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{ "content": "Such in brief is the context of this pathetic appeal to the civilised world to come to the rescue of the deposed Commander of the Faithful, so iniquitously robbed of his throne and driven forth from his kingdom. The world, particularly the Mussulman world, may have felt some acute twinges of indignation at this fresh instance of Bolshevik enormities, but, oddly enough, the League of Nations did not equip and send forth a band of holy crusaders to do battle in the cause of righteousness, and the Amir remains in exile in the court of his brother-potentate, the Amir of Afghanisthan, who kindly gave him shelter. The Bokharan People’s Soviet Republic remains in power and continues to maintain the closest relations with the. Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, to which it is federated. Nearly a year has rolled by since the launching of that forgotten Appeal, and though recent items in the world Press would have us believe that a new attempt is being made on the part of Russian White Guards and native bandits to upset the status quo in Central Asia, we may take it that this is but another indication of the fact that the struggle for power in that remote but important region of the earth is not yet ended, and that in spite of reports to the contrary, the Bolsheviks are holding their own.So much having been said on the international aspect of the Bokharan Revolution, a few facts may be cited which throw new light on the national side of the struggle, which resulted in the establishment of a republic in 1920. What were the conditions that led up to this revolt, and how came it to be successful in the end?The Bokharan Revolutionary movement had existed since the end of the nineteenth century, as a natural result of the intolerable conditions which prevailed under the combined oppression of the Russian and Bokharan autocracies. Open rebellion had been prevented by the armies of the Tsar, which were placed at the disposal of the Amir. The government of the latter, nominally independent, was in reality a protectorate of Russia, which kept a Resident Agent there to exercise control. Railways and telegraphs, built by the Tsar’s government, were entirely controlled by the latter, and Russian garrisons maintained respect for the real power behind the Amir’s throne. This theocratic potentate, regarded by the Moslems of Central Asia and neighbouring countries as the embodiment of powers not only earthly, but divine, was held in superstitious veneration by the Moslem world, and the fame of Bokhara el Sharif as a centre of Islamic culture attracted pilgrims and students from all the Mussulman countries. Such international prestige in no way lightened the burden which official robbery, corruption and vice imposed upon the Amir’s immediate subjects. This despot regarded Bokhara as his own personal estate, and the government income, wrung from the labour of the people, as his pocket-money. Over one-half the national income was given over forthwith to himself and the Mullahs and Begs (clergy and nobles). The wealth extracted from the miserable populace was squandered in the licentious pleasures of the court and harem, and in maintaining the dignity of the Amir in neighbouring capitals. One of his pleasure-palaces in the Russian Caucasus has now been turned into a rest-house for convalescent workers, who to-day enjoy the luxury which was wrung from the sweat and blood of the Bokharan peasant and handicraftsman. It is one of the minor conquests of the Russian Revolution.Political suppression naturally accompanied these economic exactions, which were a constant provocation to revolt on the part of the masses. The Amir’s power was absolute; the rights of the people nil. Those who were brave or rash enough to urge for reform were either imprisoned, tortured and executed or massacred outright. These patriarcho-feudal rights of the Bokharan ruler were protected by the rifles of the Tsar, and the fact that he was a mere puppet of the Russian autocracy increased the hatred of his own people against him. This feeling was shared even by some of the younger priests, drawn from the ranks of the people. Large numbers of Mullahs joined the Bokharan secret revolutionary organisations, one Mullah Ikram being a prominent leader. The Shiahite massacre of 1909, directed against the Bokharan Government for giving the biggest posts to the Shiah sect of Moslems, and repressed by the Tsarist troops, was organised by another priest, Mullah Bachi. But the real centre of discontent lay in the exploited peasant masses, whom exorbitant taxation has reduced to the direst poverty. Not a year passed by without its peasant riot or rebellion, put down with the utmost cruelty.There was little opportunity for a strictly nationalist movement to develop in a country where no chance was given for a native bourgeoisie to evolve. Russian capital ruled uncontrolled, enjoying every guarantee, while native capital had none. After the construction of the Trans-Caspian Railway, an immense trade developed between Central Asia and Batoum on the Black Sea, to which a branch railway ran, connecting it with the Trans-Caspian. For one hundred and fifty miles, this Central Asian railway line traverses the territory of Bokhara, resulting in a great stimulation of trade. A certain number of Bokharan intelligentsia, educated in Russia and imbibing the ideas of the revolutionary movement there, constituted the nucleus of the Young Bokharan Party, which together with the discontented elements among the priests and trading class agitated for the granting of constitutional rights and the limitation of the power of the Amir. After the Russian Revolution of 1905, which had its echoes in Bokhara as well, all the revolutionary parties and factions united into one central organisation known henceforth as Mlada Bukharsi.(To be concluded)APPENDIXCOPY OF TREATY BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE DEPOSED AMR OF BOKHARA1(Translation from the original)" }
{ "content": "In the name of God Powerful and Almighty, I, the humble Mahmed Taghi-Beg, son of the Premier of the Government of Bokhara, have prepared myself for the solving of the Peace of Bokhara, Amir-Ali-Khan, Shadow of God, who was compelled because of the aggression of the Russian and Bokharan Bolshevist Parties, to leave the country and flee to Afghanisthan, and who is at present under the protection and surveillance of the Afghan Government. Also in the name of all Moslems; of the Court of the Islamic nobility of those localities, and of the merchants and landowners and individuals of Bokharan nationality, for the regaining of our Holy Lands, we conclude a semi-official Treaty with the Military Attaché Consul-General of the great State of England, plenipotentiary to Meshed, which is one of the regions of Persia.In every way, before beginning the struggle for the conquest of Bokhara and the liberation of these territories from the hands of the Russian and Bokharan revolutionaries, to acquire and strengthen the friendship, to begin a review in the Council of the Holy National Assembly (may Allah be pleased), and also in International Conferences, after raising the question of the defence of the defeated rights of the weak Bokharan nation, and of liberating its dear lands from the hands of the conquerors and enrolling it as one of the defenceless States of the world. And also a request on the part of the defenceless Bokhara to the Council of the National Assembly and the Council of Ministers of the great ruler of England, that through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to demand one representative from Bokhara, in order to receive a voice at International Conferences.In order that, at the sessions of the Court of the English State and for the discussion of any questions pertaining to the Bokharan nation, and for reports at the Conferences of other Powers—we present one semi-official Treaty, in order to rise for the conquest of the State of Bokhara; and the Bokharan nation preparing itself to move into Bokhara, and after attaining its aims, the nation of Bokhara is ready to support all plans and wishes of the English Government with regard to Turkesthan, and to render moral, material and armed assistance and, like other nations, to submit completely to (national?) orders of the great State. And the other condition is, that all expenditures during the time of war must be made by England, upon the condition that one of the true representatives of Bokhara should enter this Commission.(1) The Government of Bokhara will accept all expenses necessary for the liberation of Bokhara from the hands of the Bolsheviks from the Official Commission empowered by the English Government.(2) For all expenses, the Government of Bokhara is ready to give away to the English any choice place, without discussion, for use for an indefinite time.(3) The Government of Bokhara is ready, during the time of the reconquest of Bokhara and her liberation from the hands of the Russians, to accept all orders and counsels, without any refusals, up to the time of final peace in Bokhara.(4) I, Mahmed-Taghi-Beg, son of the Prime Minister of Bokhara, have the plenary power to conclude such a semi-official Treaty with the British representative in Meshed, and ask among other things, that the English Government enter into negotiations with Afghanisthan and first receive permission for his departure, and in case of failure to receive this permission, then the support of the English Government for the nation of Bokhara must pass either through the son of the Amir of Bokhara, or with the aid of some members of the Court of these localities.(5) The Government of Great Britain knows that during the stay of the Russians in Turkesthan, they had been the cause of the war, and having semi-officially taken away Samarcand from the Amir of Bokhara at the time of the conclusion of the Treaty between Russia and Bokhara, Samarcand was included by the Russians in their territory, and Katta-Kurgan declared as the boundary of the State. Consequently, after the reconquest, Samarcand should be as before included in the territory of the State of Bokhara.(6) The Government of Bokhara is ready to accept all expenses incurred by the English, with expenses for all kinds of wars and military armaments up to the conquest of the territories of Bokhara and Samarcand, upon presentation of a bill by aforesaid Commission.(7) The Government of Bokhara takes upon itself the obligation, after the reconquest of Bokhara, during thirty years to leave the military rule of the British, and after thirty years, the military chiefs and commanders shall be British, while all armies shall be composed of the nationals of Bokhara.(8) The Government of Bokhara pledges itself, after concluding the Treaty with England, to make no treaties with any one else, except in case when the English give their permission.(9) The Government of Bokhara is ready to cease all friendship with the Afghans and Persians and Turks and Khivans and to be exclusively under the control of the Government of Great Britain.(10) The Government of Bokhara pledges itself not to bring its wares on the European market and not to trade in them, without the permission of the English.(11) The Government of Bokhara is ready to transfer the telegraph, posts customs, and internal and external transit into the hands of British supervisors. Telegraph, post and customs will be in English hands.(12) The Government of Bokhara will leave up to a certain time, to the plenipotentiaries of England, all ministerial institutions for the carrying out of order inside and outside the country.(13) The Government of Bokhara undertakes the obligation to receive no representative of Russia or any other European power or of other governments in general, without the permission of England.(14) The Government of Bokhara will send the best sons of the nation nowhere else but to England for study, and all the students of Bokhara in Great Britain will be cared for in moral and material way, by the British.(15) The Government of Bokhara presents to Great Britain all internal revenues arising from mines, subsoil, and running rivers from which profits can arise." }
{ "content": "(16) The Government of Bokhara may circulate no money out of the British coins, excepting that part of the gold which will be placed in the Bank of Bokhara under the control of the internal Government.(17) The Government of Bokhara buys in England the machinery for the erection and running of factories; in some cases where it will be to a greater advantage, it has the right to purchase them from other governments.(18) The Government of Bokhara will receive and bring over military equipment for a time from England, but later, upon the decision of the Government, may erect in its country factories for war-supplies, without prohibition by Great Britain.These eighteen points, in the semi-official form of a Treaty, are concluded between the Governments with the aid of the Major Attaché of the Consulate of the Government of Great Britain in Meshed. The nation and the Government of Bokhara hope that England will pay some attention, if only for the sake of friendship, and in a brief time before the International Conference will make clear that it supports the Government of Bokhara and will remove this pernicious Russian force and liberate our defenceless and unhappy nation.And if England should find some deficiencies contained in the eighteen points of this Treaty, the Government of Bokhara promises to accept all propositions of the National Assembly. Also, if in this Treaty contained in these eighteen points, which is presented to the Consul-General and to the Major-Attaché, the Government of Bokhara or the Bokharan nation should desire to introduce some changes, Great Britain shall, without taking offence change the Treaty and replace the disputed paragraphs.I, on my side, Mahmed-Taghi-Beg, son of Bashi-Beg, the Prime Minister of Bokhara, conclude with the permission of Amir-Ali-Khan ,as well as in the name of the entire nation of Bokhara, this Treaty in Meshed with the Consul General and the Major-Attaché of the British Government for the friendship of the two States, in the hope that what shall be necessary will be done to achieve the liberation of Bokhara. If this Treaty should have deficiencies, let know, in order to change it.Place of Seal. (Signed) MAHMED-TAGHI, Son of MULLAH KHALI MIRZA NYUN GASHI BEG.Khed. . . . (Signatures of copyists, translators, &c.)Year 1341 (Arabian style)Month Djanzadnal Akhir. Notes1. When the existence of this agreement was announced in the Isveztia, in June of last year, the British Foreign Office issued the following official statement: “There is not the least foundation for a statement published in Moscow that Great Britain has concluded an agreement with the anti-Soviet Emirs of Turkesthan by which she would accept a protectorate in that region.” There is, however, no question as to the authenticity of the document published above, which was signed in December, 1922, by Mr. Prideaux, as representative of the British Consul. The India Office may, however, have refused to ratify the Treaty.—EDITOR, THE LABOUR MONTHLY. Evelyn Roy ArchiveThe Labour Monthly Index " }
{ "content": "Evelyn RoyThe Crisis in Indian NationalismSource: Labour Monthly, Vol. II, February 1922, No. 2.Publisher: The Labour Publishing Company Ltd., London.Transcription/HTML Markup: Brian Reid.Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.THE Indian National Congress, the political organ of the extremist party, which met in full session during the week of Christmas, is confronted with a dilemma on whose solution its future existence as a fighting body will depend. Violence or non-violence; continued leadership of the masses or surrender to the Bureaucracy, – these are the two horns on which the delegates to the Congress found themselves impaled.The present crisis, which is the outcome of the Non-cooperation campaign of the extremist nationalists and the policy of repression recently adopted by the Government, has been brought to a head by the visit of the Prince of Wales to India and the startling demonstration of power afforded by the boycott of the royal visitor and the more or less complete Hartal, or general strike, of the Indian people, which greeted his arrival in every large city.The new Viceroy, Lord Reading, who was sent out to India to control the most difficult and delicate situation in the history of that country, announced his advent as the coming of a rule of “justice, law and order.” The non-violent Non-co-operation campaign, headed by Mr. Gandhi and the Congress Party, for the attainment of Swaraj, or Self-Government, was in full swing, and the Viceroy adopted a policy of watchful waiting for the first six months, in order to study the situation thoroughly before venturing upon a positive line of action. It was the opinion of the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy that the movement would run itself into the ground and die of its own contradictions, and the many mistakes and failures of the tactics adopted seemed to justify this expectation. The boycott of the army, the schools and of Government offices and titles had, on the whole, proved abortive, despite some distinguished exceptions; while the boycott of foreign cloth and the revival of hand-spinning and weaving was, on the face of it, an economic impossibility bound to end in failure. The concrete achievements of the Non-co-operation movement were few, but important, and ignored by the Bureaucracy until too late to prevent them. They consisted in the successful collection of a National Fund of one crore rupees (equivalent to one million pounds), the registration of ten million members of the Congress Party, and the building-up of a nation-wide organisation for propaganda purposes, which the Nationalist Movement had never before had, and whose all-embracing activities swept the great mass of the people, intellectuals, petty bourgeoisie, peasants and city – proletariat alike, – within its scope.The greatest unifying force for all these heterogeneous elements of discontent was, in the early days of the movement, the personality of Mr. Gandhi, whose Tolstoyan philosophy of non-resistance, together with his stainless personal life and long record of public service, endeared him to all classes of the population alike. It was to the “Mahatma” or Great Soul, as Mr. Gandhi was universally known, that the astute Lord Reading addressed himself in his first effort to sound the depth of the movement and to check its rampant career. Mr. Gandhi’s ready consent to travel to Simla for an interview with the Viceroy of the Government, which he and his followers had so uncompromisingly boycotted, proved him to be more of a saint than a politician, and it was inevitable that in this first contest between the Non-co-operators and the authorities, that the former should be worsted. Lord Reading obtained from the Mahatma a promise that the two Ali brothers would make a public apology for certain alleged speeches inciting the Indian people to violence, – and the Mahatma received the assurance that, for the time being, the Government would drop its intended prosecution of the two brothers for seditious utterances.The apology was duly delivered and heralded to India and to the world as the capitulation to legal authority of the two hottest defenders of Indian Nationalism. It is hard to say who suffered more in prestige by this unfortunate bargain with the “satanic” Government – Mr. Gandhi or the Ali brothers, who were accused by their opponents and followers, alike of compromise and cowardice.It was the first triumph of the Government, and Lord Reading saw his way clear ahead of him.Mr. Gandhi frankly admitted he had made another “Himalayan” mistake in his zeal for peace, and the Ali brothers, loyal to their leader, but resentful of the charge of cowardice, started a campaign of invectives against the Government and invited their own arrest. The public mind having been prepared for this eventuality to two of their dearest idols, and Mr. Gandhi having abjured everyone to abstain from all public manifestations or show of resistance, the Government proceeded to arrest the Ali brothers and five other prominent Non-co-operators, and then stayed its hand to see the effect of this move. What would be the response of the Mussulman population to this blow aimed at their leaders? The baffling quiet which prevailed all over India gave satisfaction alike to the Government and the Non-co-operators. Aside from a few protest meetings, an occasional strike and several street demonstrations, there was nothing to show that two of India’s most forceful and popular heroes had been arrested and convicted on ordinary criminal charges to two years’ imprisonment. The Government argued that if it was so easy to cut off the heads of the movement, the body could be easily crippled. Mr. Gandhi, on the other hand, proclaimed the national calm as the triumph of soul-force over violence, and the Working Committee of the National Congress announced the programme of Civil Disobedience, including non-payment of taxes and a national boycott of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, scheduled for November." }
{ "content": "More arrests followed as a matter of course, together with the prosecution and penalising of nationalist journals for alleged seditious utterances. Non-co-operators went to prison unresisting and rejoicing, and new ones sprang to supplant them. Civil Disobedience, Boycott of foreign cloth, and a National Hartal, or general strike, on the landing of the Prince of Wales, became the popular slogans of the hour. The whole country became a seething volcano of unrest and incipient trouble. Officialdom, at first nonplussed, advised the postponement of the prince’s visit, and it was rumoured that ill-health would prevent his projected trip to India. The open jubilation of the Non-co-operators, and the increased intensity, of their campaign, changed the official mind. It was declared that the royal visit would take place.It is not by chance that the Prince of Wales, the darling of the royal family and symbol of Britain’s majesty, has been thrown to the angry tigers of Indian Nationalism. The nature of his reception would be a good gauge of the real strength of the movement and of the hold enjoyed by the Congress leaders over the masses. The infinitesimal chance that the Prince would be assassinated by some terrorist, though minimised to almost zero by the elaborate precautions taken, would be run, – the British bourgeoisie is implacable when its interests are at stake. This feeling is well reflected by the Bombay correspondent of the Manchester Guardian who wrote:The Prince’s visit is not without risks. The days are gone when a royal visit to India was merely a delightful ceremony. In every municipality, the exact measure of hospitality to be shown has been hotly debated. Every act of homage is a real bending of the political will. The warmth of the welcome extended to the Prince will be the gauge of Indian desire for the British connection.The arrival of the Prince of Wales in Bombay on November 17 was heralded to the world through the medium of the Press as the failure of Non-co-operation and the triumph of India’s loyalty to the British Crown. First accounts conveyed glittering descriptions of the magnificent displays and entertainments given at public expense for the Prince’s reception. But gradually the news leaked out that beyond the area where soldiers and machine-guns ensured the peaceful progress of the Heir to the Throne, there was serious trouble with the population of Bombay. Riots broke out in every part of the city, strikes were declared in all big industries, and the excited and angry populace fell to looting and incendiarism, unmindful of Mr. Gandhi’s prayerful injunction for perfect peace. The Governor issued a Proclamation on the 16th and 17th that “the Government would use all its powers for the maintenance of law and order.” According to the Manchester Guardian, “life in the city was dislocated for four days.” The list of casualties on the day the Prince landed include 83 police wounded, 53 rioters killed and 298 wounded, together with 341 arrests; 160 tramcars were damaged or destroyed; 135 shops were looted and 4 burned down. On the same day, Calcutta celebrated the arrival of the Prince on Indian soil by declaring a complete Hartal for twenty-four hours, and similar action was taken in cities all over India. The spectacular nature of the Calcutta strike is testified to by the Times correspondent, who writes:From early morning, Congress and Caliphate volunteers appeared on the streets, and, it is no exaggeration to say, took possession of the whole city. The bazaars were closed. Tramcars were stopped. Taxis were frightened off the streets and horse vehicles were nowhere to be seen. There was little open violence, not even a brickbat was thrown at the armoured cars that patrolled the streets. The police looked on and did nothing. The control of the city passed for the whole day into the hands of the Volunteers. At nightfall, electric lights were cut off, and the streets were silent, dark, and deserted. It was like a city of the dead.Here was a startling manifestation of national solidarity that gave the Government pause for thought. It was an imposing demonstration of the popular will obeying the behests of its leaders. In Ireland people are used to such spectacles, but in India! In the temporary lull that preceded the bursting of the storm, the still, small voice of Mahatma Gandhi was raised crying piteously to Heaven for pardon for the blood that had been shed in Bombay, and calling upon those who had sinned to repent, as he did, by fasting for twenty-four hours out of every week. Poor, misguided, deluded Mahatma Gandhi! In his hesitations and vacillations and hurried flights froth the diplays of mass energy to the retreat of his own conscience is summed up the peculiar predicament of the Indian National Congress as a whole, which is being ground beneath the upper and the nether millstones of Government repression and seething popular unrest, which must find an outlet in violence, unless its economic distress which lies at the bottom of its discontent finds some relief." }
{ "content": "The iron heel of authority came down upon the country instantaneously. The Government had had sufficient insight into the depth and strength of the national movement, and it decided to cut at the roots as well as to strike off the heads. Not only was it desired to check the progress of the Non-cooperation movement and to insure a welcome to the Prince, – it was intended also to paralyse the holding of the Indian National Congress, scheduled to meet at Ahmedabad on December 24, at which time Mr. Gandhi had definitely promised to announce the advent of his long-heralded but slightly chimerical Swaraj. More than 500 arrests were made in Calcutta alone. The recruiting and organising of Congress and Caliphate volunteers was declared to be illegal. The principal districts of India were placed under Section 2 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which prohibits “unlawful associations” to such an extent that three persons meeting together in one place are liable to arrest. Naturally, the various Provincial Congress Committees meeting throughout India became unlawful associations, and their members were arrested wholesale. All the principal leaders of the Congress (including its President, C. R. Das; its Secretary, Motilal Nehru; and Lajpat Rai, the fiery leader of the Punjab) have been arrested. The arrest of students and working men acting as pickets, volunteers or strikers, has been legion. The Viceroy stated impressively that “the Government of India are very conscious of their power and their strength. Recent events have made it imperative that the full strength of the Government should be exerted for vindicating the law and preserving order.” Not alone men, but women as well, have fallen under the official ban, and, according to the London Nation, “Bengali ladies have been taking active part in the agitation, and some of them have been lodged in gaol. It would be difficult to exaggerate the social sensation in India caused by Indian ladies being led off to cells.”Amid this impressive display of force, the Prince continued on his flowery path northward through the various Indian provinces, receiving everywhere the same official welcome which sought to veil the popular disaffection beneath. In the protected Native States he received the warmest reception, thereby demonstrating the British wisdom in perpetuating these feudal puppets as props to their own rule. But his emergence into British India once more was like a cold douche. Allahabad, the capital of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, greeted him, according to the Manchester Guardian, “with whattruth compels the admission of as the most effective Hertal yet experienced. The streets were liberally festooned and garlanded, but entirely deserted.” “The silence of Allahabad,” declares the Times, “represents the first occasion on which the fomenters of passive hostility were really successful.” It was an effective answer to the Government repressions that were rapidly flooding the gaols of every Indian city. The arrival of the Prince in Calcutta was to be the acid test, for Bengal has always been the hotbed of rebellion. Four armoured cruisers were anchored outside the harbour, and special battalions of troops were posted in every part of the city, which assumed the appearance of an armed camp. The Prince was to arrive on December 24, the same day on which the Congress would open in Ahmedabad, and in anticipation of his coming, the majority of the workers and the students went on strike, while the lawyers suspended their practice. Arrests reached such a degree that the general public began to protest. Lawyers of the High Court passed a resolution demanding the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act; business men of the United Provinces issued a statement to the Government that the present policy only added fresh recruits to the movement; members of the provincial legislative councils began to resign, and four members of the Imperial Legislative Assembly addressed the Government, urging it to call a halt to futile repression, to formulate some constructive policy which would recognise the amazingly rapid changes occurring in India, and to call a round table conference of all shades of political thought to find a way out of the present deadlock.Mr. Gandhi, despite repeated pleas to be arrested, continued in freedom, and on the eve of the opening of the Congress, which he declared must be held at any cost and despite the arrest of all its leaders unless the Government dissolve it by force, he issued a Manifesto which, among other things, stated: Lord Reading must understand that the Non-co-operators are at war with the Government. We want to overthrow the Government and compel its submission to the people’s will. We shall have to stagger humanity, even as South Africa and Ireland, with this exception – we will rather spill our own blood, not that of our opponents. This is a fight to a finish." }
{ "content": "This, then, is the situation in India on the eve of the assembling of the National Congress – the gravest situation in living memory. What is the Congress to do? Its tactics of non-violence have come to an end, the mass-energy on which the strength of the Congress movement has rested can no longer be controlled in a crisis, as events in Bombay and elsewhere testify. At the same time, the masses are completely unarmed; they are hopelessly unready for an armed contest for supremacy. If the Congress persists in its doctrine of Soul Force, it will lose the support of the militant workers and peasants, who have dot out of bounds and whose desperate economic condition renders some immediate and practical solution imperative. The Indian working class has lent itself already long enough to Mr. Gandhi’s quixotic chasing of windmills. Non-violence, non-resistance, Soul-Force, boycotts and strikes in the National Cause for a Swaraj that is indefinitely postponed, have weakened their faith in the Prophet, and they find themselves in no way better off. In all their circumlocutions and invectives against foreign rule, the Congress leaders have forgotten or neglected utterly to mention the economic betterment of the Indian workers and peasants, whose energetic support of the Congress Programme of boycott and civil disobedience by riots, strikes, imprisonment and loss of life has constituted the backbone and real strength of the movement. Such systematic repression as the Government of India has launched upon can kill any movement that does not spring from the vital economic needs and desires of the people. If the Congress persists in its present tactics, it will find itself divested of the popular support that gave it such powerful impetus and power, and it will be reduced once more to its former status of a debating society on constitutional progress, by India’s discontented lawyers, doctors and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. The masses, forced asunder from the political movement by Government persecution and their own waning interest, will take up the economic struggle in good earnest on the purely economic field, leaving politics alone, like the burned child which dreads the fire.Such a movement is already lender way in India. In the first week of December, 1921, the Second All-India Trade Union Congress was held in Jharria, a little town in the coalfields of Bengal. The Government, busy with its persecutions of the Nationalists, had no time or energy to interfere with it, despite the petition of various Employers’ Associations to prohibit the holding of the Congress. A great coal-strike was in progress, involving some 50,000 miners, numbers of whom attended the Congress in a body, in addition to the regularly constituted delegates, who numbered ten thousand. Something over a million, organised workers were represented from about a hundred different unions. The Secretary of the Trade Union Congress, Mr. Chaman Lal, drew a picture of the economic condition of the Indian working-class, comparing it with European conditions, and declared before the assembled delegates that the continuance of such conditions meant the coming of Bolshevism to India. If the Government and the employers refused to make concessions to labour, the latter would take matters into its own hands. Referring to the political struggle raging throughout India, Chaman Lal declared that only by the help of the organised working-class, India would attain Swaraj within ten years. Resolutions of sympathy for the Russian famine, and a call to the organised working-class of the entire world to abolish wars by international action, were adopted. The most significant outcome of the Congress was the sudden agreement of the coal-mine owners to negotiate with the striking workers as to an increase in wages, a shorter working-day, better housing, medical attendance, etc., – matters which heretofore they bad refused to discuss.The All-India Trade Union Congress, which held its first session a year ago, has already become a power in the world of organised labour in India. All the class-conscious elements of the Indian proletariat are included within its ranks. It is fighting for frankly material things, well within the comprehension of the simple, ignorant and oppressed people who belong to it, – better wages, fewer hours, decent housing, sanitation and medical help in time of sickness, with accident, old-age and maternity benefits for workers. There are no political planks in its programme, but the still rebellious working-class, fired with the national enthusiasm, have not yet forgotten the fabulous Swaraj promised them by their Mahatma.The great question at issue now is, will the centre of gravity of the Indian struggle be shifted from the political to the purely economic field, from the Indian National Congress to the All-India Trade Union Congress, or will the political leaders rise to the occasion and adopt such a programme in the National Congress as will keep the Indian masses behind it in its political fight, by including their economic grievances?" }
