him. To complete the confusion, however, Liebknecht writes a postscript to Viereck s letter: S[inger] from B[erlin] has just been here and reported: the supervisory committee in Z rich is not, as Viereck thinks, an Editorial committee but essentially a management committee financially responsible to the party, i.e., to us, for the paper; naturally it is also the right and the duty of its members to discuss the editing with you (a right and a duty which belong, incidentally, to every Party member): they have not the authority to act as your guardians. The three Z rich and the one Leipzig committee members the only one present at the negotiations insist that Hirsch shall be under the official control of the Z rich people. A second Leipzig member directly denies this. And Hirsch is expected to come to a decision before the gentlemen are agreed among themselves? That Hirsch had the right to be informed of the decisions come to, which contained the conditions he was expected to submit to, was thought of all the less because it never once seems to have occurred to the Leipzigers to get authentic information themselves about these decisions. How else could the above contradiction have been possible? If the Leipzigers cannot agree as to the powers conferred upon the Z richers, the Z richers themselves are perfectly clear about them. Schramm to Hirsch, August 14: If you had not written at the time that you would do just the same in a similar case (to the Kayser case) and thus indicated the prospect of a similar style of writing, we should not waste a word over it. But in view of your declaration we must reserve to ourselves the right of having a decisive vote in the acceptance of articles for the new paper. The letter to Bernstein in which Hirsch is stated to have said this was dated July 26, that is to say long after the conference in Z rich at which the plenary powers of the three Z richers were established. But the Z richers are already revelling so much in the sense of their absolute bureaucratic power that in answer to this later letter of Hirsch they already claim further authority to decide upon the acceptance of articles. The editorial committee is already a censorship committee. It was not until H chberg came to Paris that Hirsch learned from him the names of the members of the two committees. If therefore the negotiations with Hirsch fell through, what was the reason? When he thereupon refused the offer one can only say he was right. The Leipzig committee, as we heard from H chberg, has been further strengthened by the addition of two members who do not live there; so it can only intervene rapidly if the three Leipzigers are unanimous. This completely transfers the real centre of gravity to Z rich, and in the long run Hirsch would no more have been able to work with the people there than would any other editor of really proletarian and revolutionary views. On this later. Bernstein has already informed Hirsch on July 24 that the differences he had had as a Laterne man with individual comrades would make his position difficult. Hirsch replies that in his opinion the general line of the paper must be the same as that of the Laterne, i.e., one which avoids prosecution in Switzerland and does not cause unnecessary alarm in Germany. He asks who the comrades are and continues: I only know one, and I can promise you that in a similar case of breach of discipline I should treat him in exactly the same way. To which Bernstein, conscious of his new official dignity as censor, replies: As to the line of the paper, the view of the supervisory committee is in fact that the Laterne should not be its model; in our opinion the paper should not be so much taken up with political radicalism but rather kept socialist in principle. Cases like the attack on Kayser, which was disapproved of by every comrade without exception (!) must be avoided in all circumstances. And so on and so on. Liebknecht calls the attack on Kayser a blunder and Schramm considers it so dangerous that he thereupon puts Hirsch under censorship. Hirsch again writes to H chberg, saying that a case like that of Kayser cannot occur if an official party organ is in existence whose clear statements and well-intentioned indications cannot be so brazenly thrown to the winds by a deputy. Viereck, too, writes that a dispassionate attitude, and the ignoring so far as possible of any differences which have occurred... are laid down for the new paper, it is not to be an enlarged Laterne and Bernstein could at most be reproached for a too moderate tendency, if that is a reproach at a time when we cannot after all sail under our full colours. And what is this Kayser case, this unforgivable crime which Hirsch is supposed to have committed? Kayser is the only one among the Social-Democratic deputies who spoke and voted in the Reichstag for protective tariffs. Hirsch accuses him of having committed a breach of Party discipline because Kayser: On both points Hirsch is undeniably right. And after Kayser had trampled underfoot on the one hand the Party programme, to which the deputies are, so to speak, sworn by a Congress decision, and on the other hand the very first and most imperative fundamental rule of Party tactics, and voted money to Bismarck as thanks for the Socialist Law, Hirsch in our opinion was absolutely right to let fly at him as roughly as he did. We have never been able to understand why this attack on Kayser could have aroused such violent wrath in Germany. H chberg now informs me that the fraction gave Kayser permission to come out as he did and that this permission is considered to exonerate Kayser. If this is the position of affairs it is really a bit strong. In the first place Hirsch could know no more of this secret decision than the rest of the world. Then the discredit for the Party, which previously could be diverted on to Kayser alone, is made all the greater by this business, as is also the service performed by Hirsch in openly exposing the disgusting phraseology and even more disgusting vote of Kayser to the whole world and thus saving the honour of the Party. Or is German Social-Democracy really infected by the parliamentary disease and does it believe that