{ "content": "The resolutions adopted in the sessions of the National Congress do not touch upon the vital question of the workers’ economic needs. The 12,000 delegates and visitors, clad in homespun Khaddar and white “Gandhi caps,” eschewed chairs and squatted upon the floor of the huge Pandal or tent, while their leader, the saintly Mahatma, simply dressed in a homespun loin-cloth, issued his appeals for peace from the top of a table upon which he sat cross-legged. His resolution, calling for “aggressive civil disobedience to all Government laws and institutions; for non-violence; for the continuance of public meetings throughout India despite the Government prohibition, and for all Indians to offer themselves peacefully for arrest by joining the Volunteer Corps,” was carried with but ten dissentient votes. The Congress appointed Gandhi as its sole executive authority, with power to name his own successor in case he is arrested, but declared that peace with the Government cannot be concluded without the previous consent of the Congress. A motion introduced by Hazrat Mohani, for complete independence outside the British Empire, to be attained by all “possible and proper,” instead of by all “legitimate and peaceful” means, was opposed by Mr. Gandhi on the ground that it would alienate the sympathy of the Moderates, and the resolution was lost, although a strong minority voted in its favour. “The unity of all classes depends on non-violence,“ said Mr. Gandhi, who seeks to combine Moderates and Extremists, the Indian bourgeoisie and exploited proletariat, or a common but vague programme of political Swaraj.Mr. Gandhi, who is to-day undoubtedly the Dictator of the Indian Nationalist Movement, will end by falling between two stools, since he cannot for ever, sit on both. The Indian masses demand economic betterment, and their rebellious spirit cannot be contained much longer within the limits of a peaceful political programme which avoids all mention of their economic needs. Already the energies of the more class-conscious are being deflected towards the growing Trade Unions and Peasants’ Co-operatives. The Congress will lose in this element its only revolutionary basis, because the handful of discontented intellectuals who compose the Extremist Party represents neither the interests of the moderate bourgeoisie nor of the conservative landholding class. The recent Governmental repressions have temporarily rallied all classes on the basis of national feeling, and have led even the Moderates to protest and to demand a round-table conference of all shades of opinion, where some, agreement by compromise can be reached. Certain Trade Union leaders also urge such a Conference on the plea that Labour is getting out of hand. The Viceroy agreed, on condition that the Extremists cease their Boycott and other activities and that both sides call a truce pending negotiations. Pundit Malaviya, who represents the Right Wing of the Congress Party, proposed a resolution in the Congress to participate in a round-table conference for the settlement of grievances. Gandhi opposed making the first overtures, and the motion was defeated, but “the door to negotiations was still left open.” “We will talk with the Viceroy only as equals, not as suppliants,” Gandhi declared, and added, “I am a man of peace, but not of peace at any price – only of that peace which will enable us to stand up to the world as free men.”A definite refusal to compromise, on the part of the Extremists, will mean continued repression by the Government and the alienation of Moderate sympathy; consent to a Conference, on the other hand, means compromise with the Government and alienation of the masses. Which will Mr. Gandhi, Dictator of the Indian National Congress, decide to do? Evelyn Roy ArchiveLast updated on 3 December 2020" }
{ "content": "MIA > Archive > Evelyn Roy E. RoyThe ColoniesThe Debacle of Gandhism(12 September 1922)From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 2 No. 78, 12 September 1922, pp. 586–588.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2020). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.II.Non-payment of taxes was not the only disturbing feature of Indian unrest during the months of January and February. Widespread disturbances throughout India, from the Punjab to Madras, from Bombay to Burma, arose from the attempts to enforce the various measures of the Non-cooperation program, such as boycott of cloth and liquor shops, resulting in encounters between police and people, and mob risings, with loss of life and many arrests which tended to increase the general disquiet. The correspondent of the Morning Post writing from India at the end of January, says:“In large areas, particularly upper Assam, conditions border on anarchy. Rent and revenue payments are refused, and where resort is had to loyalist volunteers and Gurkhas, the Gandhites have openly ridiculed such military procedure. In a police affray arising from picketing in Serajgunge (Bengal), the police fired, killing five and wounding 200. The present tension, unless eased by stronger Government action, will have a most serious outcome.”In Bombay, the movement was more peaceful, consisting mainly of boycott of schools and enlistment of volunteers, so that in a mass-meeting held in Bardoli in January, under the auspices of the Non-cooperators, Mr. Gandhi was able to declare the district self-disciplined and fit enough for the adoption of Civil Disobedience. But even this model atmosphere was ruffled when the Bombay Government announced on Feb. 9, that the Municipalities of Ahmedabad and Burat would be superseded for two and three years respectively, for having resolved in conduct their schools independently of Government control and for refusing the Government education grant.At this critical moment, an unexpected pin-prick exploded Mr. Gandhi’s faltering resolution, and sent him scurrying back to the protection of law and order. On February 4th, a riot occurred in Chauri Chaura, a village of the United Provinces in which a procession of volunteers was fired on by the police and the infuriated mob charged the police station, captured the building, killed 23 policemen, and then set fire to the police station, cut the telegraph wires and tore up the railway. The news of this untoward but by no means unusual event, whose counterparts were being enacted all over India in every pro vince, leaked through the official censorship on Feb. 6th, just in the moment when Mr. Gandhi and the Viceroy were exchanging their famous notes, and full details reached the Mahatma on the very day on which he announced the formal inauguration of Mass Civil Disobedience.The gruesome details of burned policemen and dismantled telegraph wires were more than Mr. Gandhi’s sensitive conscience could near. By some extraordinary mental process, he held himself and his declaration of Civil Disobedience to be responsible for the whole occurrence, and with a loud wail of dismay and despair, announced a five-days’ fast (reduced to two days on the supplications of his followers) as penance and punishment for the tragedy of Chauri Chaura. In an article published on Feb. 10th in Young India, Mr. Gandhi declares:“I regard the Chauri Chaura tragedy as a third warning from God against the hasty embarkation on mass civil disobedience, and it is my bitterest cup of humiliation, but I deem such humiliation, ostracism or even death preferable to any countenancing of untruth or violence.”Without loss of time, on Feb. 11th, a Conference was hastily convened at Bardoli, wherein the Working Committee of the Congress revoked not only Mass Civil Disobedience, but all picketing, processions and public meetings as well. The peasants were ordered to pay land-revenue and all other taxes due the Government, and to suspend every activity of an offensive nature.Mr. Gandhi’s harkening to his conscience did him the good service of delaying the order for his own arrest, a fact of which he was unaware at the time. The Government at Simla, a little amazed at this temperamental outburst and sudden change of heart, stayed its hand temporarily to permit Mr. Gandhi to lead the movement into confusion worse confounded. The national uprising, which they had feared and prepared against during the last three months, was checked and thrown into rout by the good offices of Mr. Gandhi himself, whose incorrigible pacifism and dread of the popular energy could be counted upon to prevent the explosion, what Governmental repression in all its varied forms had failed to accomplish, the agonized appeal of the Mahatma was able to effectuate. Truly, as a Pacifist Reformer, Mr. Gandhi may well congratulate himself on his success in soothing the just anger of the populace, even though he may have to admit his utter failure to melt the heart of the Government That which arrests, tortures, floggings, imprisonments, massacres, fines and police-zoolams could not quell – the blind struggles of a starving nation to save itself from utter annihilation – Mr. Gandhi by the simple magic of love and non-violence, reduced to impotence and inactivity, which insured its temporary defeat.The Bardoli Resolutions were received throughout the country with mingled feelings of triumph, relief and alarm – triumph on the part of the Government and its supporters, relief to the feelings of those moderates and secret sympathizers with the victims of Government repression, and alarm on the part of those Non-cooperators whose ideas of strategy and tactics differed widely from those of Mr. Gandhi." }
{ "content": "While the Nationalist press on the whole supported Mr. Gandhi in his volte-face, and local Congress Committees immediately began to put the Bardoli Resolutions into practice, a section of Extremist opinion found itself outraged by the sudden retreat from the Ahmedabad decisions. Some Mahratta newspapers criticized Mr. Gandhi for stressing isolated incidents like Chauri Chaura and Bombay to the detriment of the movement as a whole. Mr. S.R. Bomanji, in a lecture delivered in Bombay on The Lessons of Bardoli declared that the people were asked to sacrifice everything and were prepared to do it, because they thought Mr. Gandhi was leading a fight for freedom. Mr. Gandhi was the most greatly admired man in India, but that did not preclude them from the right of thinking, and and in the hero-worship of Mr. Gandhi, they were losing their individuality.The regular session of the All-India Congress Committee was held in Delhi on Feb. 24tb, and the Bardoli resolutions were presented for endorsement Pundit Malaviya, Mr. Gandhi’s alter ego of Pacifism and Moderation, urged the ratification of Bardoli, and the complete abandonment of Non-cooperation in all its forms. Mr. Gandhi, still horror-stricken at the bloodshed of Chauri Chaura that presaged Revolution, hugged the Bardoli decisions without going to the length of Pundit Malaviyn’s surrender. But an angry section of earnest Extremists, realizing the disastrous effect upon the movement of the abandonment of aggressive tactic, and smarting under the Government’s ill-concealed triumph, urged the repudiation of Bardoli and the renewal of Non-cooperation, including Civil Disobedience. Mr. Gandhi himself, caught in the unpleasant predicament of being “let off” by the Government for good behavior, felt himself stung to self-defense by a return to his abandoned position. Accordingly, a compromise was struck, and the Delhi session of the Congress Committee sanctioned all forms of Non-cooperation, including individual civil disobedience, both defensive and aggressive, and picketing. The Resolution affirmed that “Civil Disobedience is the right and duty of a people, whenever a state opposes the declared will of the people.”The Delhi decision was a compete reversal of Bardoli, and as such, constituted a direct challenge to the Government.The arrest of Mr. Gandhi, already once postponed, could be henceforth merely a matter of time and place. The wider issues of imperial policy as well as the Government of India, demanded it. In England, the Die-hards were clamoring for his blood, together with that of Mr. Montagu, Secretary of State for India, whom they identified with the liberal policy of the Montford Reforms. Lloyd George, threatened with a General Election by the dissolution of his Coalition, ran hither and thither, hatching devices for saving his job. Having achieved the Irish Free State and “Independent” Egypt as sops to Liberal opinion, it became necessary to placate the Conservatives by some blood-offering, and this he proceeded to do by the sacrifice of Indian hopes and aspirations.India’s victimization to Lloyd Georgian and Imperial exigencies took three outward and visible manifestations The first was the attempted splitting off of the Musulmans from the Nationalist Movement by granting certain concessions to the claims of the Caliphate; the second was the dismissal of Mr. Montagu and the appointment of a Conservative to his post; the third was the arrest of Mr. Gandhi, with the purpose of dealing the coup de grace to the Non-cooperation Movement. Mr. Lloyd George is a clever politician, but events have not justified the wisdom of any one of these three steps.The revision of the Treaty of Sévres had formed one of the demands of the Non-cooperators from the very beginning, as a means of bringing about the Hindu-Muslim unity so essential to the success of Indian nationalism. But Mr. Gandhi was not the only angler for Muslim good-will. The historic “divide and rule” policy of the British Government, which had met with so much success in India by the separation of Mussulmans and Hindus, could not be checkmated by so simple a manoeuvre as taking up the cudgels for the Caliphate. It was clear that if Muslim support could be bought by concessions to religious fanaticism, the British Government would be the first to buy it over, if it considered it worth while.The time came when this policy seemed expedient. At the end of January, Lord Northcliffe, in the course of his Indian tour, published a significant and sensational letter advising concession to Muslim opinion, and the conservative press in England echoed his advice. The Viceroy of India took advantage of the approaching Paris Conference to telegraph the Home Government his oft-reiterated plea on behalf of some revision in favor of the Caliphate. It was evident that the Die-hards, influenced by traditional belief in the militant fierceness of the Mussulman, were inclined to placate this element at the expense of the Hindu community.In a word, the Imperialists stole Mr. Gandhi’s thunder, and hoped thereby to split the strength of the Indian Extremists. The Paris Conference, duly presided over by Lord Curzon who had his instructions, granted most of the things that Indian Muslims had clamored for. But the result has been somewhat disappointing. Seith Chotani, President of the Indian Central Caliphate Committee, issued a statement on behalf of his organization regarding the Near East proposals, which he stigmatizes as “pro-Greek” and entirely unacceptable to Indian Muslims. “Indian Muslims and their fellow-countrymen demand that England keep her promises to the letter and spirit”. In view of international complications, England cannot very well concede more, so the ruse of buying up Muslim good-will can be said, on the whole, to have failed." }
{ "content": "As for the dismissal of Mr. Montagu, this served its purpose with the Die-hards, but at what a cost to Indian public opinion only Lord Reading, as the man on the spot, best knows. Mr. Montagu enjoyed a wide popularity among Indian Moderates, based on a fictitious idea of his friendliness to Indian constitutional reform, and this popularity has attained a frenzy of adulation since his spectacular martyrdom on the altar of British Liberalism in India. This frenzy is enhanced by a growing fear that his successor, Lord Peel, symbolizes a reversal of the Reform policy adopted in 1919. The slightest act of reversion on the part of the India Office will be heralded in India as the beginning of reaction and oppression. What Mr. Lloyd George has gained at home, be has more than sacrificed in India by this peculiarly inopportune victimization of pseudo-liberalism, which in reality, was never anything but a sugar-coated imperialistic pill.As for the arrest of India’s Mahatma! Mr. Lloyd George, should beware of the Ides of March. Scarce twelve days after the Delhi decisions, and simultaneously with the dismissal of Mr. Montagu, Mr. Gandhi was arrested on the charge of “tending to promote disaffection against the existing system of Government” by certain speeches and articles, and a few days later was brought to trial. True to his gospel of Non-cooperation, Mr. Gandhi pleaded guilty and offered no defense, urged the judge to find him guilty and to give him the maximum sentence, and in the course of a long written statement which he read out before the court, he reaffirmed his doctrine of non-violent Non-cooperation with the existing system of government in straightforward, eloquent words.The judge who sat personifying British justice and honesty must have felt some inward qualms of conscience in the face of this ringing indictment, which fell upon the courtroom like the voice of suffering India itself. In a few words, half-explanatory and almost apologetic, he pronounced sentence, – six years simple imprisonment – and the farce was over. Mohandas Karamehand Gandhi, apostle of Non-resistance, leader of Non-cooperation and beloved Mahatma of India’s struggling millions, was led off to jail.* * *Let neither Lloyd George, nor Lord Reading, nor the thinking public be derived by the calm that fell upon India’s millions at news of Mr. Gandhi’s incarceration. The Non-cooperators, those who intoxicate themselves with the opiate of non-violence, may attribute it to Soul-Force; the Government may deem it the justification of its policy of repression; but for those who know India of today, this unearthly calm presages a storm more violent than any which has yet shaken the political horizon. That which is lacking is leadership in the Indian movement today. But without disrespect let us say frankly, that no leadership for a time is preferable to Mr. Gandhi’s misleadership. He performed gallant service in the last three years, in leading the Indian people out of their age-long hopelessness and stagnation onto the path of agitation and organization which attained a nation-wide response and scope. His own mental confusion was but a reflection of the confused and chaotic state of the movement itself, just staggering upon its weak legs and learning to walk.All honor to Mr. Gandhi, who found a way for his people out of the entanglements of Government censorsnip and repression; who by his slogans of non-violent Non-cooperation, boycott and Civil Disobedience, he was able to draw the wide masses into the folds of the Congress Party and make the Indian movement for the first time truly national. But the movement had outgrown its leader; the time had come when the masses were ready to surge ahead in the struggle, and Mr. Gandhi vainly sought to hold them back, they strained and struggled in the leading-strings of Soul-Force, Transcendental Love and Non-violence, torn between their crying earthly needs and their real love for this saintly man whose purity gripped their imagination and claimed their loyalty.Mr. Gandhi had become an unconscious agent of reaction in the face of a growing revolutionary situation. The few leaders of the Congress Party who realized this and sought a way out, were rendered desperate, almost despairing at the dilemma. Mr. Gandhi had become a problem to his own movement, and lo! the British Government, in its infinite wisdom; relieved them of the problem. Mr. Gandhi out of jail was an acknowledged force of peace, a sure enemy of violence in all its forms. Mr. Gandhi in jail is a powerful factor for unrest, a symbol of national martyrdom, a constant stimulation to the national cause to fight its way to freedom.Since his arrest, two wings of the Congress Party have developed into clear-cut prominence. One veering towards the right, headed by Malaviya, seeks reunion with the Moderates, the abandonment of Non-cooperation and a bourgeois program of constitutional reform within the Empire. The other struggles vainly after the vanishing slogans of Gandhism, – Satyagraha, Non-violence, boycott of foreign goods, and the reconquest of India by the Charka (Spinning-wheel). In this camp which is all that remains of Extremism, reigns consternation and confusion, but a few voices are rising clear and strong above the din. The voice of Mr. C.R. Das, President of the last Bengal Provincial Conference, recommending the capture of the Reform Council and the formation of peasant and workers’ unions; the voice of Dr. Munji in the Maharashtra Conference, which proclaimed that “the aim of the Congress is thoroughly worldly and for worldly happiness and has to be attained by worldly means which should be easily understandable and practicable”; the voice of nationalist journals which cry that the nation must be organized for the struggle, and that the real work lies among the masses." }
{ "content": "New leaders are surging to the front, ready to learn by past mistakes and to build a new program for the future. Upon their understanding of the present Indian situation depends their present success or failure. The mass-movement among the workers and peasants is still strong and powerful; the Aika peasant movement in the United Provinces, the outbreak of unrest among the Bhils in Central India, the three months strike of the workers on the East India Railroad, prove where the real strength of the Indian movement lies. Reformist trade-union and cooperative workers are already in the field to capture the allegiance of the Indian masses. It remains for the Congress leaders to anticipate them by formulating such a program as will bring the workers and peasants of India to their side. In the dynamic struggle of mass-action under wise political leadership lies the true and only solution of the Indian struggle for freedom. Top of the pageLast updated on 31 August 2020" }
{ "content": "Roman Jakobson (1942)Six Lectures on Sound and MeaningLecture ISource: Lectures on Sound & Meaning, publ. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1937, Preface by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Most of first and all of last lectures reproduced here.I AM SURE you are familiar with Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem The Raven, and with its melancholy refrain, ‘Nevermore.’ This is the only word uttered by the ominous visitor, and the poet emphasises that ‘what it utters is its only stock and store.’ This vocable, which amounts to no more than a few sounds, is none the less rich in semantic content. It announces negation, negation for the future, negation for ever. This prophetic refrain is made up of seven sounds seven, because Poe insists on including the final r which is, he says, ‘the most producible consonant.’ It is able to project us into the future, or even into eternity. Yet while it is rich in what it discloses, it is even richer in what it secretes, in its wealth of virtual connotations, of those particular connotations which are indicated by the context of its utterance or by the overall narrative situation. Abstracted from its particular context it carries an indefinite range of implications. ‘I betook myself to linking/ fancy unto fancy,’ the poet tells us, ‘thinking what this ominous bird of yore -/ What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore/ Meant in croaking \"Nevermore\"./ This I sat engaged in guessing ... This and more I sat divining... .’ Given the context of the dialogue the refrain conveys a series of different meanings: you will never forget her, you will never regain peace of mind, you will never again embrace her, I will never leave you! Moreover this same word can function as a name, the symbolic name which the poet bestows upon his nocturnal visitor.Yet this expression’s value is not entirely accounted for in terms of its purely semantic value, narrowly defined, i.e., its general meaning plus its contingent, contextual meanings. Poe himself tells us that it was the potential onomatopoeic quality of the sounds of the word nevermore which suggested to him its association with the croaking of a raven, and which was even the inspiration for the whole poem. Also, although the poet has no wish to weaken the sameness, the monotony, of the refrain, and while he repeatedly introduces it in the same way (‘Quoth the raven, \"Nevermore\" ‘) it is nevertheless certain that variation of its phonic qualities, such as modulation of tone, stress and cadence, the detailed articulation of the sounds and of the groups of sounds, that such variations allow the emotive value of the word to be quantitatively and qualitatively varied in all kinds of ways.The utterance of Poe’s refrain involves only a very small number of articulatory motions – or, to look at this from the point of view of the acoustic rather than the motor aspect of speech, only a small number of vibratory motions are necessary for the word to be heard. In short, only minimal phonic means are required in order to express and communicate a wealth of conceptual, emotive and aesthetic content.. Here we are directly confronted with the mystery of the idea embodied in phonic matter, the mystery of the word, of the linguistic symbol, of the Logos, a mystery which requires elucidation.Of course, we have known for a long time that a word, like any verbal sign, is a unity of two components. The sign has two sides: the sound, or the material side on the one hand, and meaning, or the intelligible side on the other. Every word, and more generally every verbal sign, is a combination of sound and meaning, or to put it another way, a combination of signifier and signified, a combination which has been represented diagrammatically as follows: But while the fact that there is such a combination is perfectly clear, its structure has remained very little understood. A sequence of sounds can function as the vehicle for the meaning, but how exactly do the sounds perform this function? What exactly is the relation between sound and meaning within a word, or within language generally? In the end this comes down to the problem of identifying the ultimate phonic elements, or the smallest units bearing signifying value, or to put this metaphorically, it is a matter of identifying the quanta of language. In spite of its fundamental importance for the science of language it is only recently that this set of problems has at last been submitted to thorough and systematic investigation.It would certainly be wrong to ignore the brilliant insights concerning the role of sounds in language which can be found scattered through the work of the thinkers of Antiquity and of the Middle Ages, for example those of Thomas Aquinas, who was among the most profound of philosophers of language: and it would equally be wrong to ignore the subtle observations of the ancient oriental, and above all Hindu, grammarians. But it is only in the last two centuries that our science has devoted itself really energetically to the detailed study of linguistic sounds." }
{ "content": "This interest in linguistic sounds derived at first from essentially practical objectives, such as singing technique or teaching the deaf and dumb to speak: or else phonation was studied by physicians as a complex problem in human physiology. But during the nineteenth century, as linguistics gained ground, it was this science which gradually took over research into the sounds of language, research which came to be called phonetics. In the second half of the nineteenth century linguistics became dominated by the most naive form of sensualist empiricism, focusing directly and exclusively on sensations. As one would expect the intelligible aspect of language, its signifying aspect, the world of meanings, was lost sight of, was obscured by its sensuous, perceptible aspect, by the substantial, material aspect of sound. Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language. The neogrammarian school of thought, which was the most orthodox and characteristic current of thought in linguistics at the time, and which was dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and up to the First World War, rigorously excluded from linguistics all problems of teleology. They searched for the origin of linguistic phenomena but obstinately refused to recognise that they are goal-directed. They studied language but never stopped to ask how it functions to satisfy cultural needs. One of the most distinguished of the neogrammarians, when asked about the content of the Lithuanian manuscript which he had been assiduously studying, could only reply with embarrassment, ‘As for the content, I didn’t notice it.’ At this time they investigated forms in isolation from their functions. And most important, and most typical of the school in question, was the way in which they regarded linguistic sounds; in conformity with the spirit of the time their view was a strictly empiricist and naturalistic one. The fact that linguistic sounds are signifiers was deliberately put aside, for these linguists were not at all concerned with the linguistic function of sounds, but only with sounds as such, with their ‘flesh and blood’ aspect, without regard for the role they play in language.Linguistic sounds, considered as external, physical phenomena have two aspects, the motor and the acoustic. What is the immediate goal of the phonatory act? Is it the acoustic phenomenon or is it the motor phenomenon itself? Obviously it is the acoustic phenomenon which the ‘ speaker aims at producing, and it is only the acoustic phenomenon which is directly accessible to the listener. When I speak it is in order to be heard. Of the two aspects of sound it is, therefore, the acoustic aspect which has intersubjective, social significance, whereas the motor phenomenon, in other words the workings of the vocal apparatus, is merely a physiological prerequisite of the acoustic phenomenon. Yet phonetics in the neogrammarian period concerned itself in the first place with the articulation of sound and not with its acoustic aspect. In other words it was not strictly speaking the sound itself but its production which was the focus of attention, and it was this which formed the basis for the description and classification of sounds. This perspective may seem odd or even perverse to us, but it is not surprising in the context of neogrammarian doctrine. According to this doctrine, and to all others which were influential in that period, the genetic perspective was the only one considered acceptable. They chose to investigate not the object itself but the conditions of its coming into being. Instead of describing the phenomenon one was to go back to its origins. Thus the study of linguistic sounds was replaced by historical phonetics, i.e., by a search for their prototypes in earlier forms of each given language, while so-called static phonetics was more or less entirely given over to the observation of the vocal apparatus and its functioning. This discipline was incorporated into linguistics in spite of the obviously heterogeneous character of the two domains. Linguists tried to pick up a bit of physiology with results that are well illustrated by the following typical example: Edward W. Scripture, a famous phonetician who also had training as a physician, ironically quotes the current description of a particular laryngal articulation which would, had this description been accurate, have inevitably resulted in the fatal strangulation of the speaker! But even disregarding mistakes like this we can ask what results would the study of linguistic sounds in their motor aspect arrive at.At first, even though linguists attempted to discuss sounds in a strictly naturalistic manner and to scrupulously leave aside the problem of the functions they perform in language, they did in fact unconsciously employ properly linguistic criteria in their classifications of sounds, and especially in their demarcation of sounds in the speech chain. This illicit importation was facilitated by the fact that linguists, and psychologists too, were as yet quite unfamiliar with the role of the unconscious, and in particular with its great importance in all linguistic operations. But as the observation of phonatory acts was improved and as the employment of special instruments came to replace reliance on purely subjective experience, the linguistic correlate of the physiological phenomena was increasingly lost sight of.It was towards the end of the century that instrumental phonetics (or as it was usually but less accurately called ‘experimental phonetics’) began to make rapid progress. With the help of increasingly numerous and improved instruments a remarkable precision was achieved in the study of all the factors involved in buccal articulation and in the measurement of expiration. A new era in the physiological investigation of linguistic sounds was opened up by X-ray photography. X-rays, used in conjunction with sound film, revealed the functioning of the vocal apparatus in all its details; the whole of sound production, the entire phonatory act, was uncovered and could be actually seen as it happened. When this method became practically and technically available to phoneticians a large number of the previous phonetic instruments became redundant." }
{ "content": "It was radiography above all which brought to light the crucial role of the posterior parts of the vocal apparatus, parts which are most hidden and which were until then most inaccessible to the available methods of experimental phonetics. Before the arrival of radiography there was, for example, very little accurate knowledge of the functioning in the process of the phonatory act of the hyoid bone, of the epiglottis, of the pharynx, or even of the soft palate. The importance of these parts, and especially of the pharynx, was suspected, but nothing about them was known in detail. Remember that the pharynx is at a crossroads from which leads off, at the top, the passage to the mouth cavity and the passage to the nasal cavity, and below, the passage to the larynx. Each of these upper two passages is opened or closed by the velum whereas the lower passage, to the larynx, is opened or closed by the epiglottis. It was only a few dozen years ago that one could read on the subject of the pharynx, in the text-book of Ludwig Sütterlin, a well-known linguist and phonetician: ‘The pharynx seems to be very important in sound production, in that it can be narrowed and widened, but at the present time nothing more definite is known with certainty on the subject’ (Die Lehre von der Lautbildung, Leipzig, 1908).As a result especially of recent work by Czech and Finnish phoneticians using radiography we do now have a more adequate understanding of the functioning of the pharynx in phonation, and we can now affirm that the phonetic role of this organ is no less important than, for example, that of the lips, which are in some ways analogous to it. It can be seen from these more recent observations that so long as the physiological investigation of sounds had no grasp of the functioning of the pharynx and of contiguous parts, it was only possible to arrive at a fragmentary and unsatisfactory description. A physiological classification of sounds which scrupulously takes into account the varying degrees of opening of the mouth but which fails to consider the varying degrees of opening of the pharynx can lead us into error. If phoneticians concentrated on the functioning of the lips and not on that of the pharynx this was not because the former had been shown to be the more important. If the physiology of sound production were to refuse to draw on other disciplines it would have no way of establishing the relative importance of the various organs involved. If phoneticians, in classifying linguistic sounds, took the labial factor but not the pharyngal factor into account, this was solely because the former was more accessible to observation than the latter. As it broadened the field of inquiry and as it became an increasingly precise discipline, the autonomous investigation of phonation decomposed the sounds which it analysed into a disconcerting multitude of detail without, however, being able to answer the fundamental question, namely that of the value which is assigned by language to each of these innumerable details. In its analysis of the various sounds of a language, or of several languages, motor phonetics uncovers for us a stunning multitude of variations, but it has no criterion for distinguishing the functions and the degrees of relative significance of all these observed variations, and thus has no way of discovering the invariants among all this variety." }
{ "content": "Now the identification of individual sounds by phonetic observation is an artificial way of proceeding. To the extent that phonetics is concerned exclusively with the act of phonation, that is with the production of sounds by the various organs, it is not in a position to accomplish this, as Ferdinand de Saussure had already made clear. In his Cours de linguistique general, given between 1906 and 1911 and edited after his death (1913) by his pupils Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, and published in 1916, the great linguist said with foresight: ‘Even if we could record on film all the movements of the mouth and larynx in producing a chain of sounds it would still be impossible to discover the subdivisions in this sequence of articulatory movements; we would not know where one sound began and where another ended. Without acoustic perception how could we assert, for example, that in fal there are three units and not two or four?’ Saussure imagined that hearing the speech chain would enable us to directly perceive whether a sound had changed or had remained the same. But subsequent investigations have shown that it is not the acoustic phenomenon in itself which enables us to subdivide the speech chain into distinct elements; only the linguistic value of the phenomenon can do this. Saussure’s great merit was to have understood clearly that in the study of the phonatory act, when we raise the question of phonetic units and that of demarcating the sounds in the speech chain, something extrinsic is unconsciously brought into play. Twenty years after his death the film that Saussure would have liked to have seen was in fact made. The German phonetician Paul Menzerath made an X-ray sound film of the workings of the vocal apparatus, and this film completely confirmed Saussure’s predictions. Drawing on this film and on the latest results of experimental phonetics Menzerath and his Portuguese associate Armando Lacerda demonstrated that the act of speech is a continuous, uninterrupted movement (Koartikulation, Steuerung und Lautabgrenzung, 1933). Whereas traditional doctrine had distinguished between positional sounds, which are held steady, and transitional sounds which lack this stability and which occur in the transition from one position to another, these two phoneticians showed that all sounds are in fact transitional. As for the speech chain, they arrived at an even more paradoxical conclusion. From a strictly articulatory point of view there is no succession of sounds. Instead of following one another the sounds overlap; a sound which is acoustically perceived as coming after another one can be articulated simultaneously with the latter or even in part before it. However interesting and important the study of linguistic sounds in their purely motor aspect may be everything indicates to us that such a study is no more than an auxiliary tool for linguistics, and that we must look elsewhere for the principles by which the phonic matter of language is organised.Even though they focused on the motor aspect of language, phoneticians were nevertheless unable to ignore the quite obvious, indeed tautological, fact that sound as such is an acoustic phenomenon. But they believed that the investigation of the production of sound, rather than of the sound itself, gave one the motor equivalent of the acoustic phenomenon, an equivalent which is more accessible, more instructive and open to more profitable methods of analysis. This view was put forward, for example, by Pierre Rousselot. They assumed that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two aspects and that the classification of motor phenomena has an exact equivalent in the classification of acoustic phenomena. Thus one need only construct the former, since the latter follows automatically from it. Now this argument, which has been put forward time and again right up to the present day, and which has many implications for the science of linguistics, is utterly refuted, contradicted by the facts. Arguments against this position were put forward long ago, even before the very first hand-books on phonetics." }
{ "content": "We can mention, in the first place, a French book, dating from 1630, which was called Aglossostomographie ou description d’une bouche sans langue quells parle et fait naturellement toutes ses autres fonctions [Aglossostomography, or the description of a tongueless mouth which speaks and naturally performs all its other functions]. In 1718 Jussien published in the Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences a treatise called ‘Sur la fille sans langue’ [On the girl with no tongue]. Each of these works contained a detailed description of people who, though they had only rudimentary tongues, were capable of an impeccable pronunciation of all the sounds which in phonetics nowadays are called the ‘linguals,’ and which are defined as sounds the emission of which necessarily involves the tongue. These interesting facts have since then been confirmed many times. For example, at the beginning of this century the physician Hermann Gutzmann, who was one of the best known of researchers in the field of errors of pronunciation, was forced to admit that while in French the very same word (langue) is used to designate a part of the mouth (the tongue) and language itself, in fact as far as the latter is concerned the former is dispensable, for almost all the sounds which we emit can be produced if necessary in quite a different way without the acoustic phenomena being altered at all (Des Kindes Sprache und Sprachfehler, Leipzig, 1894). If one of the phonatory organs is missing then another one can function in its place, without the hearer being aware of this. Gutzmann, however, stated that there are exceptions to this. Thus the sibilants – the fricatives z, s, and the corresponding affricates – require the involvement of the teeth. Subsequent research, however, has shown conclusively that these apparent exceptions are not in fact so at all. Godfrey E. Arnold, director of the Vienna clinic for language disorders, has shown (Archiv für gesamte Phonetik, III, 1939) that even with the loss of the incisors the ability to pronounce the sibilants correctly remains intact as long as the subject’s hearing is normal. In cases where dental abnormality gives rise to errors of pronunciation one always finds that the subject’s hearing is impaired, and it is this that prevents the functional compensation for the anatomical abnormality....Acoustic phonetics, which is developing and increasing in richness very rapidly, already enables us to solve many of the mysteries of sound, mysteries which motor phonetics could not even begin to solve. However, even though it has infinitely greater organising power, acoustic phonetics, no more than motor phonetics, cannot provide an autonomous basis for the systematisation and the classification of the phonic phenomena of language. Basically it is faced with just the same obstacles as is motor phonetics. At first acoustics attributed to the different sounds only a limited number of characteristic features. This did not mean that these particular features were the most essential ones. The limits were due above all to the fact that the analytical capacities of the new discipline were as yet rather restricted. But if we consult a thoroughly modern work in the field of acoustic phonetics, such as for example the fine monograph by Antti Sovijärvi on the Finnish vowels and nasals, Die gehaltenen, geflüsterten und gesungenen Vokale und Nasale derfinnischen Sprache (Helsinki, 1938), we find ourselves once again confronted with a stunning multitude of details concerning the features of each sound, the sound being decomposed into an innumerable variety of fractions. Motor and acoustic phonetics have proved equally incapable of offering any guidance in this chaos, of identifying the pertinent characteristics, the constitutive and inalienable features of each sound. Acoustics can provide us, in impressive detail, with the micrographic image of each sound, but it cannot interpret this image; it is not in a position to make use of its own results. It is as if they were the hieroglyphics of an unknown language. When, as is always the case, two sounds show both similarities and dissimilarities, acoustics, having no intrinsic criteria for distinguishing what is significant from what is not, has no way of knowing whether it is the similarity or the dissimilarity which is crucial in any given case. It cannot tell whether it is a case of two variants of one sound or of two different sounds.This crucial difficulty is faced not only by experimental acoustics but by any method of phonetic transcription of auditory phenomena, to the extent that the transcription is based solely on purely auditory perception. Such transcriptions, being obliged to note all nuances of pronunciation, even the most subtle, scarcely perceptible and fortuitous among them, are as Antoine Meillet pointed out, difficult to read and difficult to print. This is not a purely technical difficulty. It is once again the vexing problem of identity within variety; without a solution to this disturbing problem there can be no system, no classification. The phonic substance of language becomes as dust. When faced with a similar problem in relation to motor phonetics we had to make reference to an extrinsic criterion and to ask about the immediate aim of articulations, or more precisely about their acoustic aim. Now we must ask what is the immediate aim of sounds, considered as acoustic phenomena? In raising this question we straight away go beyond the level of the signifier, beyond the domain of sound as such, and we enter the domain of the signified, the domain of meaning. We have said that we speak in order to be heard; we must add that we seek to be heard in order to be understood. The road goes from the phonatory act to sound, in a narrow sense, and from sound to meaning! At this point we leave the territory of phonetics, the discipline which studies sounds solely in their motor and acoustic aspects, and we enter a new territory, that of phonology, which studies the sounds of language in their linguistic aspect." }
{ "content": "One hundred years ago the Romantic Russian writer Vladimir Odoevskij told the story of a man who received from a malevolent magician the gift of being able to see everything and to hear everything: ‘Everything in nature became fragmented before him, and nothing formed into a whole in his mind,’ and for this unfortunate man the sounds of speech became trans- formed into a torrent of innumerable articulatory motions and of mechanical vibrations, aimless and without meaning. The victory of naive empiricism could not have been foretold and represented in a more forceful way. In the laboratories of the scientists of this tendency the phonic resources of language were split up into a multitude of microscopic facts which they proceeded to measure with great care while deliberately neglecting their goal and raison d’être. It was in conformity with this approach that metrists at that time taught that one can only study verse if one forgets both the language it is written in and the meaning which it conveys. The study of the sounds of language completely lost touch with the truly linguistic problem, that of their value as verbal signs. The disheartening picture of the chaotic multitude of facts inevitably suggested the antithetical principle, that of unity and organisation. ‘Phonology,’ said the master of French linguistics, Antoine Meillet, ‘frees us from a kind of nightmare which had weighed upon us.’ In the next lecture we shall try to state more exactly what phonology is and how it succeeds in reconnecting the problem of sound with that of meaning. Lecture IVTO START the last of our discussions on sounds and meaning I want to summarise rapidly the points raised in my earlier lectures. Speech sounds cannot be understood, delimited, classified and explained except in the light of the tasks which they perform in language. Motor, acoustic and auditory description of phonic matter must be subordinated to a structural analysis of it. In other words the auxiliary discipline of phonetics must be placed in the service of phonology, which is an integral part of linguistics. Phonology, which in its early days relied far too much on a mechanistic and creeping empiricism, inherited from an obsolete form of phonetics, now seeks more and more to overcome these vestiges. The task is to investigate speech sounds in relation to the meanings with which they are invested, i.e., sounds viewed as signifiers, and above all to throw light on the structure of the relation between sounds and meaning. In analysing a word from the point of view of its phonic aspect we decompose it into a sequence of distinctive units, or phonemes. The phoneme, although it is an element at the service of meaning, is itself devoid of meaning. What distinguishes it from all other linguistic, and more generally, semiotic values, is that it has only a negative charge.The phoneme is dissociable into distinctive features. It is a bundle of these features; therefore, notwithstanding outmoded but still current conceptions, the phoneme is a complex entity: it is not the phoneme but each of its distinctive features which is an irreducible and purely appositive entity. Every linguistic sign is located on two axes: the axis of simultaneity and that of succession. The phoneme is the smallest linguistic entity which disposes of these two axes. The distinctive features are subdivided into a class of inherent features, which are bound to the axis of simultaneity, and a class of prosodic features which involve the other axis, that of succession.Ferdinand de Saussure attributes to the linguistic sign two essential characters which he states in the form of two fundamental principles. The analysis of the phoneme, and especially of the distinctive qualities which are its constituents, has led us to abandon one of these two principles, that which asserts ‘the linear character of the signifier.’ The inquiry into the system of phonemes allows us also to reevaluate the other principle, ‘the arbitrariness of the sign.’ According to Saussure it was the pioneer of general linguistics in America, William Dwight Whitney, who in his book The Life and Growth of Language, published in 1875, ‘pointed linguistics in the right direction’ by his emphasis on the arbitrary character of verbal signs.This principle has provoked disagreement, especially in recent years. Saussure taught (Course, 100/68) that in the word its ‘signified’ is not connected by any internal relation to the sequence of phonemes which serve as its ‘signifier’: ‘It could equally well be represented by any other: this is proved by differences between languages, and by the very existence of different languages: the signified ‘ox’ has as its signifier b-ö-f (bœuf) on one side of the border and o-k-s (Ochs) on the other.’ Now this theory is in blatant contradiction with the most valuable and the most fertile ideas of Saussurian linguistics. This theory would have us believe that different languages use a variety of signifiers to correspond to one common and unvarying signified, but it was Saussure himself who, in his Course, correctly defended the view that the meanings of words themselves vary from one language to another. The scope of the word bœuf and that of the word Ochs do not coincide; Saussure himself cites ‘the difference in value’ between the French mouton and the English sheep (Course, 160/115). There is no meaning in and by itself ;- meaning always belongs to something which we use as a sign; for example, we interpret the meaning of a linguistic sign, the meaning of a word. In language there is neither signified without signifier nor signifier without signified." }
{ "content": "The most profound of modern French linguists, Émile Benveniste, in his article ‘Nature du signe linguistique’ which appeared in the first volume of Acta Linguistica (1939), says in opposition to Saussure that ‘the connection between the signifier and the signified is not arbitrary; on the contrary, it is necessary.’ From the point of view of the French language the signified ‘boeuf’ is inevitably tantamount to the signifier, the phonic group b-ö-f. ‘The two have been imprinted on my mind together,’ Benveniste stresses; ‘they are mutually evocative in all circumstances. There is between them such an intimate symbiosis that the concept \"boeuf\" is like the soul of the acoustic image b-ö-f.’Saussure invokes the differences between languages, but actually the question of the arbitrary relation or the necessary connection between the signified and the signifier cannot be answered except by reference to a given state of a given language. Recall Saussure’s own shrewd advice: ‘It would be absurd to draw a panorama of the Alps from the points of view of several peaks of the Jura simultaneously; a panorama must be drawn from a single point.’ And, from the point of view of her native language, a peasant woman from Francophone Switzerland was right to be astonished: how can cheese be called Käse since fromage is its only natural name.Contrary to Saussure’s thesis, the connection between signifier and signified, or in other words between the sequence of phonemes and meaning, is a necessary one; but the only necessary relation between the two aspects is here an association based on contiguity, and thus on an external relation, whereas association based on resemblance (on an internal relation) is only occasional. It only appears on the periphery of the conceptual lexicon, in onomatopoeic and expressive words such as cuckoo, zigzag, crack, etc. But the question of the internal relation between the sounds and the meaning of a word is not thereby exhausted. Lack of time prevents us from being able to do more than touch on this subtle and complex question. We have said that distinctive features, while performing a significative function, are themselves devoid of meaning. Neither a distinctive feature taken in isolation, nor a bundle of concurrent distinctive features (i.e., a phoneme) taken in isolation, means anything. Neither nasality as such nor the nasal phoneme /n/ has any meaning of its own.But this void seeks to be filled. The intimacy of the connection between the sounds and the meaning of a word gives rise to a desire by speakers to add an internal relation to the external relation, resemblance to contiguity, to complement the signified by a rudimentary image. Owing to the neuropsychological laws of synaesthesia, phonic oppositions can themselves evoke relations with musical, chromatic, olfactory, tactile, etc. sensations. For example, the opposition between acute and grave phonemes has the capacity to suggest an image of bright and dark, of pointed and rounded, of thin and thick, of light and heavy, etc. This ‘sound symbolism,’ as it was called by one of its original investigators, Edward Sapir, this inner value of the distinctive features, although latent, is brought to life as soon as it finds a correspondence in the meaning of a given word and in our emotional or aesthetic attitude towards this word and even more towards pairs of words with two opposite meanings.In poetic language, in which the sign as such takes on an autonomous value, this sound symbolism becomes an actual factor and creates a sort of accompaniment to the signified. The Czech words den ‘day’ and noc ‘night,’ which contain a vocalic opposition between acute and grave, are easily associated in poetry with the contrast between the brightness of midday and the nocturnal darkness. Mallarmé deplored the collision between the sounds and the meanings of the French words jour ‘day’ and nuit ‘night.’ But poetry successfully eliminates this discordance by surrounding the word jour with acute vowelled vocables and the word nuit with grave vowelled vocables; or alternatively it highlights semantic contrasts which are in harmony with that of the grave and acute vowels, such as that between the heaviness of the day and the mildness of the night.The search for the symbolic value of phonemes, each taken as a whole, runs the risk of giving rise to ambiguous and trivial interpretations because phonemes are complex entities, bundles of different distinctive features. These latter are invested with a purely appositive character and each of these oppositions lends itself to the action of synaesthesia, as is demonstrated in the most striking way in the language of children." }
{ "content": "For Whitney everything in the formation of a linguistic sign is arbitrary and fortuitous, including the selection of its constitutive elements. Saussure remarked in this connection: ‘Whitney goes too far when he says that the vocal organs were selected by us quite by chance’ and that men would have been able equally well to choose gesture and to use visual images instead of acoustic images.’ The Genevan master correctly objects that the vocal organs ‘were certainly in some way imposed on us by nature,’ but at the same time Saussure believes that the American linguist was right on the essential point: ‘Language is a convention, and the nature of the sign which is agreed upon makes no difference.’ In discussing the relations between static linguistics and evolutionary linguistics’ Saussure, followed by his disciples, went so far as to say that in the science of language ‘there is no place for natural givens,’ and to assert ‘the always fortuitous character’ of any state of any language as well as of whatever change brought this state about. The repertory of distinctive elements of any given language can only be contingent, and any one of these elements could be replaced by another one which, though completely lacking any material similarity with the former, would be invested with, indeed would embody, the same distinctive value. Saussure identifies this state of things with the game of chess in which one can replace a destroyed or mislaid piece by one of completely different shape as long as one gives it the same role in the game. So the question is raised of whether the distinctive features, whether the assortment of phonemes in operation, is in reality purely arbitrary or whether this assortment, although obviously a social phenomenon, is not – just like the very fact of using the vocal apparatus – ‘in some way imposed on us by nature.’We have pointed out that the distinctive features of the phonemes are strictly appositive entities. It follows from this that a distinctive property never stands alone in the phonological system. Because of the nature, in particular the logical nature, of oppositions, each of these properties implies the coexistence in the same system of the opposite property; length could not exist without shortness, voicing without voicelessness, the acute character without the grave character, and vice versa. The duality of opposites is therefore not arbitrary, but necessary. The oppositions themselves also do not stand alone in the phonological system. The oppositions of the distinctive features are interdependent, i.e., the existence of one opposition implies, permits or precludes the coexistence of such and such other opposition in the same phonological system, in the same way that the presence of one particular distinctive feature implies the absence, or the necessary (or at least probable) presence of such and such other distinctive properties in the same phoneme. Here again arbitrariness has very restricted scope.Apart from the typological study of the greatest variety of the world’s language systems, it is the structural analysis of language in the process of development – the analysis of children’s language and its general laws – and of language in the process of disintegration – aphasic language – which enables us to throw light on the selection of phonemes, the distinctive features, and their mutual relations, and to get closer to the main principles of this selection and of this interdependence so as to be in a position to establish and explain the universal laws which underlie the phonological structure of the world’s languages. The systematic investigation of the way in which phonological resources are put to use in the construction of grammatical forms, which was initiated by Baudouin’s school and by the Prague circle under the name of ‘morphology,’ promises to construct an indispensable bridge between the study of sound and that of meaning, as long as one takes into account the range of linguistic levels and what is specifically fundamental to each of them. Further Reading:Biography \|Saussure \|Barthes \|Talcott Parsons \|Lévi-Strauss \|Durkheim \|AlthusserPhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org" }
{ "content": " Max Weber (c. 1897)Definition of SociologySource: Max Weber, Sociological Writings. Edited by Wolf Heydebrand, published in 1994 by Continuum. Sections on foundations reproduced here;Transcribed: by Andy Blunden in 1998, proofed and corrected 1999.Sociology (in the sense in which this highly ambiguous word isused here) is a science which attempts the interpretive understandingof social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanationof its course and effects. In “action” is included allhuman behaviour when and insofar as the acting individual attachesa subjective meaning to it. Action in this sense may be eitherovert or purely inward or subjective; it may consist of positiveintervention in a situation, or of deliberately refraining fromsuch intervention or passively acquiescing in the situation. Actionis social insofar as, by virtue of the subjective meaning attachedto it by the acting individual (or individuals), it takes accountof the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented in its course.The Methodological Foundations of Sociology.1. “Meaning” may be of two kinds. Theterm may refer first to the actual existing meaning in the givenconcrete case of a particular actor, or to the average or approximatemeaning attributable to a given plurality of actors; or secondlyto the theoretically conceived pure type of subjective meaningattributed to the hypothetical actor or actors in a given typeof action. In no case does it refer to an objectively “correct”meaning or one which is “true” in some metaphysicalsense. It is this which distinguishes the empirical sciences ofaction, such as sociology and history, from the dogmatic disciplinesin that area, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, and aesthetics,which seek to ascertain the “true” and “valid”meanings associated with the objects of their investigation.2. The line between meaningful action and merelyreactive behaviour to which no subjective meaning is attached,cannot be sharply drawn empirically. A very considerable partof all sociologically relevant behaviour, especially purely traditionalbehaviour, is marginal between the two. In the case of many psychophysicalprocesses, meaningful (i.e., subjectively understandable) actionis not to be found at all; in others it is discernible only bythe expert psychologist. Many mystical experiences which cannotbe adequately communicated in words are, for a person who is notsusceptible to such experiences, not fully understandable. Atthe same time the ability to imagine one’s self performing a similaraction is not a necessary prerequisite to understanding; “oneneed not have been Caesar in order to understand Caesar.”For the verifiable accuracy of interpretation of the meaning ofa phenomenon, it is a great help to be able to put one’s selfimaginatively in the place of the actor and thus sympatheticallyto participate in his experiences, but this is not an essentialcondition of meaningful interpretation. Understandable and non-understandablecomponents of a process are often intermingled and bound up together.3. All interpretation of meaning, like all scientificobservation, strives for clarity and verifiable accuracy of insightand comprehension. The basis for certainty in understanding canbe either rational, which can be further subdivided into logicaland mathematical, or it can be of an emotionally empathic or artisticallyappreciative quality. In the sphere of action things are rationallyevident chiefly when we attain a completely clear intellectualgrasp of the action-elements in their intended context of meaning.Empathic or appreciative accuracy is attained when, through sympatheticparticipation, we can adequately grasp the emotional context inwhich the action took place. The highest degree of rational understandingis attained in cases involving the meanings of logically or mathematicallyrelated propositions; their meaning may be immediately and unambiguouslyintelligible. We have a perfectly clear understanding of whatit means when somebody employs the proposition 2 × 2 = 4 or thePythagorean theorem in reasoning or argument, or when someonecorrectly carries out a logical train of reasoning according toour accepted modes of thinking. In the same way we also understandwhat a person is doing when he tries to achieve certain ends bychoosing appropriate means on the basis of the facts of the situationas experience has accustomed us to interpret them. Such an interpretationof this type of rationally purposeful action possesses, for theunderstanding of the choice of means, the highest degree of verifiablecertainty. With a lower degree of certainty, which is, however,adequate for most purposes of explanation, we are able to understanderrors, including confusion of problems of the sort that we ourselvesare liable to, or the origin of which we can detect by sympatheticself-analysis.On the other hand, many ultimate ends or values toward which experienceshows that human action may be oriented, often cannot be understoodcompletely, though sometimes we are able to grasp them intellectually.The more radically they differ from our own ultimate values, however,the more difficult it is for us to make them understandable byimaginatively participating in them. Depending upon the circumstancesof the particular case we must be content either with a purelyintellectual understanding of such values or when even that fails,sometimes we must simply accept them as given data. Then we cantry to understand the action motivated by them on the basis ofwhatever opportunities for approximate emotional and intellectualinterpretation seem to be available at different points in itscourse. These difficulties apply, for instance, for people notsusceptible to the relevant values, to many unusual acts of religiousand charitable zeal; also certain kinds of extreme rationalisticfanaticism of the type involved in some forms of the ideologyof the “rights of man” are in a similar position forpeople who radically repudiate such points of view.The more we ourselves are susceptible to them the more readilycan we imaginatively participate in such emotional reactions asanxiety, anger, ambition, envy, jealousy, love, enthusiasm, pride,vengefulness, loyalty, devotion, and appetites of all sorts, andthereby understand the irrational conduct which grows out of them.Such conduct is “irrational,” that is, from the pointof view of the rational pursuit of a given end. Even when suchemotions are found in a degree of intensity of which the observerhimself is completely incapable, he can still have a significantdegree of emotional understanding of their meaning and can interpretintellectually their influence on the course of action and theselection of means.For the purposes of a typological scientific analysis it is convenientto treat all irrational, affectually determined elements of behaviouras factors of deviation from a conceptually pure type of rationalaction. For example, a panic on the stock exchange can be mostconveniently analysed by attempting to determine first what thecourse of action would have been if it had not been influenced" }
{ "content": "by irrational affects; it is then possible to introduce the irrationalcomponents as accounting for the observed deviations from thishypothetical course. Similarly, in analysing a political or militarycampaign it is convenient to determine in the first place whatwould have been a rational course, given the ends of the participantsand adequate knowledge of all the circumstances. Only in thisway is it possible to assess the causal significance of irrationalfactors as accounting for the deviations from this type. The constructionof a purely rational course of action in such cases serves thesociologist as a type (“ideal type”) which has the meritof clear understandability and lack of ambiguity. By comparisonwith this it is possible to understand the ways in which actualaction is influenced by irrational factors of all sorts, suchas affects and errors, in that they account for the deviationfrom the line of conduct which would be expected on the hypothesisthat the action were purely rational.Only in this respect and for these reasons of methodological convenience,is the method of sociology “rationalistic.” It is naturallynot legitimate to interpret this procedure as involving a “rationalisticbias” of sociology, but only as a methodological device.It certainly does not involve a belief in the actual predominanceof rational elements in human life, for on the question of howfar this predominance does or does not exist, nothing whateverhas been said. That there is, however, a danger of rationalisticinterpretations where they are out of place naturally cannot bedenied. All experience unfortunately confirms the existence ofthis danger.4. In all the sciences of human action, accountmust be taken of processes and phenomena which are devoid of subjectivemeaning, in the role of stimuli, results, favouring or hinderingcircumstances. To be devoid of meaning is not identical with beinglifeless or non-human; every artefact, such as for example a machine,can be understood only in terms of the meaning which its productionand use have had or will have for human action; a meaning whichmay derive from a relation to exceedingly various purposes. Withoutreference to this meaning such an object remains wholly unintelligible.That which is intelligible or understandable about it is thusits relation to human action in the role either of means or ofend; a relation of which the actor or actors can be said to havebeen aware and to which their action has been oriented. Only interms of such categories is it possible to “understand”objects of this kind. On the other hand, processes or conditions,whether they are animate or inanimate, human or non-human, arein the present sense devoid of meaning insofar as they cannotbe related to an intended purpose. That is to say they are devoidof meaning if they cannot be related to action in the role ofmeans or ends but constitute only the stimulus, the favouringor hindering circumstances. It may be that the incursion of theDollart at the beginning of the twelfth century had historicalsignificance as a stimulus to the beginning of certain migrationsof considerable importance. Human mortality, indeed the organiclife cycle generally from the helplessness of infancy to thatof old age, is naturally of the very greatest sociological importancethrough the various ways in which human action has been orientedto these facts. To still another category of facts devoid of meaningbelong certain psychic or psycho-physical phenomena such as fatigue,habituation, memory, etc.; also certain typical states of euphoriaunder some conditions of ascetic mortification; finally, typicalvariations in the reactions of individuals according to reaction-time,precision, and other modes. But in the last analysis the sameprinciple applies to these as to other phenomena which are devoidof meaning. Both the actor and the sociologist must accept themas data to be taken into account.It is altogether possible that future research may be able todiscover non-understandable uniformities underlying what has appearedto be specifically meaningful action, though little has been accomplishedin this direction thus far. Thus, for example, differences inhereditary biological constitution, as of “races,” wouldhave to be treated by sociology as given data in the same wayas the physiological facts of the need of nutrition or the effectof senescence on action. This would be the case if, and insofaras, we had statistically conclusive proof of their influence onsociologically relevant behaviour. The recognition of the causalsignificance of such factors would naturally not in the leastalter the specific task of sociological analysis or of that ofthe other sciences of action, which is the interpretation of actionin terms of its subjective meaning. The effect would be only tointroduce certain non-understandable data of the same order asothers which, it has been noted above, are already present, intothe complex of subjectively understandable motivation at certainpoints. Thus it may come to be known that there are typical relationsbetween the frequency of certain types of teleological orientationof action or of the degree of certain kinds of rationality andthe cephalic index or skin colour or any other biologically inheritedcharacteristic.5. Understanding may be of two kinds: the firstis the direct observational understanding of the subjective meaningof a given act as such, including verbal utterances. We thus understandby direct observation, in this sense, the meaning of the proposition2 × 2 =4 when we hear or read it. This is a case of the directrational understanding of ideas. We also understand an outbreakof anger as manifested by facial expression, exclamations or irrationalmovements. This is direct observational understanding of irrationalemotional reactions. We can understand in a similar observationalway the action of a woodcutter or of somebody who reaches forthe knob to shut a door or who aims a gun at an animal. This isrational observational understanding of actions.Understanding may, however, be of another sort, namely explanatoryunderstanding. Thus we understand in terms of motive the meaningan actor attaches to the proposition twice two equals four, whenhe states it or writes it down, in that we understand what makeshim do this at precisely this moment and in these circumstances.Understanding in this sense is attained if we know that he isengaged in balancing a ledger or in making a scientific demonstration,or is engaged in some other task of which this particular actwould be an appropriate part. This is rational understanding ofmotivation, which consists in placing the act in an intelligibleand more inclusive context of meaning. Thus we understand thechopping of wood or aiming of a gun in terms of motive in addition" }