through election by the people the Holy Ghost is poured out upon the elected, fraction meetings are transformed into infallible Councils and fraction decisions into unassailable dogmas? It is true that a blunder has been committed, not however by Hirsch, but by the deputies who covered Kayser by their resolution. If those whose special duty it is to pay attention to the maintenance of Party discipline themselves break Party discipline so glaringly by a decision of this kind, so much the worse. Still worse, however, when people advance to the belief that it was not Kayser by his speech and vote or the other deputies by their resolution who violated Party discipline, but Hirsch, because despite the decision, which, moreover, was still unknown to him, he attacked Kayser. For the rest, it is clear that on the tariff question the Party took up the same confused and indecisive attitude as it had done hitherto on almost all economic questions which have become practical ones, e.g., the imperial railways. This is due to the fact that the Party organs, especially Vorw rts [Forward], instead of thoroughly discussing these questions have preferred to concern themselves with the construction of the future order of society. When, after the Socialist Law, the tariff question suddenly became a practical one, the most varied shades of opinion arose and there was not a single person on the spot who possessed the prerequisite for the formation of a clear and correct judgment: knowledge of the conditions of German industry and its position on the world market. Among the electorate it was inevitable that tendencies in favour of protection should appear here and there and there was a wish to take these into consideration too. The only way of getting out of this confusion, by taking the question in a purely political way (as was done in the Laterne), was not decisively adopted; thus it was inevitable that in this debate the Party should have come out for the first time in a hesitating, uncertain and confused manner and finally, with and through Kayser, thoroughly discredited itself. The attack on Kayser is now made the occasion for preaching to Hirsch in every key that the new paper must on no account copy the excesses of the Laterne and should not be so much taken up with political radicalism as kept to a dispassionate line, socialist in principle. And this by Viereck as much as by Bernstein, who, just because he is too moderate, seems to the former to be the right man, because one cannot after all sail under one s full colours at present. But why emigrate at all, if not in order to be able to sail under one s full colours? There is nothing to prevent this abroad. The German Press, Assembly and Penal Laws do not exist in Switzerland. It is therefore not only possible but a duty to say things there which could not be said at home, under the ordinary German laws, even before the Socialist Law. For here we stand not only before Germany but before Europe, and it is a duty, so far as the Swiss laws permit of it, to state to Europe the methods and aims of the German Party without concealment. Anyone who wants to bind himself by German laws in Switzerland would only prove that he was worthy of these German laws and in fact had nothing to say which was not permissible in Germany before the Exceptional Laws. Nor should any consideration be paid to the possibility that the editors will be temporarily cut off from a return to Germany. He who is not ready to risk this is not fit for such an exposed post of honour. And further. The Exceptional Laws have banned and outlawed the German Party precisely because it was the only serious opposition party in Germany. If, in an organ published abroad, the Party shows its gratitude to Bismarck by giving up this role of the only serious opposition party, by coming out nice and docile and accepting the kick with a dispassionate attitude, it only proves that it deserved the kick. Of all the German papers produced in emigration abroad since 1830, the Laterne is certainly one of the most moderate. But if even the Laterne was too bold then the new organ can only compromise the Party in the eyes of its sympathisers in non-German countries. In the meantime H chberg s Yearbook has reached us, containing an article The Socialist Movement in Germany in Retrospect, which, as H chberg himself tells me, has been written by these same three members of the Z rich Commission. Here we have their authentic criticism of the movement up till now and with it their authentic programme for the line of the new organ, in so far as this depends on them. Right at the beginning we read: I will not examine whether or how far this is historically accurate. The special reproach here brought against Schweitzer is that he diminished Lassalleanism, which is here taken as a bourgeois democratic-philanthropic movement, into a one-sided struggle for the interests of the industrial workers, by deepening its character as a class struggle of the industrial workers against the bourgeoisie. He is further reproached with his rejection of bourgeois democracy. And what has bourgeois democracy to do with the Social-Democratic Party? If it consists of honest men it cannot wish for admittance, and if it does nevertheless wish to be admitted this can only be in order to start a row. The Lassallean party chose to conduct itself in the most one-sided way as a workers party. The gentlemen who write that are themselves members of a Party which conducts itself in the most one-sided way as a workers Party, they are at present invested with offices and dignities in this Party. Here there is an absolute incompatibility. If they mean what they write they must leave the Party, or at least resign their offices and dignities. If they do not do so, they are admitting that they are proposing to utilise their official position in order to combat the proletarian character of the Party. If therefore the Party leaves them their offices and dignities it will be betraying itself. In the opinion of these gentlemen, then, the Social-Democratic Party should not be a one-sided workers Party but an all-sided Party of everyone imbued with a true love of humanity. It must prove this