{ "content": "to direct observation if we know that the wood-chopper is workingfor a wage, or is chopping a supply of firewood for his own use,or possibly is doing it for recreation. But he might also be “workingoff” a fit of rage, an irrational case. Similarly we understandthe motive of a person aiming a gun if we know that he has beencommanded to shoot as a member of a firing squad, that he is fightingagainst an enemy, or that he is doing it for revenge. The lastis affectually determined and thus in a certain sense irrational.Finally we have a motivational understanding of the outburst ofanger if we know that it has been provoked by jealousy, injuredpride, or an insult. The last examples are all affectually determinedand hence derived from irrational motives. In all the above casesthe particular act has been placed in an understandable sequenceof motivation, the understanding of which can be treated as anexplanation of the actual course of behaviour. Thus for a sciencewhich is concerned with the subjective meaning of action, explanationrequires a grasp of the complex of meaning in which an actualcourse of understandable action thus interpreted belongs. In allsuch cases, even where the processes are largely affectual, thesubjective meaning of the action, including that also of therelevant meaning complexes, will be called the “intended”meaning. This involves a departure from ordinary usage, whichspeaks of intention in this sense only in the case of rationallypurposive action.6. In all these cases understanding involvesthe interpretive grasp of the meaning present in one of the followingcontexts: (a) as in the historical approach, the actually intendedmeaning for concrete individual action; or (b) as in cases ofsociological mass phenomena the average of, or an approximationto, the actually intended meaning; or (c) the meaning appropriateto a scientifically formulated pure type (an ideal type) of acommon phenomenon. The concepts and “laws” of pure economictheory are examples of this kind of ideal type. They state whatcourse a given type of human action would take if it were strictlyrational, unaffected by errors or emotional factors and if, furthermore,it were completely and unequivocally directed to a single end,the maximisation of economic advantage. In reality, action takesexactly this course only in unusual cases, as sometimes on thestock exchange; and even then there is usually only an approximationto the ideal type.Every interpretation attempts to attain clarity and certainty,but no matter how clear an interpretation as such appears to befrom the point of view of meaning, it cannot on this account aloneclaim to be the causally valid interpretation. On this level itmust remain only a peculiarly plausible hypothesis. In the firstplace the “conscious motives” may well, even to theactor himself, conceal the various “motives” and “repressions”which constitute the real driving force of his action. Thus insuch cases even subjectively honest self-analysis has only a relativevalue. Then it is the task of the sociologist to be aware of thismotivational situation and to describe and analyse it, even thoughit has not actually been concretely part of the conscious “intention”of the actor; possibly not at all, at least not fully. This isa borderline case of the interpretation of meaning. Secondly,processes of action which seem to an observer to be the same orsimilar may fit into exceedingly various complexes of motive inthe case of the actual actor. Then even though the situationsappear superficially to be very similar we must actually understandthem or interpret them as very different; perhaps, in terms ofmeaning, directly opposed. Third, the actors in any given situationare often subject to opposing and conflicting impulses, all ofwhich we are able to understand. In a large number of cases weknow from experience it is not possible to arrive at even an approximateestimate of the relative strength of conflicting motives and veryoften we cannot be certain of our interpretation. Only the actualoutcome of the conflict gives a solid basis of judgment.More generally, verification of subjective interpretation by comparisonwith the concrete course of events is, as in the case of all hypotheses,indispensable. Unfortunately this type of verification is feasiblewith relative accuracy only in the few very special cases susceptibleof psychological experimentation. The approach to a satisfactorydegree of accuracy is exceedingly various, even in the limitednumber of cases of mass phenomena which can be statistically describedand unambiguously interpreted. For the rest there remains onlythe possibility of comparing the largest possible number of historicalor contemporary processes which, while otherwise similar, differin the one decisive point of their relation to the particularmotive or factor the role of which is being investigated. Thisis a fundamental task of comparative sociology. Often, unfortunatelythere is available only the dangerous and uncertain procedureof the “imaginary experiment” which consists in thinkingaway certain elements of a chain of motivation and working outthe course of action which would then probably ensue, thus arrivingat a causal judgment.For example, the generalisation called Gresham’s Law is a rationallyclear interpretation of human action under certain conditionsand under the assumption that it will follow a purely rationalcourse. How far any actual course of action corresponds to thiscan be verified only by the available statistical evidence forthe actual disappearance of undervalued monetary units from circulation.In this case our information serves to demonstrate a high degreeof accuracy. The facts of experience were known before the generalisation,which was formulated afterward; but without this successful interpretationour need for causal understanding would evidently be left unsatisfied.On the other hand, without the demonstration that what can herebe assumed to be a theoretically adequate interpretation alsois in some degree relevant to an actual course of action, a “law,” no matter how fully demonstrated theoretically, would be worthlessfor the understanding of action in the real world. In this casethe correspondence between the theoretical interpretation of motivationand its empirical verification is entirely satisfactory and thecases are numerous enough so that verification can be consideredestablished. But to take another example, Eduard Meyer has advancedan ingenious theory of the causal significance of the battlesof Marathon, Salamis, and Platea for the development of the culturalpeculiarities of Greek, and hence, more generally, Western, civilisation.This is derived from a meaningful interpretation of certain symptomaticfacts having to do with the attitudes of the Greek oracles andprophets toward the Persians. It can only be directly verified" }
{ "content": "by reference to the examples of the conduct of the Persians incases where they were victorious, as in Jerusalem, Egypt, andAsia Minor, and even this verification must necessarily remainunsatisfactory in certain respects. The striking rational plausibilityof the hypothesis must here necessarily be relied on as a support.In very many cases of historical interpretation which seem highlyplausible, however, there is not even a possibility of the orderof verification which was feasible in this case. Where this istrue the interpretation must necessarily remain a hypothesis.7. A motive is a complex of subjective meaningwhich seems to the actor himself or to the observer an adequateground for the conduct in question. We apply the term “adequacyon the level of meaning” to the subjective interpretationof a coherent course of conduct when and insofar as, accordingto our habitual modes of thought and feeling, its component partstaken in their mutual relation are recognised to constitute a“typical” complex of meaning. It is more common to say“correct.” The interpretation of a sequence of eventswill on the other hand be called causally adequate insofar as,according to established generalisations from experience, thereis a probability that it will always actually occur in the sameway. An example of adequacy on the level of meaning in this senseis what is, according to our current norms of calculation or thinking,the correct solution of an arithmetical problem. On the otherhand, a causally adequate interpretation of the same phenomenonwould concern the statistical probability that, according to verifiedgeneralisations from experience, there would be a correct or anerroneous solution of the same problem. This also refers to currentlyaccepted norms but includes taking account of typical errors orof typical confusions. Thus causal explanation depends on beingable to determine that there is a probability, which in the rareideal case can be numerically stated, but is always in some sensecalculable, that a given observable event (overt or subjective)will be followed or accompanied by another event.A correct causal interpretation of a concrete course of actionis arrived at when the overt action and the motives have bothbeen correctly apprehended and at the same time their relationhas become meaningfully comprehensible. A correct causal interpretationof typical action means that the process which is claimed to betypical is shown to be both adequately grasped on the level ofmeaning and at the same time the interpretation is to some degreecausally adequate. If adequacy in respect to meaning is lacking,then no matter how high the degree of uniformity and how preciselyits probability can be numerically determined, it is still anincomprehensible statistical probability, whether dealing withovert or subjective processes. On the other hand, even the mostperfect adequacy on the level of meaning has causal significancefrom a sociological point of view only insofar as there is somekind of proof for the existence of a probability that action infact normally takes the course which has been held to be meaningful.For this there must be some degree of determinable frequency ofapproximation to an average or a pure type.Statistical uniformities constitute understandable types of actionin the sense of this discussion, and thus constitute “sociologicalgeneralisations,” only when they can be regarded as manifestationsof the understandable subjective meaning of a course of socialaction. Conversely, formulations of a rational course of subjectivelyunderstandable action constitute sociological types of empiricalprocess only when they can be empirically observed with a significantdegree of approximation. It is unfortunately by no means the casethat the actual likelihood of the occurrence of a given courseof overt action is always directly proportional to the clarityof subjective interpretation. There are statistics of processesdevoid of meaning such as death rates, phenomena of fatigue, theproduction rate of machines, the amount of rainfall, in exactlythe same sense as there are statistics of meaningful phenomena.But only when the phenomena are meaningful is it convenient tospeak of sociological statistics. Examples are such cases as crimerates, occupational distributions, price statistics, and statisticsof crop acreage. Naturally there are many cases where both componentsare involved, as in crop statistics.8. Processes and uniformities which it has hereseemed convenient not to designate as (in the present case) sociologicalphenomena or uniformities because they are not “understandable,”are naturally not on that account any the less important. Thisis true even for sociology in the present sense which restrictsit to subjectively understandable phenomena – a usage which thereis no intention of attempting to impose on anyone else. Such phenomena,however important, are simply treated by a different method fromthe others; they become conditions, stimuli, furthering or hinderingcircumstances of action.9. Action in the sense of a subjectively understandableorientation of behaviour exists only as the behaviour of one ormore individual human beings. For other cognitive purposes itmay be convenient or necessary to consider the individual, forinstance, as a collection of cells, as a complex of biochemicalreactions, or to conceive his “psychic” life as madeup of a variety of different elements, however these may be defined.Undoubtedly such procedures yield valuable knowledge of causalrelationships. But the behaviour of these elements, as expressedin such uniformities, is not subjectively understandable. Thisis true even of psychic elements because the more precisely theyare formulated from a point of view of natural science, the lessthey are accessible to subjective understanding. This is neverthe road to interpretation in terms of subjective meaning. Onthe contrary, both for sociology in the present sense, and forhistory, the object of cognition is the subjective meaning-complexof action. The behaviour of physiological entities such as cells,or of any sort of psychic elements may at least in principle beobserved and an attempt made to derive uniformities from suchobservations. It is further possible to attempt, with their help,to obtain a causal explanation of individual phenomena; that is,to subsume them under uniformities. But the subjective understandingof action takes the same account of this type of fact and uniformityas of any others not capable of subjective interpretation. Thisis true, for example, of physical, astronomical, geological, meteorological,geographical, botanical, zoological, and anatomical facts andof such facts as those aspects of psychopathology which are devoidof subjective meaning or the facts of the natural conditions oftechnological processes.For still other cognitive purposes as, for instance, juristic,or for practical ends, it may on the other hand be convenientor even indispensable to treat social collectivities, such asstates, associations, business corporations, foundations, as if" }
{ "content": "they were individual persons. Thus they may be treated as thesubjects of rights and duties or as the performers of legallysignificant actions. But for the subjective interpretation ofaction in sociological work these collectivities must be treatedas solely the resultants and modes of organisation of the particularacts of individual persons, since these alone can be treated asagents in a course of subjectively understandable action. Nevertheless,the sociologist cannot for his purposes afford to ignore thesecollective concepts derived from other disciplines. For the subjectiveinterpretation of action has at least two important relationsto these concepts. In the first place it is often necessary toemploy very similar collective concepts, indeed often using thesame terms, in order to obtain an understandable terminology.Thus both in legal terminology and in everyday speech the term“state” is used both for the legal concept of the stateand for the phenomena of social action to which its legal rulesare relevant. For sociological purposes, however, the phenomenon“the state” does not consist necessarily or even primarilyof the elements which are relevant to legal analysis; and forsociological purposes there is no such thing as a collective personalitywhich “acts.” When reference is made in a sociologicalcontext to a “state,” a “nation,” a “corporation,”a “family,” or an “army corps,” or to similarcollectivities, what is meant is, on the contrary, only a certainkind of development of actual or possible social actions of individualpersons. Both because of its precision and because it is establishedin general usage the juristic concept is taken over, but is usedin an entirely different meaning.Secondly, the subjective interpretation of action must take accountof a fundamentally important fact. These concepts of collectiveentities which are found both in common sense and in juristicand other technical forms of thought, have a meaning in the mindsof individual persons, partly as of something actually existing,partly as something with normative authority. This is true notonly of judges and officials, but of ordinary private individualsas well. Actors thus in part orient their action to them, andin this role such ideas have a powerful, often a decisive, causalinfluence on the course of action of real individuals. This isabove all true where the ideas concern a recognised positive ornegative normative pattern. Thus, for instance, one of the importantaspects of the “existence” of a modern state, preciselyas a complex of social interaction of individual persons, consistsin the fact that the action of various individuals is orientedto the belief that it exists or should exist, thus that its actsand laws are valid in the legal sense. This will be further discussedbelow. Though extremely pedantic and cumbersome it would be possible,if purposes of sociological terminology alone were involved, toeliminate such terms entirely, and substitute newly-coined words.This would be possible even though the word “state”is used ordinarily not only to designate the legal concept butalso the real process of action. But in the above important connection,at least, this would naturally be impossible.Thirdly, it is the method of the so-called “organic”school of sociology to attempt to understand social interactionby using as a point of departure the “whole” withinwhich the individual acts. His action and behaviour are then interpretedsomewhat in the way that a physiologist would treat the role ofan organ of the body in the “economy” of the organism,that is from the point of view of the survival of the latter.How far in other disciplines this type of functional analysisof the relation of “parts” to a “whole” canbe regarded as definitive, cannot be discussed here; but it iswell known that the biochemical and biophysical modes of analysisof the organism are in principle opposed to stopping there. Forpurposes of sociological analysis two things can be said. First,this functional frame of reference is convenient for purposesof practical illustration and for provisional orientation. Inthese respects it is not only useful but indispensable. But atthe same time if its cognitive value is overestimated and itsconcepts illegitimately “reified,” it can be highlydangerous. Secondly, in certain circumstances this is the onlyavailable way of determining just what processes of social actionit is important to understand in order to explain a given phenomenon.But this is only the beginning of sociological analysis as hereunderstood. In the case of social collectivities, precisely asdistinguished from organisms, we are in a position to go beyondmerely demonstrating functional relationships and uniformities.We can accomplish something which is never attainable in the naturalsciences, namely the subjective understanding of the action ofthe component individuals. The natural sciences on the other handcannot do this, being limited to the formulation of causal uniformitiesin objects and events, and the explanation of individual factsby applying them. We do not “understand” the behaviourof cells, but can only observe the relevant functional relationshipsand generalise on the basis of these observations. This additionalachievement of explanation by interpretive understanding, as distinguishedfrom external observation, is of course attained only at a price- the more hypothetical and fragmentary character of its results.Nevertheless, subjective understanding is the specific characteristicof sociological knowledge.It would lead too far afield even to attempt to discuss how farthe behaviour of animals is subjectively understandable to usand vice versa; in both cases the meaning of the term understandingand its extent of application would be highly problematical. Butinsofar as such understanding existed it would be theoreticallypossible to formulate a sociology of the relations of men to animals,both domestic and wild. Thus many animals “understand”commands, anger, love, hostility, and react to them in ways whichare evidently often by no means purely instinctive and mechanicaland in some sense both consciously meaningful and affected byexperience. There is no a priori reason to suppose that our abilityto share the feelings of primitive men is very much greater. Unfortunatelywe either do not have any reliable means of determining the subjectivestate of mind of an animal or what we have is at best very unsatisfactory.It is well known that the problems of animal psychology, howeverinteresting, are very thorny ones. There are in particular variousforms of social organisation among animals: “monogamous andpolygamous families,” herds, flocks, and finally “state,”with a functional division of labor. The extent of functionaldifferentiation found in these animal societies is by no means,however, entirely a matter of the degree of organic or morphologicaldifferentiation of the individual members of the species. Thus,the functional differentiation found among the termites, and in" }
{ "content": "consequence that of the products of their social activities, ismuch more advanced than in the case of the bees and ants. In thisfield it goes without saying that a purely functional point ofview is often the best that can, at least for the present, beattained, and the investigator must be content with it. Thus itis possible to study the ways in which the species provides forits survival; that is, for nutrition, defence, reproduction, andreconstruction of the social units. As the principal bearers ofthese functions, differentiated types of individuals can be identified:“kings,” “queens,” “workers,” “soldiers,”“drones,” “propagators,” “queen’s substitutes,”and so on. Anything more than that was for a long time merelya matter of speculation or of an attempt to determine the extentto which heredity on the one hand and environment on the otherwould be involved in the development of these “social”proclivities. This was particularly true of the controversiesbetween Gotte and Weisman. The latter’s conception of the omnipotenceof natural selection was largely based on wholly non-empiricaldeductions. But all serious authorities are naturally fully agreedthat the limitation of analysis to the functional level is onlya necessity imposed by our present ignorance which it is hopedwill only be temporary.It is relatively easy to grasp the significance of the functionsof these various differentiated types for survival. It is alsonot difficult to work out the bearing of the hypothesis of theinheritance of acquired characteristics or its reverse on theproblem of explaining how these differentiations have come about,and further, what is the bearing of different variants of thetheory of heredity. But this is not enough. We would like especiallyto know first what factors account for the original differentiationof specialised types from the still neutral undifferentiated species-type.Secondly, it would be important to know what leads the differentiatedindividual in the typical case to behave in a way which actuallyserves the survival value of the organised group. Wherever researchhas made any progress in the solution of these problems it hasbeen through the experimental demonstration of the probabilityor possibility of the role of chemical stimuli or physiologicalprocesses, such as nutritional states, the effects of parasiticcastration, etc., in the case of the individual organism. Howfar there is even a hope that the existence of “subjective”or “meaningful” orientation could be made experimentallyprobable, even the specialist today would hardly be in a positionto say. A verifiable conception of the state of mind of thesesocial animals, accessible to meaningful understanding, wouldseem to be attainable even as an ideal goal only within narrowlimits. However that may be, a contribution to the understandingof human social action is hardly to be expected from this quarter.On the contrary, in the field of animal psychology, human analogiesare and must be continually employed. The most that can be hopedfor is, then, that these biological analogies may some day beuseful in suggesting significant problems. For instance they maythrow light on the question of the relative role in the earlystages of human social differentiation of mechanical and instinctivefactors, as compared with that of the factors which are accessibleto subjective interpretation generally, and more particularlyto the role of consciously rational action. It is necessary forthe sociologist to be thoroughly aware of the fact that in theearly stages even of human development, the first set of factorsis completely predominant. Even in the later stages he must takeaccount of their continual interaction with the others in a rolewhich is often of decisive importance. This is particularly trueof all “traditional” action and of many aspects of charisma.In the latter field of phenomena lie the seeds of certain typesof psychic “contagion” and it is thus the bearer ofmany dynamic tendencies of social processes. These types of actionare very closely related to phenomena which are understandableeither only in biological terms or are subject to interpretationin terms of subjective motives only in fragments and with an almostimperceptible transition to the biological. But all these factsdo not discharge sociology from the obligation, in full awarenessof the narrow limits to which it is confined, to accomplish whatit alone can do.The various works of Othmar Spann are often full of suggestiveideas, though at the same time he is guilty of occasional misunderstandings,and above all, of arguing on the basis of pure value judgmentswhich have no place in an empirical investigation. But he is undoubtedlycorrect in doing something to which, however, no one seriouslyobjects, namely, emphasising the sociological significance ofthe functional point of view for preliminary orientation to problems.This is what he calls the “universalistic method.” Wecertainly need to know what kind of action is functionally necessaryfor “survival,” but further and above all for the maintenanceof a cultural type and the continuity of the corresponding modesof social action, before it is possible even to inquire how thisaction has come about and what motives determine it. It is necessaryto know what a “king,” an “official,” an “entrepreneur,”a “procurer,” or a “magician” does; that is,what kind of typical action, which justifies classifying an individualin one of these categories, is important and relevant for an analysis,before it is possible to undertake the analysis itself. But itis only this analysis itself which can achieve the sociologicalunderstanding of the actions of typically differentiated human(and only human) individuals, and which hence constitutes thespecific function of sociology. It is a monstrous misunderstandingto think that an “individualistic” method should involvewhat is in any conceivable sense an individualistic system ofvalues. It is as important to avoid this error as the relatedone which confuses the unavoidable tendency of sociological conceptsto assume a rationalistic character with a belief in the predominanceof rational motives, or even a positive valuation of “rationalism.”Even a socialistic economy would have to be understood sociologicallyin exactly the same kind of “individualistic” terms;that is, in terms of the action of individuals, the types of “officials”found in it, as would be the case with a system of free exchangeanalysed in terms of the theory of marginal utility. It mightbe possible to find a better method, but in this respect it wouldbe similar. The real empirical sociological investigation beginswith the question: What motives determine and lead the individualmembers and participants in this socialistic community to behavein such a way that the community came into being in the first" }
{ "content": "place, and that it continues to exist? Any form of functionalanalysis which proceeds from the whole to the parts can accomplishonly a preliminary preparation for this investigation – a preparation,the utility and indispensability of which, if properly carriedout, is naturally beyond question.10. It is customary to designate various sociologicalgeneralisations, as for example “Gresham’s Law,” asscientific “laws.” These are in fact typical probabilitiesconfirmed by observation to the effect that under certain givenconditions an expected course of social action will occur, whichis understandable in terms of the typical motives and typicalsubjective intentions of the actors. These generalisations areboth understandable and define in the highest degree insofar asthe typically observed course of action can be understood in termsof the purely rational pursuit of an end, or where for reasonsof methodological convenience such a theoretical type can be heuristicallyemployed. In such cases the relations of means and end will beclearly understandable on grounds of experience, particularlywhere the choice of means was “inevitable.” In suchcases it is legitimate to assert that insofar as the action wasrigorously rational it could not have taken any other course becausefor technical reasons, given their clearly defined ends, no othermeans were available to the actors. This very case demonstrateshow erroneous it is to regard any kind of “psychology”as the ultimate foundation of the sociological interpretationof action. The term “psychology,” to be sure, is todayunderstood in a wide variety of senses. For certain quite specificmethodological purposes the type of treatment which attempts tofollow the procedures of the natural sciences employs a distinctionbetween “physical” and “psychic” phenomenawhich is entirely foreign to the disciplines concerned with humanaction, at least in the present sense. The results of a type ofpsychological investigation which employs the methods of the naturalsciences in any one of various possible ways may naturally, likethe results of any other science, have, in specific contexts,outstanding significance for sociological problems; indeed thishas often happened. But this use of the results of psychologyis something quite different from the investigation of human behaviourin terms of its subjective meaning. Hence sociology has no closerlogical relationship on a general analytical level to this typeof psychology than to any other science. The source of error liesin the concept of the “psychic.” It is held that everythingwhich is not physical is ipso facto psychic, but that the meaningof a train of mathematical reasoning which a person carries outis not in the relevant sense “psychic.” Similarly therational deliberation of an actor as to whether the results ofa given proposed course of action will or will not promote certainspecific interests, and the corresponding decision, do not becomeone bit more understandable by taking “psychological”considerations into account. But it is precisely on the basisof such rational assumptions that most of the laws of sociology,including those of economics, are built up. On the other hand,in explaining the irrationalities of action sociologically, thatform of psychology which employs the method of subjective understandingundoubtedly can make decisively important contributions. But thisdoes not alter the fundamental methodological situation.11. It has continually been assumed as obviousthat the science of sociology seeks to formulate type conceptsand generalised uniformities of empirical process. This distinguishesit from history, which is oriented to the causal analysis andexplanation of individual actions, structures, and personalitiespossessing cultural significance. The empirical material whichunderlies the concepts of sociology consists to a very large extent,though by no means exclusively, of the same concrete processesof action which are dealt with by historians. Among the variousbases on which its concepts are formulated and its generalisationsworked out, is an attempt to justify its important claim to beable to make a contribution to the causal explanation of somehistorically and culturally important phenomenon. As in the caseof every generalising science, the abstract character of the conceptsof sociology is responsible for the fact that, compared with actualhistorical reality, they are relatively lacking in fullness ofconcrete content. To compensate for this disadvantage, sociologicalanalysis can offer a greater precision of concepts. This precisionis obtained by striving for the highest possible degree of adequacyon the level of meaning in accordance with the definition of thatconcept put forward above. It has already been repeatedly stressedthat this aim can be realised in a particularly high degree inthe case of concepts and generalisations which formulate rationalprocesses. But sociological investigation attempts to includein its scope various irrational phenomena, as well as prophetic,mystic, and affectual modes of action, formulated in terms oftheoretical concepts which are adequate on the level of meaning.In all cases, rational or irrational, sociological analysis bothabstracts from reality and at the same time helps us to understandit, in that it shows with what degree of approximation a concretehistorical phenomenon can be subsumed under one or more of theseconcepts. For example, the same historical phenomenon may be inone aspect “feudal,” in another “patrimonial,”in another “bureaucratic,” and in still another “charismatic.”In order to give a precise meaning to these terms, it is necessaryfor the sociologist to formulate pure ideal types of the correspondingforms of action which in each case involve the highest possibledegree of logical integration by virtue of their complete adequacyon the level of meaning. But precisely because this is true, itis probably seldom if ever that a real phenomenon can be foundwhich corresponds exactly to one of these ideally constructedpure types. The case is similar to a physical reaction which hasbeen calculated on the assumption of an absolute vacuum. Theoreticalanalysis in the field of sociology is possible only in terms ofsuch pure types. It goes without saying that in addition it isconvenient for the sociologist from time to time to employ averagetypes of an empirical statistical character. These are conceptswhich do not require methodological discussion at this point.But when reference is made to “typical” cases, the termshould always be understood, unless otherwise stated, as meaningideal-types, which may in turn be rational or irrational as thecase may be (thus in economic theory they are always rational),but in any case are always constructed with a view to adequacyon the level of meaning.It is important to realise that in the sociological field as elsewhere,averages, and hence average types, can be formulated with a relativedegree of precision only where they are concerned with differencesof degree in respect to action which remains qualitatively the" }
{ "content": "same. Such cases do occur, but in the majority of cases of actionimportant to history or sociology the motives which determineit are qualitatively heterogeneous. Then it is quite impossibleto speak of an “average” in the true sense. The ideal-typesof social action which for instance are used in economic theoryare thus “unrealistic” or abstract in that they alwaysask what course of action would take place if it were purely rationaland oriented to economic ends alone. But this construction canbe used to aid in the understanding of action not purely economicallydetermined but which involves deviations arising from traditionalrestraints, affects, errors, and the intrusion of other than economicpurposes or considerations. This can take place in two ways. First,in analysing the extent to which in the concrete case, or on theaverage for a class of cases, the action was in part economicallydetermined along with the other factors. Secondly, by throwingthe discrepancy between the actual course of events and the ideal-typeinto relief, the analysis of the non-economic motives actuallyinvolved is facilitated. The procedure would be very similar inemploying an ideal-type of mystical orientation with its appropriateattitude of indifference to worldly things, as a tool for analysingits consequences for the actor’s relation to ordinary life; forinstance, to political or economic affairs. The more sharply andprecisely the ideal-type has been constructed, thus the more abstractand unrealistic in this sense it is, the better it is able toperform its methodological functions in formulating the clarificationof terminology, and in the formulation of classifications, andof hypotheses. In working out a concrete causal explanation ofindividual events, the procedure of the historian is essentiallythe same. Thus in attempting to explain the campaign of 1866,it is indispensable both in the case of Moltke and of Benedekto attempt to construct imaginatively how each, given fully adequateknowledge both of his own situation and of that of his opponent,would have acted. Then it is possible to compare with this theactual course of action and to arrive at a causal explanationof the observed deviations, which will be attributed to such factorsas misinformation, strategical errors, logical fallacies, personaltemperament, or considerations outside the realm of strategy.Here, too, an ideal-typical construction of rational action isactually employed even though it is not made explicit.The theoretical concepts of sociology are ideal-types not onlyfrom the objective point of view, but also in their applicationto subjective processes. In the great majority of cases actualaction goes on in a state of inarticulate half-consciousness oractual unconsciousness of its subjective meaning. The actor ismore likely to “be aware” of it in a vague sense thanhe is to “know” what he is doing or be explicitly self-consciousabout it. In most cases his action is governed by impulse or habit.Only occasionally and, in the uniform action of large numbersoften only in the case of a few individuals, is the subjectivemeaning of the action, whether rational or irrational, broughtclearly into consciousness. The ideal-type of meaningful actionwhere the meaning is fully conscious and explicit is a marginalcase. Every sociological or historical investigation, in applyingits analysis to the empirical facts, must take this fact intoaccount. But the difficulty need not prevent the sociologist fromsystematising his concepts by the classification of possible typesof subjective meaning. That is, he may reason as if action actuallyproceeded on the basis of clearly self-conscious meaning. Theresulting deviation from the concrete facts must continually bekept in mind whenever it is a question of this level of concreteness,and must be carefully studied with reference both to degree andkind. It is often necessary to choose between terms which areeither clear or unclear. Those which are clear will, to be sure,have the abstractness of ideal types, but they are nonethelesspreferable for scientific purposes. “Objectivity” in Social ScienceThere is no absolutely “objective” scientific analysisof culture – or put perhaps more narrowly but certainly not essentiallydifferently for our purposes – of “social phenomena”independent of special and “one-sided” viewpoints accordingto which – expressly or tacitly, consciously or unconsciously– they are selected, analysed and organised for expository purposes.The reasons for this lie in the character of the cognitive goalof all research in social science which seeks to transcend thepurely formal treatment of the legal or conventional norms regulatingsocial life.The type of social science in which we are interested is an empiricalscience of concrete reality. Our aim is the understanding of thecharacteristic uniqueness of the reality in which we move. Wewish to understand on the one hand the relationships and the culturalsignificance of individual events in their contemporary manifestationsand on the other the causes of their being historically so andnot otherwise. Now, as soon as we attempt to reflect about theway in which life confronts us in immediate concrete situations,it presents an infinite multiplicity of successively and coexistentlyemerging and disappearing events, both “within” and“outside” ourselves. The absolute infinitude of thismultiplicity is seen to remain undiminished even when our attentionis focused on a single “object,” for instance, a concreteact of exchange, as soon as we seriously attempt an exhaustivedescription of all the individual components of this “individualphenomenon,” to say nothing of explaining it causally. Allthe analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind canconduct rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portionof this reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation,and that only it is “important” in the sense of being“worthy of being known.” But what are the criteria bywhich this segment is selected? It has often been thought thatthe decisive criterion in the cultural sciences, too, was in thelast analysis, the “regular” recurrence of certain causalrelationships. The “laws” which we are able to perceivein the infinitely manifold stream of events must – according tothis conception – contain the scientifically “essential”aspect of reality. As soon as we have shown some causal relationshipto be a “law,” (i.e., if we have shown it to be universallyvalid by means of comprehensive historical induction, or havemade it immediately and tangibly plausible according to our subjectiveexperience), a great number of similar cases order themselvesunder the formula thus attained. Those elements in each individualevent which are left unaccounted for by the selection of theirelements subsumable under the “law” are considered asscientifically unintegrated residues which will be taken careof in the further perfection of the system of “laws.”" }
{ "content": "Alternatively they will be viewed as “accidental” andtherefore scientifically unimportant because they do not fit intothe structure of the “law;” in other words, they arenot typical of the event and hence can only be the objects of“idle curiosity.” Accordingly, even among the followersof the Historical School we continually find the attitude whichdeclares that the ideal, which all the sciences, including thecultural sciences, serve and toward which they should strive evenin the remote future, is a system of propositions from which realitycan be “deduced.” As is well known, a leading naturalscientist believed that he could designate the (factually unattainable)ideal goal of such a treatment of cultural reality as a sort of“astronomical” knowledge.Let us not, for our part, spare ourselves the trouble of examiningthese matters more closely – however often they have already beendiscussed. The first thing that impresses one is that the “astronomical”knowledge which was referred to is not a system of laws at all.On the contrary, the laws which it presupposes have been takenfrom other disciplines like mechanics. But it too concerns itselfwith the question of the individual consequence which the workingof these laws in a unique configuration produces, since it isthese individual configurations which are significant for us.Every individual constellation which it “explains” orpredicts is causally explicable only as the consequence of anotherequally individual constellation which has preceded it. As farback as we may go into the grey mist of the far-off past, thereality to which the laws apply always remains equally individual,equally undeducible from laws. A cosmic “primeval state”which had no individual character or less individual characterthan the cosmic reality of the present would naturally be a meaninglessnotion. But is there not some trace of similar ideas in our fieldin those propositions sometimes derived from natural law andsometimes verified by the observation of “primitives,”concerning an economic-social “primeval state” freefrom historical “accidents,” and characterised by phenomenasuch as “primitive agrarian communism,” sexual “promiscuity,”etc., from which individual historical development emerges bya sort of fall from grace into concreteness?The social-scientific interest has its point of departure, ofcourse, in the real, i.e., concrete, individually-structured configurationof our cultural life in its universal relationships which arethemselves no less individually structured, and in its developmentout of other social cultural conditions, which themselves areobviously likewise individually structured. It is clear here thatthe situation which we illustrated by reference to astronomy asa limiting case (which is regularly drawn on by logicians forthe same purpose) appears in a more accentuated form. Whereasin astronomy, the heavenly bodies are of interest to us only intheir quantitative and exact aspects, the qualitative aspect ofphenomena concerns us in the social sciences. To this should beadded that in the social sciences we are concerned with psychologicaland intellectual phenomena the empathic understanding of whichis naturally a problem of a specifically different type from thosewhich the schemes of the exact natural sciences in general canor seek to solve. Despite that, this distinction in itself isnot a distinction in principle, as it seems at first glance. Asidefrom pure mechanics, even the exact natural sciences do not proceedwithout qualitative categories. Furthermore, in our own fieldwe encounter the idea (which is obviously distorted) that at leastthe phenomena characteristic of a money-economy – which are basicto our culture – are quantifiable and on that account subjectto formulation as “laws.” Finally it depends on thebreadth or narrowness of one’s definition of “law” asto whether one will also include regularities which because theyare not quantifiable are not subject to numerical analysis. Especiallyinsofar as the influence of psychological and intellectual factorsis concerned, it does not in any case exclude the establishmentof rules governing rational conduct. Above all, the point of viewstill persists which claims that the task of psychology is toplay a role comparable to mathematics for the Geisteswissenschaftenin the sense that it analyses the complicated phenomena of sociallife into their psychic conditions and effects, reduces them totheir most elementary possible psychic factors and then analysestheir functional interdependences. Thereby a sort of “chemistry,”if not “mechanics,” of the psychic foundations of sociallife would be created. Whether such investigations can producevaluable and – what is something else – useful results for thecultural sciences, we cannot decide here. But this would be irrelevantto the question as to whether the aim of socioeconomic knowledgein our sense, i.e., knowledge of reality with respect to its culturalsignificance and its causal relationships, can be attained throughthe quest for recurrent sequences. Let us assume that we havesucceeded by means of psychology or otherwise in analysing allthe observed and imaginable relationships, of social phenomenainto some ultimate elementary “factors,” that we havemade an exhaustive analysis and classification of them and thenformulated rigorously exact laws covering their behaviour. – Whatwould be the significance of these results for our knowledge ofthe historically given culture or any individual phase thereof,such as capitalism, in its development and cultural significance?As an analytical tool, it would be as useful as a textbook oforganic chemical combinations would be for our knowledge of thebiogenetic aspect of the animal and plant world. In each case,certainly an important and useful preliminary step would havebeen taken. In neither case can concrete reality be deduced from“laws” and “factors.” This is not becausesome higher mysterious powers reside in living phenomena (suchas “dominants,” “entelechies,” or whateverthey might be called). This, however, presents a problem in itsown right. The real reason is that the analysis of reality isconcerned with the configuration into which those (hypothetical!)“factors” are arranged to form a cultural phenomenonwhich is historically significant to us. Furthermore, if we wishto “explain” this individual configuration “causally”we must invoke other equally individual configurations on thebasis of which we will explain it with the aid of those (hypothetical!)“laws.”The determination of those (hypothetical) “laws” and“factors” would in any case only be the first of themany operations which would lead us to the desired type of knowledge.The analysis of the historically given individual configurationof those “factors” and their significant concrete interaction,conditioned by their historical context and especially the renderingintelligible of the basis and type of this significance wouldbe the next task to be achieved. This task must be achieved, itis true, by the utilisation of the preliminary analysis, but itis nonetheless an entirely new and distinct task. The tracing" }
{ "content": "as far into the past as possible of the individual features ofthese historically evolved configurations which are contemporaneouslysignificant, and their historical explanation by antecedent andequally individual configurations would be the third task. Finallythe prediction of possible future constellations would be a conceivablefourth task.For all these purposes, clear concepts and the knowledge of those(hypothetical) “laws” are obviously of great value asheuristic means – but only as such. Indeed they are quite indispensablefor this purpose. But even in this function their limitationsbecome evident at a decisive point. In stating this, we arriveat the decisive feature of the method of the cultural sciences.We have designated as “cultural sciences” those disciplineswhich analyse the phenomena of life in terms of their culturalsignificance. The significance of a configuration of culturalphenomena and the basis of this significance cannot however bederived and rendered intelligible by a system of analytical laws,however perfect it may be, since the significance of culturalevents presupposes a value-orientation toward these events. Theconcept of culture is a value-concept. Empirical reality becomes“culture” to us because and insofar as we relate itto value ideas. It includes those segments and only those segmentsof reality which have become significant to us because of thisvalue-relevance. Only a small portion of existing concrete realityis colored by our value-conditioned interest and it alone is significantto us. It is significant because it reveals relationships whichare important to us due to their connection with our values. Onlybecause and to the extent that this is the case is it worthwhilefor us to know it in its individual features. We cannot discover,however, what is meaningful to us by means of a “presuppositionless”investigation of empirical data. Rather, perception of its meaningfulnessto us is the presupposition of its becoming an object of investigation.Meaningfulness naturally does not coincide with laws as such,and the more general the law the less the coincidence. For thespecific meaning which a phenomenon has for us is naturally notto be found in those relationships which it shares with many otherphenomena.The focus of attention on reality under the guidance of valueswhich lend it significance and the selection and ordering of thephenomena which are thus affected in the light of their culturalsignificance is entirely different from the analysis of realityin terms of laws and general concepts. Neither of these two typesof the analysis of reality has any necessary logical relationshipwith the other. They can coincide in individual instances butit would be most disastrous if their occasional coincidence causedus to think that they were not distinct in principle. The culturalsignificance of a phenomenon, e.g., the significance of exchangein a money economy, can be the fact that it exists on a mass scaleas a fundamental component of modern culture. But the historicalfact that it plays this role must be causally explained in orderto render its cultural significance understandable. The analysisof the general aspects of exchange and the technique of the marketis a – highly important and indispensable – preliminary task.For not only does this type of analysis leave unanswered the questionas to how exchange historically acquired its fundamental significancein the modern world; but above all else, the fact with which weare primarily concerned, namely, the cultural significance ofthe money-economy – for the sake of which we are interested inthe description of exchange technique, and for the sake of whichalone a science exists which deals with that technique – is notderivable from any “law.” The generic features of exchange,purchase, etc., interest the jurist – but we are concerned withthe analysis of the cultural significance of the concrete historicalfact that today exchange exists on a mass scale. When we requirean explanation, when we wish to understand what distinguishesthe social-economic aspects of our culture, for instance, fromthat of Antiquity, in which exchange showed precisely the samegeneric traits as it does today, and when we raise the questionas to where the significance of “money economy” lies,logical principles of quite heterogenous derivation enter intothe investigation. We will apply those concepts with which weare provided by the investigation of the general features of economicmass phenomena – indeed, insofar as they are relevant to the meaningfulaspects of our culture, we shall use them as means of exposition.The goal of our investigation is not reached through the expositionof those laws and concepts, precise as it may be. The questionas to what should be the object of universal conceptualisationcannot be decided “presuppositionlessly” but only withreference to the significance which certain segments of that infinitemultiplicity which we call “commerce” have for culture.We seek knowledge of an historical phenomenon, meaning by historical:significant in its individuality. And the decisive element inthis is that only through the presupposition that a finite partalone of the infinite variety of phenomena is significant, doesthe knowledge of an individual phenomenon become logically meaningful.Even with the widest imaginable knowledge of “laws,”we are helpless in the face of the question: how is the causalexplanation of an individual fact possible – since a descriptionof even the smallest slice of reality can never be exhaustive?The number and type of causes which have influenced any givenevent are always infinite and there is nothing in the things themselvesto set some of them apart as alone meriting attention. A chaosof “existential judgments” about countless individualevents would be the only result of a serious attempt to analysereality “without presuppositions.” And even this resultis only seemingly possible, since every single perception discloseson closer examination an infinite number of constituent perceptionswhich can never be exhaustively expressed in a judgment. Orderis brought into this chaos only on the condition that in everycase only a part of concrete reality is interesting and significantto us, because only it is related to the cultural values withwhich we approach reality. Only certain sides of the infinitelycomplex concrete phenomenon, namely those to which we attributea general cultural significance, are therefore worthwhile knowing.They alone are objects of causal explanation. And even this causalexplanation evinces the same character; an exhaustive causal investigationof any concrete phenomena in its full reality is not only practicallyimpossible – it is simply nonsense. We select only those causesto which are to be imputed in the individual case, the “essential”feature of an event. Where the individuality of a phenomenon isconcerned, the question of causality is not a question of laws" }
{ "content": "but of concrete causal relationships; it is not a question ofthe subsumption of the event under some general rubric as a representativecase but of its imputation as a consequence of some constellation.It is in brief a question of imputation. Wherever the causal explanationof a “cultural phenomenon” – a “historical individual”is under consideration, the knowledge of causal laws is not theend of the investigation but only a means. It facilitates andrenders possible the causal imputation to their concrete causesof those components of a phenomenon the individuality of whichis culturally significant. So far and only so far as it achievesthis, is it valuable for our knowledge of concrete relationships.And the more “general” (i.e., the more abstract) thelaws, the less they can contribute to the causal imputation ofindividual phenomena and, more indirectly, to the understandingof the significance of cultural events. What is the consequence of all this?Naturally, it does not imply that the knowledge of universal propositions,the construction of abstract concepts, the knowledge of regularitiesand the attempt to formulate “laws” have no scientificjustification in the cultural sciences. Quite the contrary, ifthe causal knowledge of the historians consists of the imputationof concrete effects to concrete causes, a valid imputation ofany individual effect without the application of “nomological”knowledge – i.e., the knowledge of recurrent causal sequences- would in general be impossible. Whether a single individualcomponent of a relationship is, in a concrete case, to be assignedcausal responsibility for an effect, the causal explanation ofwhich is at issue, can in doubtful cases be determined only byestimating the effects which we generally expect from it and fromthe other components of the same complex which are relevant tothe explanation. In other words, the “adequate” effectsof the causal elements involved must be considered in arrivingat any such conclusion. The extent to which the historian (inthe widest sense of the word) can perform this imputation in areasonably certain manner, with his imagination sharpened by personalexperience and trained in analytic methods, and the extent towhich he must have recourse to the aid of special disciplineswhich make it possible, varies with the individual case. Everywhere,however, and hence also in the sphere of complicated economicprocesses, the more certain and the more comprehensive our generalknowledge the greater is the certainty of imputation. This propositionis not in the least affected by the fact that even in the caseof all so-called “economic laws” without exception,we are concerned here not with “laws” in the narrowerexact natural-science sense, but with adequate causal relationshipsexpressed in rules and with the application of the category of“objective possibility.” The establishment of such regularitiesis not the end but rather the means of knowledge. It is entirelya question of expediency, to be settled separately for each individualcase, whether a regularly recurrent causal relationship of everydayexperience should be formulated into a “law.” Laws areimportant and valuable in the exact natural sciences, in the measurethat those sciences are universally valid. For the knowledge ofhistorical phenomena in their concreteness, the most general laws,because they are most devoid of content, are also the least valuable.The more comprehensive the validity – or scope – of a term, themore it leads us away from the richness of reality since in orderto include the common elements of the largest possible numberof phenomena, it must necessarily be as abstract as possible andhence devoid of content. In the cultural sciences, the knowledgeof the universal or general is never valuable in itself.The conclusion which follows from the above is that an “objective”analysis of cultural events, which proceeds according to the thesisthat the ideal of science is the reduction of empirical realityto “laws,” is meaningless. It is not meaningless, asis often maintained, because cultural or psychic events for instanceare “objectively” less governed by laws. It is meaninglessfor a number of other reasons. Firstly, because the knowledgeof social laws is not knowledge of social reality but is ratherone of the various aids used by our minds for attaining this end;secondly, because knowledge of cultural events is inconceivableexcept on a basis of the significance which the concrete constellationsof reality have for us in certain individual concrete situations.In which sense and in which situations this is the case is notrevealed to us by any law; it is decided according to the value-ideasin the light of which we view “culture” in each individualcase. “Culture” is a finite segment of the meaninglessinfinity of the world process, a segment on which human beingsconfer meaning and significance. This is true even for the humanbeing who views a particular culture as a mortal enemy and whoseeks to “return to nature.” He can attain this pointof view only after viewing the culture in which he lives fromthe standpoint of his values, and finding it “too soft.”This is the purely logical-formal fact which is involved whenwe speak of the logically necessary rootedness of all historicalentities in “evaluative ideas.” The transcendental presuppositionof every cultural science lies not in our finding a certain cultureor any “culture” in general to be valuable but ratherin the fact that we are cultural beings, endowed with the capacityand the will to take a deliberate attitude toward the world andto lend it significance. Whatever this significance may be, itwill lead us to judge certain phenomena of human existence inits light and to respond to them as being (positively or negatively)meaningful. Whatever may be the content of this attitude, thesephenomena have cultural significance for us and on this significancealone rests its scientific interest. Thus when we speak here ofthe conditioning of cultural knowledge through evaluative ideas(following the terminology of modern logic), it is done in thehope that we will not be subject to crude misunderstandings suchas the opinion that cultural significance should be attributedonly to valuable phenomena. Prostitution is a cultural phenomenonjust as much as religion or money. All three are cultural phenomenaonly because, and only insofar as, their existence and the formwhich they historically assume touch directly or indirectly onour cultural interests and arouse our striving for knowledge concerningproblems brought into focus by the evaluative ideas which givesignificance to the fragment of reality analysed by those concepts. All knowledge of cultural reality, as may be seen, is alwaysknowledge from particular points of view. When we require from" }
{ "content": "the historian and social research worker as an elementary presuppositionthat they distinguish the important from the trivial and thatthey should have the necessary “point of view” for thisdistinction, we mean that they must understand how to relate theevents of the real world consciously or unconsciously to universal“cultural values,” and to select out those relationshipswhich are significant for us. If the notion that those standpointscan be derived from the “facts themselves” continuallyrecurs, it is due to the naive self-deception of the specialist,who is unaware that it is due to the evaluative ideas with whichhe unconsciously approaches his subject matter, that he has selectedfrom an absolute infinity a tiny portion with the study of whichhe concerns himself In connection with this selection of individualspecial “aspects” of the event, which always and everywhereoccurs, consciously or unconsciously, there also occurs that elementof cultural-scientific work which is referred to by the often-heardassertion that the “personal” element of a scientificwork is what is really valuable in it, and that personality mustbe expressed in every work if its existence is to be justified.To be sure, without the investigator’s evaluative ideas, therewould be no principle of selection of subject-matter and no meaningfulknowledge of the concrete reality. Just as without the investigator’sconviction regarding the significance of particular cultural facts,every attempt to analyse concrete reality is absolutely meaningless,so the direction of his personal belief, the refraction of valuesin the prism of his mind, gives direction to his work. And thevalues to which the scientific genius relates the object of hisinquiry may determine (i.e., decide) the “conception”of a whole epoch, not only concerning what is regarded as “valuable,”but also concerning what is significant or insignificant, “important”or “unimportant” in the phenomena.Accordingly, cultural science in our sense involves “subjective”presuppositions insofar as it concerns itself only with thosecomponents of reality which have some relationship, however indirect,to events to which we attach cultural significance. Nonetheless,it is entirely causal knowledge exactly in the same sense as theknowledge of significant concrete natural events which have aqualitative character. Among the many confusions which the overreachingtendency of a formal-juristic outlook has brought about in thecultural sciences, there has recently appeared the attempt to“refute” the “materialistic conception of history”by a series of clever but fallacious arguments which state thatsince all economic life must take place in legally or conventionallyregulated forms, all economic “development” must takethe form of striving for the creation of new legal forms. Henceit is said to be intelligible only through ethical maxims, andis on this account essentially different from every type of “natural”development. Accordingly the knowledge of economic developmentis said to be “teleological” in character. Without wishingto discuss the meaning of the ambiguous term “development,”or the logically no-less-ambiguous term “teleology”in the social sciences, it should be stated that such knowledgeneed not be “teleological” in the sense assumed by thispoint of view. The cultural significance of normatively regulatedlegal relations and even norms themselves can undergo fundamentalrevolutionary changes even under conditions of the formal identityof the prevailing legal norms. Indeed, if one wishes to lose one’sself for a moment in fantasies about the future, one might theoreticallyimagine, let us say, the “socialisation of the means of production”unaccompanied by any conscious “striving” toward thisresult, and without even the disappearance or addition of a singleparagraph of our legal code; the statistical frequency of certainlegally regulated relationships might be changed fundamentally,and in many cases, even disappear entirely; a great number oflegal norms might become practically meaningless and their wholecultural significance changed beyond identification. De legeferenda discussions may be justifiably disregarded by the“materialistic conception of history,” since its centralproposition is the indeed inevitable change in the significanceof legal institutions. Those who view the painstaking labor ofcausally understanding historical reality as of secondary importancecan disregard it, but it is impossible to supplant it by any typeof a “teleology.” From our viewpoint, “purpose”is the conception of an effect which becomes a cause of an action.Since we take into account every cause which produces or can producea significant effect, we also consider this one. Its specificsignificance consists only in the fact that we not only observehuman conduct but can and desire to understand it.Undoubtedly, all evaluative ideas are “subjective.”Between the “historical” interest in a family chronicleand that in the development of the greatest conceivable culturalphenomena which were and are common to a nation or to mankindover long epochs, there exists an infinite gradation of “significance”arranged into an order which differs for each of us. And theyare, naturally, historically variable in accordance with the characterof the culture and the ideas which rule men’s minds. But it obviouslydoes not follow from this that research in the cultural sciencescan only have results which are “subjective” in thesense that they are valid for one person and not for others. Onlythe degree to which they interest different persons varies. Inother words, the choice of the object of investigation and theextent or depth to which this investigation attempts to penetrateinto the infinite causal web, are determined by the evaluativeideas which dominate the investigator and his age. In the methodof investigation, the guiding “point of view” is ofgreat importance for the construction of the conceptual schemewhich will be used in the investigation. In the mode of theiruse, however, the investigator is obviously bound by the normsof our thought just as much here as elsewhere. For scientifictruth is precisely what is valid for all who seek the truth. Further Reading:Max Weber Archive \|Biography \|Positivism \|Dilthey \|Poincare \|Mach \|ParetoPhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org" }
{ "content": " Vilfredo Pareto (1916)Mind & SocietySource: Mind & Society, publ. Dover, 1935. First dozen pages reproduced here.1. Human society is the subject of many researches. Some of them constitute specialised disciplines: law, politicaleconomy, political history, the history of religions, and thelike. Others have not yet been distinguished by special names. To the synthesis of them all, which aims at studying human societyin general, we may give the name of sociology.2. That definition is very inadequate. It mayperhaps be improved upon - but not much; for, after all, of noneof the sciences, not even of the several mathematical sciences,have we strict definitions. Nor can we have. Only for purposesof convenience do we divide the subject-matter of our knowledgeinto various parts, and such divisions are artificial and changein course of time. Who can mark the boundaries between chemistryand physics, or between physics and mechanics? And what are weto do with thermodynamics? If we locate that science in physics,it will fit not badly there; if we put it with mechanics, it willnot seem out of place; if we prefer to make a separate scienceof it, no one surely can find fault with us. Instead of wastingtime trying to discover the best classification for it, it willbe the wiser part to examine the facts with which it deals. Letus put names aside and consider things.In the same way, we have something better to do than to wasteour time deciding whether sociology is or is not an independentscience - whether it is anything but the \"philosophy of history\"under a different name; or to debate at any great length the methodsto be followed in the study of sociology. Let us keep to ourquest for the relationships between social facts, and people maythen give to that inquiry any name they please. And let knowledgeof such relationships be obtained by any method that will serve. We are interested in the end, and much less or not at all interestedin the means by which we attain it.3. In considering the definition of sociologyjust above we found it necessary to hint at one or two norms thatwe intend to follow in these volumes. We might do the same inother connections as occasion arises. On the other hand, we mightvery well set forth our norms once and for all. Each of thoseprocedures has its merits and its defects. Here we prefer tofollow the second.4. The principles that a writer chooses to followmay be put forward in two different ways. He may, in the firstplace, ask that his principles be accepted as demonstrated truths. If they are so accepted, all their logical implications mustalso be regarded as proved. On the other hand, he may state hisprinciples as mere indications of one course that may be followedamong the many possible. In that case any logical implicationwhich they may contain is in no sense demonstrated in the concrete,but is merely hypothetical - hypothetical in the same manner andto the same degree as the premises from which it has been derived. It will therefore often be necessary to abstain from drawingsuch inferences: the deductive aspects of the subject will beignored, and relationships be inferred from the facts directly.Let us consider an example. Suppose Euclid's postulate that astraight line is the shortest distance between two points is setbefore us as a theorem. We must give battle on the theorem; forif we concede it, the whole system of Euclidean geometry standsdemonstrated, and we have nothing left to set against it. Butsuppose, on the contrary, the postulate be put forward as a hypothesis. We are no longer called upon to contest it. Let the mathematiciandevelop the logical consequences that follow from it. If theyare in accord with the concrete, we will accept them; if theyseem not to be in such accord, we will reject them. Our freedomof choice has not been fettered by any anticipatory concession. Considering things from that point of view, other geometries - non-Euclideangeometries - are possible, and we may study them without in theleast surrendering our freedom of choice in the concrete.If before proceeding with their researches mathematicians hadinsisted upon deciding whether or not the postulate of Euclidcorresponded to concrete reality, geometry would not exist eventoday. And that observation is of general bearing. All scienceshave advanced when, instead of quarrelling over first principles,people have considered results. The science of celestial mechanicsdeveloped as a result of the hypothesis of the law of universalgravitation. Today we suspect that that attraction may be somethingdifferent from what it was once thought to be; but even if, inthe light of new and better observations of fact, our doubts shouldprove well founded, the results attained by celestial mechanicson the whole would still stand. They would simply have to beretouched and supplemented.5. Profiting by such experience, we are heresetting out to apply to the study of sociology the methods thathave proved so useful in the other sciences. We do not positany dogma as a premise to our research; and our statement of principlesserves merely as an indication of that course, among the manycourses that might be chosen, which we elect to follow. Thereforeanyone who joins us along such a course by no means renounceshis right to follow some other. From the first pages of a treatiseon geometry it is the part of the mathematician to make clearwhether he is expounding the geometry Of Euclid, or, let us say,the geometry of Lobachevski. But that is just a hint; and ifhe goes on and expounds the geometry of Lobachevski, it does notfollow that he rejects all other geometries. In that sense andin no other should the statement of principles which we are heremaking be taken.6. Hitherto sociology has nearly always beenexpounded dogmatically. Let us not be deceived by the word \"positive\"that Comte foisted upon his philosophy. His sociology is as dogmaticas Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History. It is a caseof two different religions, but of religions nevertheless; andreligions of the same sort are to be seen in the writings of Spencer,De Greef, Letourneau, and numberless other authors.Faith by its very nature is exclusive. If one believes oneselfpossessed of the absolute truth, one cannot admit that there areany other truths in the world. So the enthusiastic Christian" }