above all by laying aside its crude proletarian passions and placing itself under the guidance of educated, philanthropic bourgeois in order to cultivate good taste and learn good form (page 85). Then even the disreputable behaviour of many leaders will give way to a thoroughly respectable bourgeois behaviour. (As if the externally disreputable behaviour of those here referred to were not the least they can be reproached with!) Then, too, numerous adherents from the circles of the educated and propertied classes will make their appearance. But these must first be won if the ... agitation conducted is to attain tangible successes. German Socialism has attached too much importance to the winning of the masses and in so doing has neglected energetic (!) propaganda among the so-called upper strata of society. And then the Party still lacks men fitted to represent it in the Reichstag. It is, however, desirable and necessary to entrust the mandate to men who have the time and opportunity to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the relevant materials. The simple worker and small self-employed man...has the necessary leisure for this only in rare and exceptional cases. So elect bourgeois! In short: the working class of itself is incapable of its own emancipation. For this purpose it must place itself under the leadership of educated and propertied bourgeois who alone possess the time and opportunity to acquaint themselves with what is good for the workers. And secondly the bourgeoisie is on no account to be fought against but to be won over by energetic propaganda. But if one wants to win over the upper strata of society, or only its well-disposed elements, one must not frighten them on any account. And here the three Z richers think they have made a reassuring discovery: But still better follows. In order to relieve the bourgeoisie of the last trace of anxiety it must be clearly and convincingly proved to them that the Red bogey is really only a bogey, and does not exist. But what is the secret of the Red bogey if it is not the bourgeoisie s dread of the inevitable life-and-death struggle between it and the proletariat? Dread of the inevitable decision of the modern class struggle? Do away with the class struggle and the bourgeoisie and all independent people will not be afraid to go hand in hand with the proletariat. And the ones to be cheated will be precisely the proletariat. Let the Party therefore prove by its humble and repentant attitude that it has once and for all laid aside the improprieties and excesses which provoked the Socialist Law. If it voluntarily promises that it only intends to act within the limits of the Socialist Law, Bismarck and the bourgeoisie will surely have the kindness to repeal this then superfluous law! "Let no one misunderstand us"; we do not want to give up our Party and our programme, but think that for years hence we shall have enough to do if we concentrate our whole strength and energy upon the attainment of certain immediate aims which must in any case be achieved before the realisation of the more far-reaching ends can be thought of. Then the bourgeois, petty bourgeois and workers who are at present frightened away...by the far-reaching demands will join us in masses. The programme is not to be given up but only postponed to an indefinite period. One accepts it, though not really for oneself and one s own lifetime but posthumously as an heirloom to be handed down to one s children and grandchildren. In the meantime one devotes one s whole strength and energy to all sorts of petty rubbish and the patching up of the capitalist order of society, in order at least to produce the appearance of something happening without at the same time scaring the bourgeoisie. There I must really praise the Communist, Miquel, who proved his unshakable belief in the inevitable overthrow of capitalist society in the course of the next few hundred years by heartily carrying on swindles, contributing his honest best to the crash of 1873 and so really doing something to assist the collapse of the existing order. Another offence against good form was also the exaggerated attacks on the company promoters, who were after all only children of their time"; the abuse of Strousberg and similar people ... would therefore have been better omitted. Unfortunately everyone is only a child of his time and if this is a sufficient excuse nobody ought ever to be attacked any more, all controversy, all struggle on our part ceases; we quietly accept all the kicks our adversaries give us because we, who are so wise, know that these adversaries are only children of their time and cannot act otherwise. Instead of repaying their kicks with interest we ought rather to pity these unfortunates. Then again the Party s support of the Commune had the disadvantage, nevertheless, that people who were otherwise well disposed to us were alienated and in general the hatred of the bourgeoisie against us was increased. And further, the Party is not wholly without blame for the introduction of the October Law, for it had increased the hatred of the bourgeoisie In an unnecessary way. There you have the programme of the three censors of Z rich. In clarity it leaves nothing to be desired. Least of all to us, who are very familiar with the whole of this phraseology from the 1848 days. It is the representatives of the petty bourgeoisie who are here presenting themselves, full of anxiety that the proletariat, under the pressure of its revolutionary position, may go too far. Instead of decided political opposition, general compromise; instead of the struggle against the government and the bourgeoisie, an attempt to win and to persuade; instead of defiant resistance to ill-treatment from above, a humble submission and a confession that the punishment was deserved. Historically necessary conflicts are all re-interpreted as misunderstandings, and all discussion ends with the assurance that after all we are all agreed on the main point. The people who came out as bourgeois democrats in 1848 could just as well call themselves social-democrats now. To them the democratic republic was unattainably remote, and to these people the overthrow of