{ "content": "and the pugnacious free-thinker are, and have to be, equally intolerant. For the believer there is but one good course; all others arebad. The Mohammedan will not take oath upon the Gospels, northe Christian upon the Koran. But those who have no faith whateverwill take their oath upon either Koran or Gospels - or, as a favourto our humanitarians, on the Social Contract of Rousseau;nor even would they scruple to swear on the Decameron ofBoccaccio, were it only to see the grimace Senator Berenger wouldmake and the brethren of that gentleman's persuasion.' We areby no means asserting that sociologies derived from certain dogmaticprinciples are useless; just as we in no sense deny utility tothe geometries of Lobachevski or Riemann. We simply ask of suchsociologies that they use premises and reasonings which are asclear and exact as possible. \"Humanitarian\" sociologieswe have to satiety - they are about the only ones that are beingpublished nowadays. Of metaphysical sociologies (with which areto be classed all positive and humanitarian sociologies) we sufferno dearth. Christian, Catholic, and similar sociologies we haveto some small extent. Without disparagement of any of those estimablesociologies, we here venture to expound a sociology that is purelyexperimental, after the fashion of chemistry, physics, and othersuch sciences. In all that follows, therefore, we intend to takeonly experience and observation as our guides. So far as experienceis not contrasted with observation, we shall, for love of brevity,refer to experience alone. When we say that a thing is attested\"by experience,\" the reader must add \"and by observation.\"When we speak of \"experimental sciences,\" the readermust supply the adjective \"observational,\" and so on.7. Current in any given group of people are anumber of propositions, descriptive, preceptive, or otherwise. For example: \"Youth lacks discretion.\" \"Covetnot thy neighbour's goods, nor thy neighbour's wife.\" \"Lovethy neighbour as thyself.\" \"Learn to save if you wouldnot one day be in need.\" Such propositions, combined by logicalor pseudo-logical nexuses and amplified with factual narrationsof various sorts, constitute theories, theologies, cosmogonies,systems of metaphysics, and so on. Viewed from the outside withoutregard to any intrinsic merit with which they may be creditedby faith, all such propositions and theories are experimentalfacts and as experimental facts we are here obliged to considerand examine them.8. That examination is very useful to sociology;for the image of social activity is stamped on the majority ofsuch propositions and theories, and often it is through them alonethat we manage to gain some knowledge of the forces which areat work in society - that is, of the tendencies and inclinationsof human beings. For that reason we shall study them at greatlength in the course of these volumes. Propositions and theorieshave to be classified at the very outset, for classification isa first step that is almost indispensable if one would have anadequate grasp of any great number of differing objects. To avoidendless repetition of the words \"proposition\" and \"theory,\"we shall for the moment use only the latter term; but whateverwe say of \"theories\" should be taken as applying alsoto \"propositions,\" barring specification to the contrary.9. For the man who lets himself be guided chieflyby sentiment for the believer, that is - there are usually but twoclasses of theories: there are theories that are true andtheories that are false. The terms \"true\" and\"false\" are left vaguely defined. They are felt ratherthan explained.10. Oftentimes three further axioms are present:1. The axiom that every \"honest\" man,every \"intelligent\" human being, must accept\"true\" propositions and reject \"false\" ones. The person who fails to do so is either not honest or not rational. Theories, it follows, have an absolute character, Independentof the minds that produce or accept them.2. The axiom that every proposition which is\"true\" is also \"beneficial,\" and vice versa. When, accordingly, a theory has been shown to be true, thestudy of it is complete, and it is useless to inquire whetherit be beneficial or detrimental.3. At any rate, it is inadmissible that a theorymay be beneficial to certain classes of society and detrimentalto others - yet that is an axiom of modern currency, and many peopledeny it without, however, daring to voice that opinion.11. Were we to meet those assertions with contraryones, we too would be reasoning a priori; and, experimentally,both sets of assertions would have the same value - zero. If wewould remain within the realm of experience, we need simply determinefirst of all whether the terms used in the assertions correspondto some experimental reality, and then whether the assertionsare or are not corroborated by experimental facts. But in orderto do that, we are obliged to admit the possibility of both apositive and a negative answer; for it is evident that if we barone of those two possibilities a priori, we shall be givinga solution likewise a priori to the problem we have setourselves, instead of leaving the solution of it to experienceas we proposed doing.12. Let us try therefore to classify theories,using the method we would use were we classifying insects, plants,or rocks. We perceive at once that a theory is not a homogeneousentity, such as the \"element\" known to chemistry. Atheory, rather, is like a rock, which is made up of a number ofelements. In a theory one may detect descriptive elements, axiomaticassertions, and functionings of certain entities, now concrete,now abstract, now real, now imaginary; and all such things maybe said to constitute the matter of the theory. But thereare other things in a theory: there are logical or pseudo-logicalarguments, appeals to sentiment, \"feelings,\" tracesof religious and ethical beliefs, and so on; and such things maybe thought of as constituting the instrumentalities whereby the\"matter\" mentioned above is utilised in order to rearthe structure that we call a theory. Here, already, is one aspectunder which theories may be considered. It is sufficient forthe moment to have called attention to it.13. In the manner just described, the structurehas been reared the theory exists. It is now one of the objectsthat we are trying to classify. We may consider it under variousaspects:1. Objective aspect. The theorymay be considered without reference to the person who has producedit or to the person who assents to it - \"objectively,\"we say, but without attaching any metaphysical sense to the term." }
{ "content": " In order to take account of all possible combinations that mayarise from the character of the matter and the characterof the nexus we must distinguish the following classesand subclasses:CLASS I. Experimental matterIa. Logical nexusIb. Non-logical nexusCLASS II. Non-experimental matterIIa. Logical nexusIIb. Non-logical nexusThe subclasses Ib and IIb comprise logical sophistries,or specious reasonings calculated to deceive. For the study inwhich we are engaged they are often far less important than thesubclasses Ia or IIa. The subclass Ia comprisesall the experimental sciences; we shall call it logico-experimental. Two other varieties may be distinguished in it:Ia1, comprising the type that is strictly pure, with thematter strictly experimental and the nexus logical. The abstractionsand general principles that are used within it are derived exclusivelyfrom experience and are subordinated to experience.Ia2, comprising a deviation from the type, which bringsus closer to Class II. Explicitly the matter is still experimental,and the nexus logical; but the abstractions, the general principles,acquire (implicitly or explicitly) a significance transcendingexperience. This variety might be called transitional. Othersof like nature might be considered, but they are far less importantthan this one.The classification just made, like any other that might be made,is dependent upon the knowledge at our command. A person whoregards as experimental certain elements that another person regardsas non-experimental will locate in Class I a proposition thatthe other person will place in Class II. The person who thinkshe is using logic and is mistaken will class among logical theoriesa proposition that a person aware of the error will locate amongthe non-logical. The classification above is a classificationof types of theories. In reality, a given theory may be a blendof such types - it may, that is, contain experimental elements andnon-experimental elements, logical elements and non-logical elements.2. Subjective aspect. Theoriesmay be considered with reference to the persons who produce themand to the persons who assent to them. We shall therefore haveto consider them under the following subjective aspects:a. Causes in view of which a given theory is devised by a givenperson. Why does a given person assert that A =B? Conversely, if he makes that assertion, why does he doso?b. Causes in view of which a given person assents to a giventheory. Why does a given person assent to the propositionA = B? Conversely, if he gives such assent, whydoes he do so?These inquiries are extensible from individuals to society atlarge.3. Aspect of utility. In thisconnection, it is important to keep the theory distinct from thestate of mind, the sentiments, that it reflects. Certain individualsevolve a theory because they have certain sentiments; but thenthe theory reacts in turn upon them, as well as upon other individualsto produce, intensify, or modify certain sentiments.I. Utility or detriment resulting from the sentiments reflectedby a theory:la. As regards the person asserting the theoryIb. As regards the person assenting to the theoryII. Utility or detriment resulting from a given theory:IIa. As regards the person asserting the theoryIIb. As regards the person assenting to it.These considerations, too, are extensible to society at large.We may say, then, that we are to consider propositions and theoriesunder their objective and their subjective aspects,and also from the standpoint of their individual or socialutility. However, the meanings of such terms must notbe derived from their etymology, or from their usage in commonparlance, but exclusively in the manner designated later.14. To recapitulate: Given the proposition A= B, we must answer the following questions:1. Objective aspect. Is the propositionin accord with experience, or is it not?2. Subjective aspect. Why do certainindividuals assert that A = B? And why do other individualsbelieve that A = B?3. Aspect Of utility. What advantage(or disadvantage) do the sentiments reflected by the propositionA = B have for the person who states it, and forthe person who accepts it? What advantage (or disadvantage) doesthe theory itself have for the person who puts it forward, andfor the person who accepts it?In an extreme case the answer to the first question is yes; andthen, as regards the other question, one adds: \"People say(people believe) that A = B, because it is true.\"\"The sentiments reflected in the proposition are beneficial because true.\" \"The theory itself is beneficial becausetrue.\" In this extreme case, we may find that data of logico-experimentalscience are present, and then \"true\" means in accordwith experience. But also present may be data that by no meansbelong to logico-experimental science, and in such event \"true\"signifies not accord with experience but something else - frequentlymere accord with the sentiments of the person defending the thesis. We shall see, as we proceed with our experimental research inchapters hereafter, that the following cases are of frequent occurrencein social matters:a. Propositions in accord with experience that are assertedand accepted because of their accord with sentiments, the latterbeing now beneficial, now detrimental, to individuals or society;b. Propositions in accord with experience that are rejectedbecause they are not in accord with sentiments, and which, ifaccepted, would be detrimental to society;c. Propositions not in accord with experience that areasserted and accepted because of their accord with sentiments,the latter being beneficial, oftentimes exceedingly so, to individualsor society;d. Propositions not in accord with experience that areasserted and accepted because of their accord with sentiments,and which are beneficial to certain individuals, detrimental toothers, and now beneficial, now detrimental, to society.On all that we can know nothing a priori. Experience alonecan enlighten us.Further Reading:Biography \|Spencer \|Talcott Parsons \|Weber \|ComtePhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org" }
{ "content": "Claude Lévi-Strauss (1958)Structural AnthropologyChapter IIStructural Analysis in Linguistics and in AnthropologySource: Structural Anthropology, 1958 publ. Allen Lane, The Penguin Press., 1968. Various excerpts reproduced here.LINGUISTICS OCCUPIES a special place among the social sciences,to whose ranks it unquestionably belongs. It is not merely asocial science like the others, but, rather, the one in whichby far the greatest progress has been made. It is probably theonly one which can truly claim to be a science and which has achievedboth the formulation of an empirical method and an understandingof the nature of the data submitted to its analysis. This privilegedposition carries with it several obligations. The linguist willoften find scientists from related but different disciplines drawinginspiration from his example and trying to follow his lead. Noblesseoblige. A linguistic journal like Word cannot confineitself to the illustration of strictly linguistic theories andpoints of view. It must also welcome psychologists, sociologists,and anthropologists eager to learn from modern linguistics theroad which leads to the empirical knowledge of social phenomena. As Marcel Mauss wrote – already forty years ago: “Sociologywould certainly have progressed much further if it had everywherefollowed the lead of the linguists. ...” The close methodologicalwhich exists between the two disciplines imposes a special obligationof collaboration upon them.Ever since the work of Schrader it has been unnecessary to demonstratethe assistance which linguistics can render to the anthropologistin the study of kinship. It was a linguist and a philologist(Schrader and Rose) who showed the improbability of the hypothesisof matrilineal survivals in the family in antiquity, to whichso many anthropologists still clung at that time. The linguistprovides the anthropologist with etymologies which permit himto establish between certain kinship terms relationships thatwere not immediately apparent. The anthropologist, on the otherhand, can bring to the attention of the linguist customs, prescriptions,and prohibitions that help him to understand the persistence ofcertain features of language or the instability of terms or groupsof terms. At a meeting of the Linguistic Circle of New York,Julien Bonfante once illustrated this point of view by reviewingthe etymology of the word for uncle in several Romance languages. The Greek theios corresponds in Italian, Spanish, andPortuguese to zio and tio; and he added that incertain regions of Italy the uncle is called barba. The “beard,” the “divine” uncle – what a wealthof suggestions for the anthropologist! The investigations ofthe late A. M. Hocart into the religious character of the avuncularrelationship and “theft of the sacrifice” by the maternalkinsmen immediately come to mind. Whatever interpretation is givento the data collected by Hocart (and his own interpretation isnot entirely satisfactory), there is no doubt that the linguistcontributes to the solution of the problem by revealing the tenacioussurvival in contemporary vocabulary of relationships which havelong since disappeared. At the same time, the anthropologist explainsto the linguist the bases of etymology and confirms its validity. Paul K. Benedict, in examining, as a linguist, the kinship systemsof South East Asia, was able to make an important contributionto the anthropology of the family in that area.But linguists and anthropologists follow their own paths independently. They halt , no doubt, from time to time to communicate to oneanother certain of their findings; these findings, however, derivefrom different operations, and no effort is made to enable onegroup to benefit from the technical and methodological advancesof the other. This attitude might have been justified in theera when linguistic research leaned most heavily on historicalanalysis. In relation to the anthropological research conductedduring the same period, the difference was one of degree ratherthan of kind. The linguists employed a more rigorous method,and their findings were established on more solid grounds; thesociologists could follow their example in renouncing considerationof the spatial distribution of contemporary types as a basis fortheir classifications. But, after all, anthropology andsociology were looking to linguistics only for insights; nothingforetold a revelation.The advent of structural linguistics completely changed this situation. Not only did it renew linguistic perspectives; a transformationof this magnitude is not limited to a single discipline. Structurallinguistics will certainly play the same renovating role withrespect to the social sciences that nuclear physics, for example,has played for the physical sciences. In what does this revolutionconsist, as we try to assess its broadest implications? N. Troubetzkoy,the illustrious founder of structural linguistics, himself furnishedthe answer to this question. In one programmatic statement,he reduced the structural method to four basic operations. First,structural linguistics shifts from the study of conscious linguisticphenomena to study of their unconscious infrastructure;second, it does not treat terms as independent entities,taking instead as its – basis of analysis the relations betweenterms; third, it introduces the concept of system – “Modernphonemics does not merely proclaim that phonemes are always partof a system; it shows concrete phonemic systems and elucidatestheir structure” finally, structural linguistics aimsat discovering general laws, either by induction “or... by logical deduction, which would give them an absolutecharacter.” Thus, for the first time, a social science is able to formulatenecessary relationships. This is the meaning of Troubetzkoy'slast point, while the preceding rules show how linguistics mustproceed in order to attain this end. It is not for us to showthat Troubetzkoy's claims are justified. The vast majority ofmodern linguists seem sufficiently agreed on this point. Butwhen an event of this importance takes place in one of the sciencesof man, it is not only permissible for, but required of, representativesof related disciplines immediately to examine its consequencesand its possible application to phenomena of another order.New perspectives then open up. We are no longer dealing withan occasional collaboration where the linguist and the anthropologist,each working by himself, occasionally communicate those findingswhich each thinks may interest the other. In the study of kinshipproblems (and, no doubt, the study of other problems as well),the anthropologist finds himself in a situation which formallyresembles that of the structural linguist. Like phonemes, kinshipterms are elements of meaning; like phonemes, they acquire meaningonly if they are integrated into systems. “Kinship systems,”Eke “phonemic systems,” are built by the mind on thelevel of unconscious thought. Finally, the recurrence of kinshippatterns, marriage rules, similar prescribed attitudes betweencertain types of relatives, and so forth, in scattered regionsof the globe and in fundamentally different societies, leads usto believe that, in the case of kinship as well as linguistics," }
{ "content": "the observable phenomena result from the action of laws whichare general but implicit. The problem can therefore be formulatedas follows: Although they belong to another order of reality,kinship phenomena are of the same type as linguisticphenomena. Can the anthropologist, using a method analogous inform (if not in content) to the method used in structurallinguistics, achieve the same kind of progress in his own scienceas that which has taken place in linguistics?We shall be even more strongly inclined to follow this path afteran additional observation has been made. The study of kinshipproblems is today broached in the same terms and seems to be inthe throes of the same difficulties as was linguistics on theeve of the structuralist revolution. There is a striking analogybetween certain attempts by Rivers and the old linguistics, whichsought its explanatory principles first of all in history. Inboth cases, it is solely (or almost solely) diachronic analysiswhich must account for synchronic phenomena. Troubetzkoy, comparingstructural linguistics and the old linguistics, defines structurallinguistics as a “systematic structuralism and universalism,”which he contrasts with the individualism and “atomism”of former schools. And when he considers diachronic analysis,his perspective is a profoundly modified one: “The evolutionof a phonemic system at any given moment is directed by the tendencytoward a goal. ... This evolution thus has a direction, aninternal logic, which historical phonemics is called upon to elucidate.” The “individualistic” and “atomistic” interpretation,founded exclusively on historical contingency, which is criticisedby Troubetzkoy and Jakobson, is actually the same as that whichis generally applied to kinship problems. Each detail of terminologyand each special marriage rule is associated with a specific customas either its consequence or its survival. We thus meet witha chaos of discontinuity. No one asks how kinship systems, regardedas synchronic wholes, could be the arbitrary product of a convergenceof several heterogeneous institutions (most of which are hypothetical),yet nevertheless function with some sort of regularity and effectiveness.However, a preliminary difficulty impedes the transposition ofthe phonemic method to the anthropological study of primitivepeoples. The superficial analogy between phonemic systems andkinship systems is so strong that it immediately sets us on thewrong track. It is incorrect to equate kinship terms and linguisticphonemes from the viewpoint of their formal treatment. We knowthat to obtain a structural law the linguist analyses phonemesinto “distinctive features,” which he can then groupinto one or several “pairs of oppositions.” Followingan analogous method, the anthropologist might be tempted to breakdown analytically the kinship terms of any given system into theircomponents. In our own kinship system, for instance, the termfather has positive connotations with respect to sex, relativeage, and generation; but it has a zero value on the dimensionof collaterality, and it cannot express an affinal relationship. Thus, for each system, one might ask what relationships are expressedand, for each term of the system, what connotation – positiveor negative – it carries regarding each of the following relationships:generation, collaterality, sex, relative age, affinity, etc. It is at this “micro-sociological” level that one mighthope to discover the most general structural laws, just as thelinguist discovers his at the infraphonemic level or the physicistat the infra-molecular or atomic level. One might interpret theinteresting attempt of Davis and Warner in these terms.But a threefold objection immediately arises. A truly scientificanalysis must be real, simplifying, and explanatory. Thus thedistinctive features which are the product of phonemic analysishave an objective existence from three points of view: psychological,physiological, and even physical; they are fewer in number thanthe phonemes which result from their combination; and, finally,they allow us to understand and reconstruct the system. Nothingof the kind would emerge from the preceding hypothesis. The treatmentof kinship terms which we have just sketched is analytical inappearance only; for, actually, the result is more abstract thanthe principle; instead of moving toward the concrete, one movesaway from it, and the definitive system – if system there is -is only conceptual. Secondly, Davis and Warner's experiment provesthat the system achieved through this procedure is infinitelymore complex and more difficult to interpret than the empiricaldata. Finally, the hypothesis has no explanatory value;that is, it does not lead to an understanding of the nature ofthe system and still less to a reconstruction of its origins.What is the reason for this failure? A too literal adherenceto linguistic method actually betrays its very essence. Kinshipterms not only have a sociological existence; they are also elementsof speech. In our haste to apply the methods of linguistic analysis,we must not forget that, as a part of vocabulary, kinship termsmust be treated with linguistic methods in direct and not analogousfashion. Linguistics teaches us precisely that structural analysiscannot be applied to words directly, but only to words previouslybroken down into phonemes. There are no necessary relationshipsat the vocabulary level. This applies to all vocabularyelements, including kinship terms. Since this applies to linguistics,it ought to apply ipso facto to the sociology of language. An attempt like the one whose possibility we are now discussingwould thus consist in extending the method of structural linguisticswhile ignoring its basic requirements. Kroeber propheticallyforesaw this difficulty in an article written many years ago. And if, at that time, he concluded that a structural analysisof kinship terminology was impossible, we must remember that linguisticsitself was then restricted to phonetic, psychological, and historicalanalysis. While it is true that the social sciences must sharethe limitations of linguistics, they can also benefit from itsprogress.Nor should we overlook the profound differences between the phonemicchart of a language and the chart of kinship terms of a society. In the first instance there can be no question as to function;we all know that language serves as a means of communication. On the other hand, what the linguist did not know and what structurallinguistics alone has allowed him to discover is the way in whichlanguage achieves this end. The function was obvious; the systemremained unknown. In this respect, the anthropologist finds himselfin the opposite situation. We know, since the work of Lewis H.Morgan, that kinship terms constitute systems; on the other hand,we still do not know their function. The misinterpretation ofthis initial situation reduces most structural analyses of kinshipsystems to pure tautologies. They demonstrate the obvious andneglect the unknown.This does not mean that we must abandon hope of introducing order" }
{ "content": "and discovering meaning in kinship nomenclature. But, we shouldat least recognise the special problems raised by the sociologyof vocabulary and the ambiguous character of the relations betweenits methods and those of linguistics. For this reason it wouldbe preferable to limit the discussion to a case where the analogycan be clearly established. Fortunately, we have just such acase available.What is generally called a “kinship system” comprisestwo quite different orders of reality. First, there are termsthrough which various kinds of family relationships are expressed. But kinship is not expressed solely through nomenclature. Theindividuals or classes of individuals who employ these terms feel(or do not feel, as the case may be) bound by prescribed behaviourin their relations with one another, such as respect or familiarity,rights or obligations, and affection or hostility. Thus, alongwith what we propose to call the system of terminology (which,strictly speaking, constitutes the vocabulary system), there isanother system, both psychological and social in nature, whichwe shall call the system of attitudes. Although it istrue (as we have shown, above) that the study of systems of terminologyplaces us in a situation analogous, but opposite, to the situationin which we are dealing with phonemic systems, this difficultyis “inversed,” as it were, when we examine systems ofattitudes. We can guess at the role played by systems of attitudes,that is, to insure group cohesion and equilibrium, but we do notunderstand the nature of the interconnections between the variousattitudes, nor do we perceive their necessity. In other words,as in the case of language, we know their function, but the systemis unknown.Thus we find a profound difference between the system ofterminology and the system of attitudes, and wehave to disagree with A. R. Radcliffe-Brown if he really believed,as has been said of him, that attitudes are nothing but the expressionor transposition of terms on the affective level. The last fewyears have provided numerous examples of groups whose chart ofkinship terms does not accurately reflect family attitudes, andvice versa. It would be incorrect to assume that the kinshipsystem constitutes the principal means of regulating interpersonalrelationships in all societies. Even in societies where the kinshipsystem does function as such, it does not fulfil that role everywhereto the same extent. Furthermore, it is always necessary to distinguishbetween two types of attitudes: first, the diffuse, uncrystallised,and non-institutionalised attitudes, which we may consider asthe reflection or transposition of the terminology on the psychologicallevel; and second, along with, or in addition to, the precedingones, those attitudes which are stylised, prescribed, and sanctionedby taboos or privileges and expressed through a fixed ritual. These attitudes, far from automatically reflecting the nomenclature,often appear as secondary elaborations, which serve to resolvethe contradictions and overcome the deficiencies inherent in theterminological system. This synthetic character is strikinglyapparent among the Wik Munkan of Australia. In this group, jokingprivileges sanction a contradiction between the kinship relationswhich link two unmarried men and the theoretical relationshipwhich must be assumed to exist between them in order to accountfor their later marriages to two women who do not stand themselvesin the corresponding relationship. There is a contradiction betweentwo possible systems of nomenclature, andthe emphasis placed on attitudes represents an attempt to integrateor transcend this contradiction. We can easily agree with Radcliffe-Brownand assert the existence of real relations of interdependencebetween the terminology and the rest of the system. Some of hiscritics made the mistake of inferring from the absence of a rigorousparallelism between attitudes and nomenclature, that the two systemswere mutually independent. But this relationship of interdependencedoes not imply a one-to-one correlation. The system of attitudesconstitutes, rather, a dynamic integration of the system of terminology.Granted the hypothesis (to which we wholeheartedly subscribe)of a functional relationship between the two systems, we are neverthelessentitled, for methodological reasons, to treat independently theproblems pertaining to each system. This is what we propose todo here for a problem which is rightly considered the point ofdeparture for any theory of attitudes – that of the maternal uncle. We shall attempt to show how a formal transposition of the methodof structural linguistics allows us to shed new light upon thisproblem. Because the relationship between nephew and maternaluncle appears to have been the focus of significant elaborationin a great many primitive societies, anthropologists have devotedspecial attention to it. It is not enough to note the frequencyof this theme; we must also account for it. ...Chapter XIIStructure and DialecticsFrom Lang to Malinowski, through Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl,and van der Leeuw, sociologists and anthropologists who were interestedin the interrelations between myth and ritual have consideredthem as mutually redundant. Some of these thinkers see in eachmyth the ideological projection of a rite, the purpose of themyth being to provide a foundation for the rite. Others reversethe relationship and regard ritual as a kind of dramatised illustrationof the myth. Regardless of whether the myth or the ritual isthe original, they replicate each other; the myth exists on theconceptual level and the ritual on the level of action. In bothcases, one assumes an orderly correspondence between the two,in other words, a homology. Curiously enough, this homology isdemonstrable in only a small number of cases. It remains to beseen why all myths do not correspond to rites and vice versa,and most important, why there should be such a curious replicationin the first place.I intend to show by means of a concrete example that this homologydoes not always exist; or, more specifically, that when we dofind such a homology, it might very well constitute a particularillustration of a more generalised relationship between myth andritual and between the rites themselves. Such a generalised relationshipwould imply a one-to-one correspondence between the elements ofrites which seem to differ, or between the elements of any onerite and any one myth. Such a correspondence could not, however,be considered a homology. In the example to be discussed here,the reconstruction of the correspondence requires a series ofpreliminary operations. – that is, permutations or transformationswhich may furnish the key to the correspondence. If this hypothesisis correct, we shall have to give up mechanical causality as anexplanation and, instead, conceive of the relationship betweenmyth and ritual as dialectical, accessible only if both have firstbeen reduced to their structural elements. ...Chapter XVSocial StructureTHE TERM “social structure” refers to a group of problems" }
{ "content": "the scope of which appears so wide and the definition so imprecisethat it is hardly possible for a paper strictly limited in sizeto meet them fully. This is reflected in the program of thissymposium, in which problems closely related to social structurehave been allotted to several papers, such as those on “Style,” “Universal Categories of Culture,” and “StructuralLinguistics.” These should be read in connection with thepresent paper.On the other hand, studies in social structure have to do withthe formal aspects of social phenomena; they are therefore difficultto define, and still more difficult to discuss, without overlappingother fields pertaining to the exact and natural sciences, whereproblems are similarly set in formal terms or, rather, where theformal expression of different problems admits of the same kindof treatment. As a matter of fact, the main interest of socialstructure studies seems to be that they give the anthropologisthope that, thanks to the formalisation of his problems, he mayborrow methods and types of solutions from disciplines which havegone far ahead of his own in that direction.Such being the case, it is obvious that the term “socialstructure” needs first to be defined and that some explanationshould be given of the difference which helps to distinguish studiesin social structure from the unlimited field of descriptions,analyses, and theories dealing with social relations at large,which merge with the whole scope of social anthropology. Thisis all the more necessary, since some of those who have contributedtoward setting apart social structure as a special field of anthropologicalstudies conceived the former in many different manners and evensometimes, so it seems, came to nurture grave doubts as to thevalidity of their enterprise. For instance, Kroeber writes inthe second edition of his Anthropology: “Structure” appears to be just a yielding to a wordthat has perfectly good meaning but suddenly becomes fashionablyattractive for a decade or so – like “streamlining”- and during its vogue tends to be applied indiscriminately becauseof the pleasurable connotations of its sound. Of course a typicalpersonality can be viewed as having a structure. But so can aphysiology, any organism, all societies and all cultures, crystals,machines – in fact everything that is not wholly amorphous hasa structure. So what “structure” adds to the meaningof our phrase seems to be nothing, except to provoke a degreeof pleasant puzzlement.'Although this passage concerns more particularly the notion of “basic personality structure,” it has devastating implicationsas regards the generalised use of the notion of structure in anthropology.Another reason makes a definition of social structure compulsory:From the structuralist point of view which one has to adopt ifonly to give the problem its meaning, it would be hopeless totry to reach a valid definition of social structure on an inductivebasis, by abstracting common elements from the uses and definitionscurrent among all the scholars who claim to have made “socialstructure” the object of their studies. If these conceptshave a meaning at all, they mean, first, that the notion of structurehas a structure. This we shall try to outline from the beginningas a precaution against letting ourselves be submerged by a tediousinventory of books and papers dealing with social relations, themere listing of which would more than exhaust the limited spaceat our disposal. At a further stage we will have to see how farand in what directions the term “social structure,”as used by the different authors, departs from our definition. This will be done in the section devoted to kinship, since thenotion of structure has found its chief application in that fieldand since anthropologists have generally chosen to express theirtheoretical views also in that connection.DEFINITION AND PROBLEMS OF METHODPassing now to the task of defining “social structure,”there is a point which should be cleared up immediately. Theterm “social structure” has nothing to do with empiricalreality but with models which are built up after it. This shouldhelp one to clarify difference between two concepts which areso close to each that they have often been confused, namely, thoseof social structure and of social relations. It will be enough to state at this social relations consistof the raw materials out of which the models making up the socialstructure are built, while social structure can, by no means,be reduced to the ensemble of the social relations to be describedin a given society. Therefore, social structure cannot claima field of its own among others in the social studies. It israther a method to be applied to any kind of social studies, similarto the structural analysis current in other disciplines.The question then becomes that of ascertaining what kind of modeldeserves the name “structure.” This is not an anthropologicalquestion, but one which belongs to the methodology of sciencein general. Keeping this in mind, we can say that a structureconsists of a model meeting with several requirements.First, the structure exhibits the characteristics of a system. It is made up of several elements, none of which can undergoa change without effecting changes in all the other elements.Second, for any given model there should be a possibility of orderinga series of transformations resulting in a group of models ofthe same type.Third, the above properties make it possible to predict how themodel will react if one or more of its elements are submitted tocertain modifications.Finally, the model should be constituted so as to make immediatelyintelligible all the observed facts.These being the requirements for any model with structural value,several consequences follow. These, however, do not pertain tothe definition of structure, but have to do with the chief propertiesexhibited and problems raised by structural analysis when contemplatedin the social and other fields.Observation and Experimentation. Great care should be taken to distinguish between the observationaland the experimental levels. To observe facts and elaborate methodologicaldevices which permit the construction of models out of these factsis not at all the same thing as to experiment on the models. By “experimenting on models,” we mean the set of proceduresaiming at ascertaining how a given model will react when subjectedto change and at comparing models of the same or different types. This distinction is all the more necessary, since many discussionson social structure revolve around the apparent contradictionbetween the concreteness and individuality of ethnological dataand the abstract and formal character generally exhibited by structural" }
{ "content": "studies. This contradiction, disappears as one comes to realisethat these features belong to two entirely different levels,or rather to two stages of the same process. On the observationallevel, in the main one could almost say the only rule is that allthe facts should be carefully observed and described, withoutallowing any theoretical preconception to decide whether someare more important than others. This rule implies, in turn, thatfacts should be studied in relation to themselves (by what kindof concrete process did they come into being?) and in relationto the whole (always aiming to relate each modification whichcan be observed in a sector to the global situation in which itfirst appeared).This rule together with its corollaries has been explicitly formulatedby K. Goldstein in relation to psycho-physiological studies, andit may be considered valid for any kind of structural analysis. Its immediate consequence is that, far from being contradictory,there is a direct relationship between the detail and concretenessof ethnographical description and the validity and generalityof the model which is constructed after it. For, though manymodels may be used as convenient devices to describe and explainthe phenomena, it is obvious that the best model will always bethat which is true, that is, the simplest possible modelwhich, while being derived exclusively from the facts under consideration,also makes it possible to account for all of them. Therefore,the first task is to ascertain what those facts are.Consciousness and Unconsciousness A second distinction has to do with the conscious or unconsciouscharacter of the models. In the history of structural thought,Boas may be credited with having introduced this distinction. He made clear that a category of facts can more easily yieldto structural analysis when the social group in which it is manifestedhas not elaborated a conscious model to interpret or justify it. Some readers may be surprised to find Boas' name quoted in connectionwith structural theory, since he has often been described as oneof the main obstacles in its path. But this writer has triedto demonstrate that Boas' shortcomings in matters of structuralstudies did not lie in his failure to understand their importanceand significance, which he did, as a matter of fact, in the mostprophetic way. They rather resulted from the fact that he imposedon structural studies conditions of validity, some of which willremain forever part of their methodology, while some others areso exacting and impossible to meet that they would have witheredscientific development in any field.A structural model may be conscious or unconscious without thisdifference affecting its nature. It can only be said that whenthe structure of a certain type of phenomena does not lie at agreat depth, it is more likely that some kind of model, standingas a screen to hide it, will exist in the collective consciousness. For conscious models, which are usually known as “norms,”are by definition very poor ones, since they are not intendedto explain the phenomena but to perpetuate them. Therefore, structuralanalysis is confronted with a strange paradox well known to thelinguist, that is: the more obvious structural organisation is,the more difficult it becomes to reach it because of the inaccurateconscious models lying across the path which leads to it.From the point of view of the degree of consciousness, the anthropologistis confronted with two kinds of situations. He may have to constructa model from phenomena the systematic character of which has evokedno awareness on the part of the culture; this is the kind of simplersituation referred to by Boas as providing the easiest groundfor anthropological research. Or else the anthropologist willbe dealing on the one hand with raw phenomena and on the otherwith the models already constructed by the culture to interpretthe former. Though it is likely that, for the reasons statedabove, these models will prove unsatisfactory, it is by no meansnecessary that this should always be the case. As a matter offact, many “primitive” cultures have built models oftheir marriage regulations which are much more to the point thanmodels built by professional anthropologists Thus one cannot dispensewith studying a culture's “home-made” models for tworeasons. First, these models might prove to be accurate or, atleast, to provide some insight into the structure of the phenomena;after all, each culture has its own theoreticians whose contributionsdeserve the same attention as that which the anthropologist givesto colleagues. And, second, even if the models are biased orerroneous, the very bias and type of error are a part of the factsunder study and probably rank among the most significant ones. But even when taking into consideration these culturally producedmodels, the anthropologist does not forget – as he has sometimesbeen accused of doing – that the cultural norms are not of themselvesstructures. Rather, they furnish an important contribution toan understanding of the structures, either as factual documentsor as theoretical contributions similar to those of the anthropologisthimself.This point has been given great attention by the French sociologicalschool. Durkheim and Mauss, for instance, have always taken careto substitute, as a starting point for the survey of native categoriesof thought, the conscious representations prevailing among thenatives themselves for those stemming from the anthropologist'sown culture. This was undoubtedly an important step, which,nevertheless, fell short of its goal because these authors werenot sufficiently aware that native conscious representations,important as they are, may be just as remote from the unconsciousreality as any other.Structure and Measure.It is often believed that one of the main interests of the notion of structureis to permit the introduction of measurement in social anthropology. This view has been favoured by the frequent appearance of mathematicalor semi-mathematical aids in books or articles dealing with socialstructure. It is true that in some cases structural analysishas made it possible to attach numerical values to invariants. This was, for instance, the result of Kroeber's study of women'sdress fashions, a landmark in structural research, as well asof a few other studies which will be discussed below.However, one should keep in mind that there is no necessary connectionbetween measure and structure. Structural studies are,in the social sciences, the indirect outcome of modern developmentsin mathematics which have given increasing importance to the qualitativepoint of view in contradistinction to the quantitative point ofview of traditional mathematics. It has become possible, therefore,in fields such as mathematical logic, set theory, group theory," }
{ "content": "and topology, to develop a rigorous approach to problems whichdo not admit of a metrical solution. The outstanding achievementsin this connection – which offer themselves as springboards notyet utilised by social scientist e to be found in J. von Neumannand O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour;N. Wiener, Cybernetics; and C. Shannon and W. Weaver, TheMathematical Theory of Communication. ...Chapter XVI ...I do not postulate a kind of pre-existent harmony between differentlevels of structure. They may be – and often are – completelycontradictory, but the modes of contradiction all belong the sametype. Indeed, according to dialectic materialism it should alwaysbe possible to proceed, by transformation, from economic or socialstructure to the structure of law, art, or religion. But Marxnever claimed that there was only one type of transformation -for example, that ideology was simply a “mirror image” of socialrelations. In his view, these transformations were dialectic,and in some cases he went to great lengths to discover the crucialtransformation which at first sight seemed to defy analysis.If we grant, following Marxian thought, that infrastructures andsuperstructures are made up of multiple levels and that therevarious types of transformations from one level to another, itbecomes possible – in the final analysis, and on the conditionthat we disregard content – to characterise different typesin terms of the types of transformations which occur within them.These types of transformations amount to formulas showing thenumber, magnitude, direction, and order of the convolutions thatmust be unravelled, so to speak, in order to uncover (logically,not normatively) an ideal homologous relationship between thedifferent structural levels.Now, this reduction to an ideal homologous relationship is atthe same time a critique. By replacing a complex model with asimple model that has greater logical value, the anthropologistreveals the detours and manoeuvres, conscious and unconscious,that each society uses in an effort to resolve its inherent contradictions – or at any rate to conceal them.This clarification, already furnished by my previous studies,which Gurvitch should have taken into consideration, may exposeme to still another criticism. If every society has the sameflaw, manifested by the two-fold problem – of logical disharmonyand social inequality, why should its more thoughtful membersendeavour to change it? Change would mean only the replacementof one social form by another; and if one is no better than theother, why bother?In support of this argument, Rodinson cites a passage from TristesTropiques: “No human society is fundamentally good, butneither is any of them fundamentally bad; all offer their memberscertain advantages, though we must bear in mind a residue of iniquity,apparently more or less constant in its importance... .But here Rodinson isolates, in biased fashion, one step in a reasoningprocess by which I tried to resolve the apparent conflict betweenthought and action. Actually:(1) In the passage criticised by Rodinson, the relativistic argumentserves only to oppose any attempt at classifying, in relationto one another, societies remote from that of the observer- for instance, from our point of view, a Melanesian group anda North American tribe. I hold that we have no conceptual frameworkavailable that can be legitimately applied to societies locatedopposite poles of the sociological world and considered in theirmutual relationships.(2) On the other hand, I carefully distinguished this first framefrom a very different one, which would consist in comparing remotesocieties, but two historically related stages in the developmentof our own society – or, to generalise, of the observer's society. When the frame of reference is thus “internalised,”everything changes. This second phase permits us, without retaininganything from any particular society,... to make use of one and all of them in order to distinguishthose principles of social life which may be applied to the reformof our own customs, and not of those of societies foreign to ourown. That is to say, in relation to our own society we standin a position of privilege which is exactly contrary to that whichI have just described; for our own society is the only one thatwe can transform and yet not destroy, since the changes we shouldintroduce would come from within.Far from being satisfied, then, with a static relativism – asare certain American anthropologists justly criticised by Rodinson(but with whom he wrongly identifies me) – I denounce it as adanger ever-present on the anthropologist's path. My solutionis constructive, since it derives from the same principles, twoapparently contradictory attitudes, namely, respect for societiesvery different from ours, and active participation in the transformationof our own society.Is there any reason here, as Rodinson claims, “to reduceBillancourt to desperation”? Billancourt would deservelittle consideration if cannibalism in its own way (and moreseriously so than primitive man-eaters, for its cannibalism wouldbe spiritual), should feel it necessary to its intellectualand moral security that the Papuans become nothing but proletarians. Fortunately, anthropological theory does not play such an importantrole in trade union demands. On the other hand, I am surprisedthat a scientist with advanced ideas should present an argumentalready formulated by thinkers of an entirely different orientation.Neither in Race and History nor in Tristes Tropiquesdid I intend to disparage the idea of progress; rather, Ishould like to see progress transferred from the rank of a universalcategory of human development to that of a particular mode ofexistence, characteristic of our own society – and perhaps ofseveral others – whenever that society reaches the stage of self-awareness.To say that this concept of progress – progress considered asan internal property of a given society and devoid of a transcendentmeaning outside it – would lead men to discouragement, seems tome to be a transposition in the historical idiom and on the levelof collective life, of the familiar argument that all moralitywould be jeopardised if the individual ceased to believe in theimmortality of his soul. For centuries, this argument, so muchlike Rodinson's, was raised to oppose atheism. Atheism would “reduce men to desperation” – most particularly theworking classes, who, it was feared, would lose their motivationfor work if there were no punishments or rewards promised in thehereafter.Nevertheless, there are many men (especially in Billancourt) whoaccept the idea of a personal existence confined to the durationof their earthly life; they have not for this reason abandonedtheir sense of morality or their willingness to work for the improvementof their lot and that of their descendants." }
{ "content": "Is what is true of individuals less true of groups? A societycan live, act, and be transformed, and still avoid becoming intoxicatedwith the conviction that all the societies which preceded it duringtens of millenniums did nothing more than prepare the ground forits advent, that all its contemporaries – even those atthe antipodes – are diligently striving to overtake it, and thatthe societies which will succeed it until the end of time oughtto be mainly concerned with following in its path. This attitudeis as naive as maintaining that the earth occupies the centerof the universe and that man is the summit of creation. Whenit is professed today in support of our particular society, itis odious.What is more, Rodinson attacks me in the name of Marxism, whereasmy conception is infinitely closer to Marx's position than his. I wish to point out, first, that the distinctions developed inRace and History among stationary history, fluctuatinghistory and cumulative history can be derived from Marx himself:The simplicity of the organisation for production in those, self-sufficingcommunities that constantly reproduce themselves in the same formand, when accidentally destroyed, spring again on the spot andwith the same name – this simplicity supplies the key to the secretof the unchangeableness of Asiatic Societies, an unchangeablenessin such striking contrast with constant dissolution and refoundingof Asiatic states, and never-ceasing changes of dynasty.Actually, Marx and Engels frequently express the idea that primitive,or allegedly primitive, societies are governed by “bloodties” (which, today, we call kinship systems) and not byeconomic relationships. If these societies were not destroyedfrom without, they might endure indefinitely. The temporal categoryapplicable to them has nothing to do with the one we employ tounderstand, the development of our own society.Nor does this conception contradict in the least the famous dictumof the Communist Manifesto that “the history of allhitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”In the light of Hegel's philosophy of the State, this dictum doesnot mean that the class struggle is co-extensive with humanity,but that the ideas of history and society can be applied, in thefull sense which Marx gives them, only from the time when theclass struggle first appeared. The letter to Weydemeyer clearlysupports this: “What I did that was new,” Marx wrote, “was prove ... that the existence of classes isonly bound up with particular historical phases in the developmentof production... .”Rodinson should, therefore, ponder the following comment by Marxin his posthumously published introduction to A Contributionto the Critique of Political Economy:The so-called historical development amounts in the last analysisto this, that the last form considers its predecessors as stagesleading up to itself and perceives them always one-sidedly, sinceit is very seldom and only under certain conditions that it iscapable of self-criticism ...This chapter had already been written when Jean-FrançoisRevel published his lively, provocative, but often unfair study.Since part of his chapter VIII concerns my work, I shall brieflyreply – Revel criticises me, but not without misgivings. If he recognisedme for what I am an anthropologist who has conducted field workand who, having presented his findings, has re-examined the theoreticalprinciples of his discipline on the basis of these specific findingsand the findings of his colleagues – Revel would, according tohis own principles, refrain from discussing my work. But he beginsby changing me into a sociologist, after which he insinuates that,because of my philosophical training, my sociology is nothingbut disguised philosophy. From then on we are among colleagues,and Revel can freely tread on my reserves, without realising thathe is behaving toward anthropology exactly as, throughout hisbook, he upbraids philosophers for behaving toward the other empiricalsciences.But I am not a sociologist, and my interest in our own societyis only a secondary one. Those societies which I seek first tounderstand are the so-called primitive societies with which anthropologistsare concerned. When, to Revel's great displeasure, I interpretthe exchange of wine in the restaurants of southern France interms of social prestations, my primary aim is not to explaincontemporary customs by means of archaic institutions but to helpthe reader, a member of a contemporary society, to rediscover,in his own experience and on the basis of either vestigial orembryonic practices, institutions that would otherwise remainunintelligible to him. The question, then, is not whether theexchange of wine is a survival of the potlatch, but whether,by means of this comparison we succeed better in grasping thefeelings, intentions, and attitudes of the native involved ina cycle of prestations. The ethnographer who has lived amongnatives and has experienced such ceremonies as either a spectatoror a participant, is entitled to an opinion on this question; Revelis not.Moreover, by a curious contradiction, Revel refuses to admit thatthe categories of primitive societies may be applied to our ownsociety, although he insists upon applying our categories to primitivesocieties. “It is absolutely certain,” he says, thatprestations “in which the goods of a society are finallyused up ... correspond to the specific conditions of a modeof production and a social structure.” And he further declaresthat “it is even probable – an exception unique in history,which would then have to be explained – that prestations maskthe economic exploitation of certain members of each society ofthis type by others.”How can Revel be “absolutely certain”? And how doeshe know that the exception would be “unique in history”? Has he studied Melanesian and Amerindian institutions in thefield? Has, he so much as analysed the numerous works dealingwith the kula and its evolution from 1910 to 1950, or withthe potlatch from the beginning of the nineteenth centuryuntil the twentieth? If he had, he would know, first of all, thatit is absurd to think that all the goods of a society are usedup in these exchanges. And he would have more precise ideas ofthe proportions and the kinds of goods involved in certain casesand in certain periods. Finally, and above all, he would be awarethat, from the particular viewpoint that interests him – namely,the economic exploitation of man by man – the two culture areasto which he refers cannot be compared. In one of them, this exploitationpresents characteristics which we might at best call pre-capitalistic. Even in Alaska and British Columbia, however, this exploitationis an external factor: It acts only to give greater scope to institutions" }
{ "content": "which can exist without it, and whose general character must bedefined in other terms.Should Revel hasten to protest, let me add that I am only paraphrasingEngels, who by chance expressed his opinion on this problem, andwith respect to the same societies which Revel has in mind. Engelswrote:In order finally to get clear about the parallel between the Germansof Tacitus and the American Redskins I have made some gentle extractionsfrom the first volume of your Bancroft [The NativeRaces of the Pacific States, etc.]. The similarity is indeedall the more surprising because the method of production is sofundamentally different – here hunters and fishers without cattle-raisingor agriculture, there nomadic cattle-raising passing into agriculture. It just proves how at this stage the type of production is lessdecisive than the degree in which the old blood bonds and theold mutual community of the sexes within the tribe have been dissolved. Otherwise the Tlingit in the former Russian America could notbe the exact counterpart of the Germanic tribes . ...It remained for Marcel Mauss, in Essai sur le Don (whichRevel criticises quite inappropriately) to justify and developEngels' hypothesis that there is a striking parallelism betweencertain Germanic and Celtic institutions and those of societieshaving the potlatch. He did this with no concernabout uncovering the “specific conditions of a mode of production,”which, as Engels had already understood, would be useless. Butthen Marx and Engels knew incomparably more anthropology almosta hundred years ago than Revel knows today.I am, on the other hand, in full agreement with Revel when hewrites, “Perhaps the most serious defect which philosophyhas transmitted to sociology is ... the obsession with creatingin one stroke holistic explanations.\" He has here laid downhis own indictment. He rebukes me because I have not proposedexplanations and because I have acted as if I believed “thatthere is fundamentally no reason why one society adopts one setof institutions and another society other institutions.”He requires anthropologists to answer questions such as: “Whyare societies structured along different lines? Why does eachstructure evolve? ... Why are there differences [Revel'sitalics] between institutions and between societies, and whatresponses to what conditions do these differences imply ...?” These questions are highly pertinent, and we should liketo be able to answer them. In our present state of knowledge,however, we are in a position to provide answers only for specificand limited cases, and even here our interpretations remain fragmentaryand isolated. Revel can believe that the task is easy, sincefor him “it is absolutely certain” that ever since thesocial evolution of man began, approximately 500,000 years ago,economic exploitation can explain everything.As we noted, this was not the opinion of Marx and Engels. Accordingto their view, in the non- or pre-capitalistic societies kinshipties played a more important role than class relations. I donot believe that I am being unfaithful to their teachings by trying,seventy years after Lewis H. Morgan, whom they admired so greatly,to resume Morgan's endeavour – that is, to work out a new typologyof kinship systems in the light of knowledge acquired in the fieldsince then, by myself and others.”I ask to be judged on the basis of this typology, and not on thatof the psychological or sociological hypotheses which Revel seizesupon; these hypotheses are only a kind of mental scaffolding,momentarily useful to the anthropologist as a means of organisinghis observations, building his classifications, and arranginghis types in some sort of order. If one of my colleagues wereto come to me and say that my theoretical analysis of Murnginor Gilyak kinship systems was inconsistent with his observations,or that while was in the field I misinterpreted chieftainshipamong the Nambicuara, the place of art in Caduveo society, thesocial structure of the Bororo, or the nature of clans among theTupi-Cawahib, I should listen to him with deference and attention. But Revel, who could not care less about patrilineal descent,bilateral marriage, dual organisation, or dysharmonic systems,attacks me – without even understanding that I seek only to describeand analyse certain aspects of the objective world – for “flatteningout social reality,” For him everything is flat that cannotbe instantaneously expressed in a, language which he may perhapsuse correctly in reference to Western civilisation, but to whichits inventors explicitly denied any other application. Now itis my turn to exclaim: Indeed, “what is the use of philosophers?”Reasoning in the fashion of Revel and Rodinson would mean surrenderingthe social sciences to obscurantism. What would we think of buildingcontractors and architects who condemned cosmic physics in thename of the law of gravity and under the argument that a geometrybased on curved spaces would render obsolete the traditional techniquesfor demolishing or building houses? The house-wrecker and thearchitect are right to believe only in Euclidean geometry, butthey do not try to force it upon the astronomer. And if the helpof the astronomer is required in remodelling his house, the categorieshe uses to understand the universe do not automatically preventhim from handling the pick-axe and plumb-line.Further Reading:Review by Evelyn Reed \|Biography \|Dialectic and HistoryDurkheim \|Saussure \|Jakobson \|Parsons \|Marx \|Althusser Anti-Historicism and the Algerian WarPhilosophy Archive @ marxists.org" }
{ "content": " Georgi Dimitrov No Pardon, but Amnesty First Published: 1918 in Rabotnicheski Vestnik No. 143, December 3. Source: Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works Sofia Press, Sofia, Volume 1, 1972, p. 58 Transcription/HTML Markup: Mathias Bismo Online Version: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2003 Comrade Georgi Dimitrov, Social Democratic deputy, wired the following protest from the Central Prison to the Minister of Justice, with a copy to us:In accordance with a meeting held by the special commission at the Central Prison for drawing up a list of prisoners deserving of pardon, among 200 persons I, too, was presented for pardon. I am deeply indignant at this attempt, through partial pardons to dodge or at least delay a general political and military amnesty, which the working masses throughout the country at rallies and meetings have so resolutely demanded, which they are ready at any price to impose, and which at the present moment is a pressing economic and political necessity. What is needed is not arbitrary royal pardon, constituting a sphere of exceedingly profitable vulgar trade in which the greatest injustices are committed with regard to the persons selected for pardon, and whereby the human and political dignity of the prisoners released in this manner is abased; but for Parliament to assume its proper role and annul the acts issued by the military courts, by examining and passing as soon as possible the bill submitted by the Social Democratic Party for an amnesty of military and political crimes, for a revision of the sentences issued by the military courts for other crimes, and for reducing by one half the punishments of prisoners unafected by the amnesty, the bulk of whom have quite accidentally landed in prison as unfortunate victims of modern conditions, and who in every respect are incomparably more decent people than thousands of others who are at liberty. Dimitrov Works Archive " }
{ "content": " Georgi DimitrovAfter May Day First Published: 1906 in Novo Vremé No. 5Source: Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works Sofia Press, Sofia, Volume 1, 1972, pp. 1-7Transcription/HTML Markup: Mathias BismoOnline Version: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2001 This year Labour Day was celebrated with rare impressiveness in all our bigger towns. The mass evacuation of workshops and factories, the non-appearance of the daily press and of various productions, the participation in the May Day demonstrations of a considerable number of workers who until yesterday were indifferent to the struggles of their organized comrades — all this lends to this year's May Day an unprecedented demonstrative and agitational character.On this historically and politically great day we were fortunate not only to manifest our class solidarity and proletarian demands together with the whole world proletariat, not only to demonstrate against the existing capitalist regime, but also to count our ranks, to measure our forces and to review the road travelled, fortifying our conviction that the workers' socialist movement in Bulgaria, despite all ups and downs, is properly developing and forging ahead.Thanks to the persistent and energetic propaganda car ried on among workers during the past year, our Party and trade union organizations in Sofia, Plovdiv, Roussé, Sliven, Pleven and other major proletarian centres can boast of considerable achievements in their educational and organizational work, as well as in their drive to improve working conditions and to clear the road of the workers' movement from alien influences and from those barriers which the bourgeoisie is systematically trying to set up. Under the influence of the workers' socialist organizations the frequent strikes, which at first were only a spontaneous manifestation of the seething dissatisfaction among the workers against unrestricted exploitation, have recently been assuming the character of an organized struggle for better working conditions and of a fine school for their class education. Although their practical results are very limited, they have been most useful in organizing and educating the workers. The number of workers taking an active part in the political struggles under the banner of our Party is steadily growing. The December demonstration against the crafts law and the mass workers' protest meetings on February 19 for the application, extension and addenda of the Law on Woman and Child Labour testify to the growing political consciousness of the workers. On the very morrow of May Day this could also be noticed in the struggle of the Sofia printers against the yellow press, in the person of its typical representative, the Vecherna Poshta (The Evening Post) of Shangov.When pointing out these successes, however, one should not forget that although quite a bit has been done and achieved by our organizations,it is still far from sufficient. Much more is required to have them reach the degree of intensity, consciousness and discipline necessary for a victorious organization of the forthcoming workers' struggles.The percentage of trade union members in Bulgaria is very small. Hundreds of workers, men and women, are still outside the reach of socialist propaganda, and have not yet been inspired by the idea of organization and organizational struggle. The number of trade union members at the factories is insignificant. There are only a few women workers in all our trade unions. Furthermore, there are trade unions, mainly in Sofia and Varna, which constitute a special union headed not by the Workers' Social Democratic Party but by some petty bourgeois faction. Many of our trade unions are weak organizationally and financially, owing to which they perform their trade union functions irregularly and inadequately. Others are in the process of consolidation and have not yet stepped soundly on their feet. The proletarian element is insufficiently represented in some Party organizations. There is a great shortage of advanced workers agitators and propagandists. Socialist education among the workers in certain towns is carried out unsystematically, even negligently. Our press has too limited a circulation, so that its influence over the workers' masses is limited. There are even organized workers (in some trade unions their number is not small), who do not receive the organ of their union Rabotnicheski Vestnik (Workers' Gazette) while many trade union workers do not subscribe to Novo Vremé.Moreover, the Bulgarian workers live and work under appalling conditions. The long working day, the low wages and insanitary conditions at workshops and factories, work at night and on holidays, the wide use of woman and child labour, the frequent unemployment, the lack of any serious legislative brakes on exploitation — all this makes it impossible for the broad masses of workers to live decently, drives them to degeneration, checks their progress, organization and class consciousness. It is a well-known fact that the worker who is exhausted and emaciated from overwork and undernutrition cannot be a good element for the workers' organization. He does not get a chance to rest after his tiring work, cannot attend meetings and lectures regularly, read, meet freely with comrades, devote more attention to his organization and take an active part in its work for the organization and education of the workers. Many trade unions and educational societies are compelled to call their meetings and lectures very rarely, because the majority of their members work 12 to 15 and even 17 hours daily and have no regular rest on holidays. The financial weakness of our trade unions and their slow consolidation is due, above all, to the low wages which do not allow a substantial increase in the membership dues, which are quite insufficient to cover trade union work, propaganda and mutual aid. It is therefore a vital necessity for the proper development of the workers' organizations to win better working conditions and to obtain a genuine workers' legislation." }
{ "content": "On the other hand, the restlessness of our working class, its organization and establishment as an independent and intransigent social and political force has drawn the attention of the bourgeoisie and prompted it to mobilize its forces and assume the offensive against the socialist movement. The application of the crafts law, the drawing up of the draft Law on Persons, the 'social policy' of the present government are aimed, in general, at diverting the workers' movement from its final and natural goal — the abolitionof the present-day capitalist exploitation, and at confining it to tasks that do not transcend the limits of the bourgeois system. And just as individual capitalists import from the West the most perfect means of production — the latest word of technology, so the bourgeoisie resorts to the most modern ways of combating social democracy. All bourgeois bodies and departments are seriously concerned with removing this 'dangerous enemy'. The bourgeois press, particularly the yellow press, spreads deception among the workers, so as to keep them in ignorance and to reconcile them with the present state of affairs. The Holy Synod translates and publishes 'scientific' pamphlets against socialism, freely disseminated in thousands of copies. 'Popular lectures' are being organized at which, along with general educational subjects, lectures are also held on the 'unsoundness' and the 'Utopian character' of Marxism. And the government organ Nov Vek (New Age) makes use of every opportunity to recommend its party as a defender and benefactor of the workers and to appeal to them to leave the socialist organizations and to rally under its banner. The government agents hastened to introduce Zubatou's methods in Bulgaria. They formed a railwaymen's union for the purpose of diverting the railway workers from their independent organization. And the Party of the Radical Democrats is getting ready to penetrate the workers' masses with its demagogy in order to organize them along bourgeois lines and against social democracy. Moreover, the Industrial Union does not confine itself to interventions in favour of individual industrialists, but goes further: it wants to preserve the capitalist class from the offensive of the socialist movement. It firmly opposes the application of the Law on Woman and Child Labour and insistently calls for a legislative ban on strikes. Nor does the Crafts Union\" stand with folded hands. It, too, aims its arrows against the workers, trying by all possible means to bring them 'under the influence of the crafts' organizations and to prevent their becoming organized in the socialist trade unions.It is clear, however, that we are on the eve of far-reaching and intense trade union and political struggles both for improving working conditions and for clearing the road of the workers' movement and parrying the reactionary blows of the bourgeoisie; struggles which require much stronger organizations than those which our working class has at present.Today, after the celebration of the international socialist holiday, encouraged by the successes achieved so far, the Party and trade union organizations should, therefore, with redoubled energy continue their work for the organization and socialist education of the workers, doing their utmost to attract factory workers, men and women, no matter how difficult this may be. The organizations must do their utmost to make effective and expedient use of all the forces at their disposal for all-round socialist activity.May Day is of great importance from the viewpoint of propaganda. The preparations for its celebration, the pre-May Day meetings, conferences, appeals and in particular the May Day demonstration have galvanized the workers, masses and aroused a certain interest in the movement, struggles and demands of the organized workers among them. The workers' organizations have been offered a rare opportunity to attract new workers. They must not only step up, but also more effectively organize their propaganda, paying attention to its purely socialist content. The Party organizations, trade unions and educational societies should hold regular meetings and lectures, while the workers' agitators should go zealously among the workers and make use of the post-May Day unrest in their midst to strengthen the workers' organizations. The consistent and daily work for the ideological and organizational consolidation of the trade unions, for enlisting new militants in their ranks, for a fruitful settlement of all conflicts between labour and capital, should be carried on most energetically. The present moment requires that all functionaries, all Party and trade union members devote all their efforts and capacities to the proletarian cause.And thus, in the struggles against ignorance and bourgeois influence, for rallying the workers under the banner of social democracy, against individual capitalists and the state, for better working conditions and workers' legislation, against all organs of the bourgeoisie, for clearing the road of the workers' movement — the workers' socialist organizations will attract an ever greater part of the working class, will become an ever stronger factor, will go from victory to victory, and will come ever closer to the great proletarian goal — the emancipation of mankind from the present economic, political and spiritual oppression.Dimitrov Works Archive" }