the capitalist system is equally so, and therefore has absolutely no significance for practical present-day politics; one can mediate, compromise and philanthropise to one s heart s content. It is just the same with the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. It is recognised on paper because its existence can no longer be denied, but in practice it is hushed up, diluted, attenuated. The Social-Democratic Party is not to be a workers party, is not to burden itself with the hatred of the bourgeoisie or of anyone else; should above all conduct energetic propaganda among the bourgeoisie: instead of laying stress on far-reaching aims which frighten the bourgeoisie and are not, after all, attainable in our generation, it should rather devote its whole strength and energy to those small petty-bourgeois patching-up reforms which by providing the old order of society with new props may perhaps transform the ultimate catastrophe into a gradual, piecemeal and, so far as is possible, peaceful process of dissolution. These are the same people who under the pretence of indefatigable activity not only do nothing themselves but also try to prevent anything happening at all except chatter; the same people whose fear of every form of action in 1848 and 1849 obstructed the movement at every step and finally brought about its downfall; the same people who see a reaction and are then quite astonished to find themselves at last in a blind alley where neither resistance nor flight is possible; the same people who want to confine history within their narrow petty-bourgeois horizon and over whose heads history invariably proceeds to the order of the day. As to their socialist content this has been adequately criticised already in the [Communist] Manifesto, chapter X, German or True Socialism. When the class struggle is pushed on one side as a disagreeable crude phenomenon, nothing remains as a basis for socialism but true love of humanity and empty phraseology about justice. It is an inevitable phenomenon, rooted in the course of development, that people from what have hitherto been the ruling classes should also join the militant proletariat and contribute cultural elements to it. We clearly stated this in the [Communist] Manifesto. But here there are two points to be noted: First, in order to be of use to the proletarian movement these people must also bring real cultural elements to it. But with the great majority of the German bourgeois converts that is not the case. Neither the Zukunft [Future] nor the Neue Gesellschaft [New Society] have contributed anything which could advance the movement one step further. Here there is an absolute lack of real cultural material, whether concrete or theoretical. In its place we get attempts to bring superficially adopted socialist ideas into harmony with the most varied theoretical standpoints which these gentlemen have brought with them from the university or elsewhere, and of which, owing to the process of decomposition in which the remnants of German philosophy are at present involved, each is more confused than the last. Instead of thoroughly studying the new science themselves to begin with, each of them preferred to trim it to fit the point of view he had already, made a private science of his own without more ado and at once came forward with the claim that he was ready to teach it. Hence there are about as many points of view among these gentry as there are heads; instead of producing clarity in a single case they have only produced desperate confusion fortunately almost exclusively among themselves. Cultural elements whose first principle is to teach what they have not learnt can be very well dispensed with by the Party. Secondly. If people of this kind from other classes join the proletarian movement, the first condition is that they should not bring any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices with them but should whole-heartedly adopt the proletarian point of view. But these gentlemen, as has been proved, are stuffed and crammed with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. In such a petty-bourgeois country as Germany these ideas certainly have their own justification. But only outside the Social-Democratic Workers Party. If these gentlemen form themselves into a Social-Democratic Petty-Bourgeois Party they have a perfect right to do so; one could then negotiate with them, form a bloc according to circumstances, etc. But in a workers party they are an adulterating element. If reasons exist for tolerating them there for the moment, it is also a duty only to tolerate them, to allow them no influence in the Party leadership and to remain aware that a break with them is only a matter of time. The time, moreover, seems to have come. How the Party can tolerate the authors of this article in its midst any longer is to us incomprehensible. But if the leadership of the Party should fall more or less into the hands of such people then the Party will simply be castrated and proletarian energy will be at an end. As for ourselves, in view of our whole past there is only one path open to us. For almost forty years we have stressed the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history, and in particular the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as the great lever of the modern social revolution; it is therefore impossible for us to co-operate with people who wish to expunge this class struggle from the movement. When the International was formed we expressly formulated the battle-cry: the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. We cannot therefore co-operate with people who say that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from above by philanthropic bourgeois and petty bourgeois. If the new Party organ adopts a line corresponding to the views of these gentlemen, and is bourgeois and not proletarian, then nothing remains for us, much though we should regret it, but publicly to declare our opposition to it and to dissolve the solidarity with which we have hitherto represented the German Party abroad. But it is to be hoped that things will not come to that.
Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1879