{ "content": " Georgi Dimitrov The United Workes' Front First Published: May 1, 1923, in Rabotnicheski Vestnik No. 259 Source: Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works Sofia Press, Sofia, Volume 1, 1972, pp. 118-112 Transcription/HTML Markup: Mathias Bismo Online Version: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002 Even on the eve of the European War the unity of the proletariat in the key countries of the world was not complete. With their reformist policy, their tactics of class collaboration and their nationalist ideology, the Second Socialist International and the Trade Union International were incapable of creating a united workers' front against capitalism either in the individual countries or on an international plane. However, the disgraceful and treacherous betrayal committed by the staffs and the chief leaders of these two international proletarian organizations and of their affiliated trade unions and parties, at the declaration and during the whole course of the imperialist war, in proclaiming and maintaining a so-called civil peace, i. e. siding with the bourgeoisie of their own countries and placing the organizations they led at the service of the defence of the capitalist homeland, ultimately destroyed what feeble unity of the workers' masses had been attained up to that time. But even after the end of the war and the glorious triumph of the proletarian revolution in Russia, instead of quickly re-establishing a united front of the long-suffering and seething workers' masses, in order to secure the triumph of the revolution throughout Europe, the treacherous socialist leaders and trade union bureaucrats once again sided with their national bourgeoisie, helped it to preserve its class domination and to start along the road of restoring capitalism which was shaken by the war and tottering in its foundations, at the expense of an even fiercer exploitation and enslavement of the proletariat, exhausted and bleeding to death. For five years now the reformists and Amsterdam bureaucrats have been in alliance, in one way or another, with the bourgeoisie in their countries and at a time when it has recovered, rallied its forces, and started a rabid drive to lengthen working hours, reduce real wages and deprive the workers of all their prewar gains, when it is planning new military and imperialist adventures. These heroes of highsounding phrases against capitalism and war are backing the offensive of capital by all possible means, paving the way for fascism, justifying the aggressive actions of their national imperialism and preventing the establishment of a united workers' front against capitalism and imperialism, against fascism and war. While voting loud protests and long resolutions at their international congresses in Rome and the Hague, against the intention of the French imperialists to invade the most important German industrial area (the Ruhr), and for the preservation of peace, while threatening to organize an international general strike in case of such an invasion and danger of war, the leaders of the Amsterdam Trade Union Federation not only failed to contribute to the creation of the first prerequisite for the success of such a serious action, a united workers' front but, on the contrary, they brought about a split in the General Confederation of Labour in France and in the General Trade Union in Czechoslovakia and, by persecuting and expelling from trade unions the oppositional elements and sections, they are methodically preparing a split in the German Trade Union. At the same time, they have stubbornly rejected every proposal of the Red Trade Union International and the Communist International for a general international conference or an international workers' congress, with all workers' parties and trade unions represented, in order to successfully organize an action against the Ruhr invasion, against the offensive of capital, against fascism and the new imperialist war threatening the world. All along the line and in every country, the reformists and Amsterdam leaders are working with a diligence worthy of a better fate against the unity of the proletariat, against the building of a united workers' front, all the time with a view to keeping intact their alliance and their community of purpose with the bourgeoisie. The heroes of the Second Socialist International and the Amsterdam International Federation are ready to form a united front with Mussolini and his fascist bands in Italy, with Poincar� in France, with the government of Cunow and Stinnes in Germany, with the bourgeois reaction in Czechoslovakia, with the Serbian hegemonist bourgeoisie and its police in Yugoslavia, with the bloc of factory-owners, bankers and profiteers in Bulgaria (in joint electoral tickets with the leaders of the Populist and the Democratic parties, as it happened yesterday), but they refuse to adopt a united front with the communist and revolutionary proletariat, to fight capitalism, to fight against war and for peace. And when the French imperialist armies invaded the Ruhr and Europe was threatened with a new war, when therefore the time had come to proceed with the implementation of the loud resolutions for an international general strike, the Amsterdam men of the Entente countries virtually sided with the French invaders and oppressors, while the secretary of the Amsterdam Trade Union Federation, Edo Fimen, declared in a tearful voice that the Federation was incapable of carrying out its resolutions and with unprecedented cynicism blamed the workers' masses themselves for it who, he said, were indifferent, intent on their own selfish daily interests and reluctant to fight for major issues. At the same time, the most immediate interests of the proletariat of all countries, the interests of its self-preservation and self-defence, of repulsing the rabid offensive of capital, of securing its bread, shelter and freedom, as well as its major class interest - its final liberation from the chains of capitalist exploitation, both demand imperatively the immediate formation o f a united front in the trade union and political struggle, on a national and international scale. History now places the proletariat of all countries and of the whole world before the dilemma - either, in spite of everything, to restore its united front in the fight against the offensive of capital or, if it is not equal to this, to abandon itself to the mercy of an insane and savage" }
{ "content": " gang of capitalists and imperialists and be turned into cattle for decades to come. And the latter would inevitably happen, were it not for the sound class instinct of the proletariat itself, were the latter unable to draw the lesson from its past bitter experience, were it not for the Communist and the Red Trade Union International, and the Communist parties, the revolutionary trade unions and the opposition wings in the reformist trade unions, who are all working with perseverence and devotion for the formation of a united workers' front. We must state now that new and considerable successes are scored every day in this respect. Already powerful workers' opposition trends are being formed within the Social Democratic parties and the reformist trade unions themselves, resolutely standing for a united front. The masses down below are already joining hands, regardless of differences in political opinion and organizational affiliation, for a common struggle through the factory councils in Germany and France, in Italy and Czechoslovakia and many other countries. The International Workers' Conference in Frankfurt (Germany) in March this year, the purpose of which was to organize a united international action of the proletariat against the Ruhr invasion, against fascism and against the new imperialist war now being planned, testified most convincingly to the growing popularity of the idea of a united workers' front. Although the conference was boycotted again by the staffs of the Second International and the Amsterdam Trade Union Federation, representatives of the factory councils in Germany, France, England, etc., among whom there mere many Social Democrats and Amsterdam men, did take part in it, together with the representatives of the Communist International, the Red Trade Union International, of the communist parties and the revolutionary trade unions of various countries. The break-up of the coalition of the Social Democratic Party with the bourgeoisie in Saxony and the forming of a socialist government1) with the support of the communists and with a workers' programme, drawn up by the Saxon factory councils, also showed that the united workers' front, from a slogan rallying the proletariat, is becoming more and more of an actual fact, and assuming the important role of a key factor in the political development of Germany which is now heading for a final rupture of the alliance between Social Democracy and the bourgeoisie and the setting up of a workers' government. Only such a government could cope with the terrible crisis which has befallen the German people after the occupation of the Ruhr by the French imperialist armies, and the responsibility for which lies precisely with the bourgeoisie and the reformist staffs. Today we can safely say that amidst the international proletariat no idea is more popular than that of the united workers' front, for the workers' masses are realizing every day more clearly that the key to the solution of all problems concerning the bread, peace, freedom and future of toiling mankind, lies exactly in a realization of the united front of the proletariat in each country, in Europe and the whole world. Neither the repulsion of the offensive of capital, nor the elimination of savage fascism, nor the staving off of the new imperialist war, nor, lastly, the triumph of the liberating proletarian revolution, would be possible without a united workers' front, and the joint action of all proletarians and working people in town and village. This is why the united workers' front is to be the first great and historical slogan of this year's May Day demonstrations in all countries. The Bulgarian proletariat, on its part, under the leadership of the Communist Party and the General Trade Union, is following boldly and persistently the tactics of the united workers' front in all aspects of its struggles and is daily building its indestructible union with the rest of the toiling masses in town and village. On May Day it will once more scornfully reject the divisive attempts of the ideologically and politically bankrupt bourgeoisie, of the raging demagogues and oppressors of the Agrarian Union, of the RightWing Socialist careerists who have sold out to the bourgeoisie, and of the handful of confused anarchists, and it will manifest powerfully its firm and unshakable will to be united, and in a sound and lasting alliance with the masses of small owners in town and village, in the struggle against the urban and rural bourgeoisie, for its own self-preservation and self-defence and for setting up a workers' and peasants' government - the real government of the working people in Bulgaria. NOTES 1) A Workers' Government was set up in Saxony on October 11, 1923, following the mass revolutionary movement which spread throughout Germany as a reaction to the Ruhr occupation by French and Belgian forces. It included five Social Democrats and two Communists; the latter, pursuing a weak-kneed policy of compromices, together with the left-wing Social Democrats, impeded the arming of the proletariat and put a brake on revolutionary development in Germany. On October 30, 1923, German army units overthrew the Workers' government. Dimitrov Works Archive " }
{ "content": "MIA > Library > Dimitrov DimitroffThe Labor MovementThe Trade Union Movementin Bulgaria(1 March 1923)From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 22, 1 March 1923, pp. 172–173.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.The West European trade union movement frequently publishes inaccurate news respecting the trade union movement in Bulgaria, the following will provide a true picture of Bulgaria’s trade union movement.Before the war there were two trade union federations:The General Trade Union Federation of Bulgaria, based on the principle of revolutionary class war, and connected with the Social Democratic Labor Party, now the Communist Party, and The Trade Union federation, standing for the principles of reformism, and associated with the Social Democratic Party (“broad socialists”).According to their published reports the membership of these trade union federations, at the end of 1914, was as follows:Revolutionary trade union federation: 3 central unions, 176 local sections with 6,563 members. Reformist trade union federation: 6 central unions, 77 local sections with 3,168 members.The income received by these federations, in 1914, from members’ subscriptions was as follows: revolutionary trade union federation 15,535 leva; reformist trade union federation 3,920 leva.Up to 1911 the reformist trade union federation was affiliated to the International Trade Union Central. The Budapest congress held during that year however, decided to regard neither Federation as affiliated until the two were united.In 1914 Legien, who at that time was international trade union secretary, visited Sofia, with the object of bringing about an alliance of the two trade union federations, but the attempt was a failure.Out of the separate craft unions belonging to the reformist central, only five were affiliated to their corresponding international centrals. The craft unions belonging to the revolutionary central were all, without exception, affiliated to their internationalDuring the post-war period the reformist social democratic party (broad socialists) compromised itself completely in the eyes of the Bulgarian workers, in consequence of which it entirely collapsed. Its left wing broke away and joined the Communist Party. In September 1920, the two trade union federations united on the basis of revolutionary class war, in which action they were joined by all the unions affiliated to them. For this purpose a special declaration, signed by the executive committees of both centrals, was published. Thus the longed for unity of the Bulgarian trade union movement was realized.The development of our trade union alliance since the war, both before and after the union of the two federations, may be seen front the following statements:Membership: (End of 1918): 13 unions, 115 local sections, 5,713 members. Finances: Income from members’ subscriptions in 1919: 532,275 leva, total income 1,941,439 leva; in 1921: members’ subscriptions: 1,146,20b leva, total income 2,046,408 leva. Wage conflicts: 1919: 135 lock-outs and strikes involving 76,310 workers, successes 57, partial successes 54, unsuccessful 22; 1920: 68 lock-outs and strikes with 8,634 participants, successes 30, partial successes 17, unsuccessful 21; 1921: 66 lock-outs and strikes with 3,115 participants, successful 23, partially successful 18, unsuccessful 25.In 1922 more than 200 strikes had been carried out by October, participated in by no fewer than 20,000 workers. The overwhelming majority of these strikes were successful, a smaller number partially successful, and only a very small number unsuccessful. Thanks to these wage movements, wages were raised by 35 to 40%; between April and October 1922, in the tobacco, timber, shoe, sugar, and other industries, while the price of necessities during the same period rose at most, by 25%. (Compared with pre-war times 225 times).The remnant of the “broad” socialist party still attempts to make a fraudulent use of the name of its lost trade union federation. At the present time this party is engaged in forming, in addition to its party central, a trade union committee with a secretary paid by the party.This fictitious trade union committee however, has no workers whatever behind it, except a small number of the typograph-workers employed in the state printing establishment. This can be seen from numerous facts. During the recent sessions of the congress of the broad socialist party, a certain “trade union congress” was convened, as well as “congresses” of the separate unions. Despite these “congresses” –, of which nobody in our country even knows when and where they were held, there has not, up to now, been a single report published as to the membership and activity of these “unions”. Narod, the organ of the brood socialist party, published whole pages of reports of these congresses, but no figures were given regarding the membership, or the income and expenditure of these “unions”. Only the typographical workers belonging to this party published a detailed report, giving figures, according to which their union has 450 members.The repeated challenges made by Rabotnitshesky Vestnik – the organ of the Red trade union federation – to the “broad” socialists, to publish the number of members in the broad socialist trade union federation, and to state where these members are hiding themselves, are either evaded or entirely ignored.It is no wonder that this fictitious trade union federation, despite its affiliation to the Amsterdam Trade Union International, has so far paid no contributions to this body. (See report of the Amsterdam International.)The “trade union secretary” paid by the broad social party serves it as an agent for supporting the bourgeoisie in its campaign of slander against the trade union movement. The strongest proof that this “trade union alliance” is a fictitious organization, lies in the fact that during this year, when a wave of strikes and wage movements was sweeping the country, not a single strike or wage movement, was recorded as being conducted by this “trade union federation”.Nevertheless, the “secretary” of this federation took part in the congress held at Rome by the Amsterdam international, and delivered his speech in the name of the Bulgarian proletariat. Last year the same “secretary” participated in the conference of the international Geneva labor bureau." }
{ "content": "But the climax of the whole matter is, that the international organizations refuse admittance to our unions on the pretext that they do not belong to this bogus central, which is affiliated to the Amsterdam International. On this account our unions are deprived of their international relations to the unions of other countries!Another circumstance rousing no less indignation is the fact that this so-called central, to justify its existence, has published purely imaginary figures in its last year’s report. Here we read that there are 36,000 organized workers in Bulgaria, that the central affiliated to the Amsterdam International possesses 14,803 members, while our trade union federation, here designated as communist, possesses only 12,000 members, and that there are other craft unions with a membership of 9,197.It may be plainly seen from the above that the statements of the Amsterdam International are false from A to Z. It is true however, that there are more than 30,000 organized workers and employees in Bulgaria; but these are members of the unions belonging to our trade union federation, which is affiliated to the Red International of Labor Unions.Dimitrov ArchiveLast updated on 11 August 2021" }
{ "content": " Georgi Dimitrov Bulgaria's Economic Development Source: Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works Sofia Press, Sofia, Volume 1, 1972, pp. 23-30 Transcription/HTML Markup: Mathias Bismo Online Version: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2003 After the liberation from Turkish political oppression,1) the doors of our country were flung wide open to the influof the advanced European capitalist states. The strong impact of this influence produced a profound change in the life of the entire country.The old primitive methods of production, the crafts which had formerly flourished in Turkish times and were now outdated, proved impotent and helpless in the face of the competition of modern, mechanized, large-scale capitalproduction in the European countries. Our home marwas flooded with their goods, which displaced the local products with amazing rapidity and weakened or ruined a series of craft productions. This process was accelerated by the fact that after Bulgaria's liberation, many of the crafts had to forego the free market of Asia Minor and the other provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which had been at their disposal prior to liberation.The intensified spread and development of capitalism in Bulgaria began in these economic conditions. A number of modernly equipped factories and other capitalist enterwere built, at first with foreign and later also with local capital. European and Bulgarian banks and other credinstitutions were founded, so were big commercial firms with branches in the country's major towns. Railway lines and ports were built. Parallel with the perfected machines and steam engines, electric power was introduced into indus In general, the way was cleared for the development of local, national capital, and this acquired particular momenafter the economic crisis came to an end towards 1901, and during the upswing that set in in 1903 and 1904 which, but for some minor fluctuations, has been continuing to this day.The state itself, organized on the model of the state or in capitalist countries with a numerous and highly-paid bureaucracy, an extremely expensive monarchy and military establishment, fell entirely under the strong influence of emergent capitalism. At first there were vacilbetween the old forms of production and modern capitalist production, but later the state sided ever more consistently and resolutely with capitalism, making every effort to promote the latter's rapid and untrammeled develTogether with the illegal and piratic accumulation of huge capital in the hands of a minority of local capitalists, many of whom had started on a shoestring, an accumulation obtained from the state treasury and state loans through the government and by means of wholesale spoliation of the population, the state also created numerous facilities and privileges for the capitalists. Besides everything else, the special Act on Fostering Local Industry, passed in 1895, was extended and the privileges and benefits it granted afmany new branches of industry. The system of direct taxation was replaced by that of indirect taxation, and the state thus acquired revenues which, together with the floatng of loans, enabled it to start the construction of a number of new railway lines, ports, bridges and roads and, in gen extensively to protect capitalism.According to the census carried out by the State Board of Statistics on December 31, 1904, and the data provided by the Ministry of Trade and Agriculture on July 2, 1907 the state-protected factories numbered:\t\t\t1895-1900\t\t99\t\t\t\t1901-1904\t\t166\t\t\t\t1905-1907\t\t207\tThus, in less than 12 years, the number of factories enprotection2) increased by 108.Most of the protected industries are big factory enterprises. Of these 56 have a capital of from 100,000 to 500,000 leva, and 94 a capital of 500,000 to one million or more leva.Of course, today the number of enterprises protected by the Act is far larger. After 1907 many new factories were built: in Varna a textile mill, in Rouss� a factory for iron articles, in Elisseina a copper ore-dressing factory, in Gableather, footwear, textile, wood-processing and other factories, which do not enter into the figure of 207.Moreover, it should be borne in mind that, besides the protected productions, there are many other industrial enter which do not enjoy the benefits of the Act on FosLocal Industry, because they are subject to special laws. Among these are: the tobacco factories, the factories for cartridge cases, the printing and bookbinding enter the trams, arsenals (military and railway), the two state mines, as well as the private collieries, which are now developing very rapidly. At the moment there are no precise industrial statistics, but it may be boldly asserted that there are today more than 800 industrial enterprises in our country and that this number is quickly growing with the present industrial upswing in Bulgaria.At the same time, the railway network has deen develgreatly, as can be seen from the following data:\t \t\t1888 \t\t536,905 \t\t \t\t1895 \t\t761,089 \t\t \t\t1900 \t\t1,465,520 \t When the newly-built railway lines of Turnovo-Tsareva Livada-Plachkovitsa, Kyustendil-Gyu�shevo, and Chirare added, the total railway network exceeds 2,000 kilometres. Moreover, many more kilometres of raillines are under construction, such as: Mezdra-Vidin, Tsareva Livada-Gabrovo, Boroushtitsa-Stara Zagora, and Devnya-Dobrich.3) The railway network is being rapextended and will soon, after the projected lines are built, connect all the parts of the country of importance for industry, trade and agriculture, with railway lines.The railway lines in operation have yielded the following revenues:\t\t\t1893 - 3,612,538 leva \t\t1902 - 7,498,178 leva\t\t\t\t\t\t1894 - 3,618,070 leva \t\t1903 - 8,226,841 leva\t\t\t\t1895 - 4,120,454 leva \t\t1904 - 10,960,288 leva\t\t\t\t1896 - 4,587,830 leva \t\t1905 - 11,170,969 leva\t\t\t\t1897 - 4,592,615 leva \t\t1906 - 11,772,387 leva\t\t\t\t1898 - 5,110,555 leva \t\t1907 - 14,082,009 leva\t\t\t\t1899 - 5,118,021 leva \t\t1908 - 15,423,993 leva\t\t\t\t1900 - 6,163,454 leva \t\t1909 - 17,552,451 leva\t\t\t\t1901 - 7,285,097 leva \t\t \tSince 1903 the state has had a clear profit of from two to six million leva a year from the railways." }
{ "content": "In 1903 there were 7,570 kilometres of state and municroads, periodically maintained and repaired (5,935 km state and 1,635 km municipal roads). That same year there were 11,729 bridges (8,809 built by the state and 2,920 by the municipalities). There were 208 lodges for the maintemen in charge of roads and bridges. That same year 3,148 km of roads were under construction or had been pro which were completed in 1909. Roads, bridges and maintenance men's lodges are in far greater numbers today.Post and telegraph offices, of which there were only 100 in 1886, numbered 295 in 1908. There were only eight postal agencies and mobile bureaus in 1886 while in 1908 their number had risen to 1,757. In 1886 there were all in all 3,834 km of postal rounds, while by 1908 they had risen to 23,509 km.The entire telegraph network in 1886 was 3,548 km, while in 1908 it was 5,900.In 1903, when telephone exchanges were first installed, there were just four of them with 565 telephones. In 1908 these had increased to 21 with 2,039 telephones. In 1903 there were 135 km of telephones lines, and in 1908-263 km.In the last four years state revenues from the posts, teleand telephones have been as follows:\t\t\t1906 \t\t4,300,494 leva\t\t\t\t1907 \t\t4,745,075 leva\t\t\t\t1908 \t\t5,140,336 leva\t\t\t\t1909 \t\t5,510,000 leva\tThere were seven Bulgarian ports in operation on the Black Sea in 1895. In 1908 there were eight, two of which (those of Varna and Bourgas) were organized as modern ports. These were visited in 1895 by 2,733 ships (1,583 sailing boats and 1,150 steamships), while in 1908 the number was 5,933 (3,489 sailing boats and 2,444 steamships).There were eight ports in operation on the Danube in 1895, and nine in 1908. The number of incoming ships was 4,608 (589 sailing boats and 4,019 steamships) in 1895, and 9,137 (934 sailing boats and 8,203, steamships) in 1908.The two main Black Sea ports (Bourgas and Varna) supplied the following revenue from 1903 to 1907 (in leva): \t\t\tYears\t\tBourgas\t\tVarna\t\tTotal\t\t\t\t1903 \t\t149,571.06 \t\t11,974.75 \t\t161,545.81 \t\t\t\t1904 \t\t379,679.30 \t\t34,431.15 \t\t414,110.45 \t\t\t\t1905 \t\t363,703.20 \t\t83,075.35 \t\t446,778.55 \t\t\t\t1906 \t\t282,515.35 \t\t271,842.30 \t\t554,357.66 \t\t\t\t1907 \t\t283,903.30 \t\t435,815.15 \t\t719,718.45 \t Of course, revenues after 1907 have been far greater.The capitalist development of Bulgaria is also reflected in its foreign trade which, in the various years following the liberation until the present, progressed as follows (in leva):\t\t\tYears\t\tImports\t\tExports\t\t\t\t1879 \t\t32,137,800 \t\t20,092,854\t\t\t\t1885 \t\t44,040,214 \t\t44,874,751\t\t\t\t1890 \t\t84,530,497 \t\t71,051,123\t\t\t\t1895 \t\t69,020,295 \t\t77,685,546\t\t\t\t1900 \t\t46,342,100 \t\t53,982,629\t\t\t\t1905 \t\t122,249,938 \t\t147,960,688\t\t\t\t1909 \t\t160,429,624 \t\t111,433,683\tImports consist primarily of ironware, machinery and various other similar materials necessary for industry, conand agriculture.Capitalism, albeit more slowly, is now penetrating agriculture. The concentration of land in the hands of ever fewer persons and the proletarization of the peasant masses is a continuous process. According to official 1897 statis 799,588 farmers owned 3,977,577.73 hectares. If we cona farm of between 0.1 to 10 ha as a small farmstead, one of 10 to 100 ha as medium-sized and one of 100 to 500 and over as a large farmstead, we obtain the following picture:\t\t\t698,030 peasants own \t\t1,946,722.04 ha\t\t\t\t100,610 peasants own \t\t1,771,025.28 ha\t\t\t\t648 peasants own \t\t259,760.41 ha\t\t\t\t799,588 peasants own \t\t3,977,507.73 ha\tThis little table shows that a mere 948 persons own more than 250,000 ha. If we divide the total number of hectares by the number of owners, we shall get the following average per peasant owner: only 2.8 ha for the first category, 17.6 ha for the second, and 274 ha for the third. This trend towards land concentration is still more clearapparent in the following table:\t\t\tHectares\t\tOwners\t\tTotal ha\t\tLots\t\t\t\tFrom 100 to 200 \t\t606 \t\t82,600.26 \t\t19,001\t\t\t\tFrom 200 to 300 \t\t155 \t\t37,779.31 \t\t6,900\t\t\t\tFrom 300 to 500 \t\t100 \t\t42,736.12 \t\t3,575\t\t\t\tFrom 500 upwards\t\t87 \t\t96,641.42 \t\t2,413\tConsequently, 87 owners own more land than the 255 owners of the second and third category, and more than the 606 owners of the first category. Moreover, the fewer the ownand the larger the property, the less the number of lots, which goes to show that the small lots are concentrated in the big farms.This becomes even clearer from the following table, acto which the ownership of the farms existing in 1897 was distributed as follows:\t\t\t166,765 farmsteads possess up to 0,5 ha\t\t\t\t90,508 \t\tfrom 0.5 ha to 1 ha\t\t\t\t106,373 \t\tfrom 1.0 ha to 2 ha\t\t\t\t75,100 \t\tfrom 2.0 ha to 3 ha\t\t\t\t60,061 \t\tfrom 3.0 ha to 4 ha\t\t\t\t50,222 \t\tfrom 4.0 ha to 5 ha\t\t\t\t92,515 \t\tfrom 5.0 ha to 7.5 ha\t\t\t\t56,486 \t\tfrom 7.5 ha to 10.0 ha\t\t\t\t55,503 \t\tfrom 10.0 ha to 15.0 ha\t\t\t\t22,095 \t\tfrom 15.0 ha to 20.0 ha\t\t\t\t14,911 \t\tfrom 20.0 ha to 30.0 ha\t\t\t\t4,338 \t\tfrom 30.0 ha to 40.0 ha\t\t\t\t1,770 \t\tfrom 40.0 ha to 50.0 ha\t\t\t\t1,993 \t\tfrom 50.0 ha to 100.0 ha\t\t\t\t606 \t\tfrom 100.0 ha to 200.0 ha\t\t\t\t155 \t\tfrom 200.0 ha to 300.0 ha\t\t\t\t100 \t\tfrom 300.0 ha to 500.0 ha\t\t\t\t87 \t\tover 500.0 ha\t\t\t\tTotal 799,588 farmsteads\t Today the situation has changed still further in this direction, particularly in the Varna, Bourgas, Lom and other districts. A large mass of farms are doomed to ruin. According to more recent statistics, the number of farms which possess less than 5 ha has risen to 792,618! As is known, a minimum of 5 ha are necessary for the existence of an average farm.Of course, it should also be borne in mind, that most of the independent farms listed in the official statistics are only fictitiously independent as actually they are in the hands of usurers or of the Agricultural Bank.Land concentration and the proletarization of the peasant population goes hand in hand with a comparatively rapid industrialization of agriculture.From 1890 to 1908 the following farm machinery has been imported:\t\t\tYear\t\tAmount (kg)\t\tValue\t\t\t\t1890 \t\t310,404 \t\t201,999\t\t\t\t1895 \t\t309,132 \t\t323,551\t\t\t\t1900 \t\t429,058 \t\t428,313\t\t\t\t1905 \t\t936,548 \t\t834,019\t\t\t\t1906 \t\t1,771,777 \t\t1,448,054\t\t\t\t1907 \t\t2,541,802 \t\t2,199,336\t\t\t\t1908 \t\t1,678,722 \t\t1,366,800\tIn recent years farm machines have been introduced into the cultivation of land still more rapidly." }
{ "content": "Thus, the capitalist mode of production and trade have been consistently invading the entire country_ , penetrating into all the pores of its economic, social and political life, and creating new conditions, new class groups and relations, and new social movements and struggles. NOTES 1) Referring to Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman rule by the Russian army as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. 2) The Act on Fostering Local Industry protects only those inenterprises which have a minimum capital of 25,000 leva, or exploit at least 20 workers and work with machines and other modern means. 3) Today Tolbukhin. \t Dimitrov Works Archive " }
{ "content": "MIA > Library > Dimitrov G. DimitrovThe Labor MovementThe Revolutionary Trade UnionMovement in the Balkans(January 1923)From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 7, 18 January 1923, p. 62.From International Press Correspondence (weekly), Vol. 3 No. 2, 18 January 1923, p. 22–23.Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.The trade union movement in the Balkan states (Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Roumania, Greece, and Turkey) is comparatively young. With the exception of the trade union organizations within the territory of the one-time Austro-Hungarian state, which was united to Yugoslavia, the trade unions of the other Balkan countries have been formed during the last 20 years.The trade union movement in the Balkans is developing in the atmosphere of a violent class war between labor and capital. The competition and pressure of the considerably more powerful and better organized European capitalism has caused the workers to be exploited with a barbarism which only finds comparison in the backward colonial and semi-colonial countries.Even before the war the trade unions were forced to carry on long and difficult struggles for every trifling improvement in working conditions, while in many other European countries certain improvements were gained by means of peaceful negotiations between trade unions and capitalists.The trade unions of the Balkan states have had to fight for the bare right of existence, have had to defend themselves against many attacks involving great conflicts and sacrifices.It is thus very well comprehensible that opportunism has not been so successful in the trade union movement of the Balkan countries as is the case in the European movement, and that it has not been able to influence the theory and practice of the trade union movement in the direction of class peace, and of collaboration between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. And there has been even less room for a trade union bureaucracy ready to play flunkey to the bourgeoisie.This objectively explains why, in the Balkan states, the trade unions did not permit themselves to be made the tools of imperialism, even before war was declared, as did the trade unions of Germany, France, England, and other countries, but on the contrary, armed themselves against the imperialist war, and condemned the treachery of the Amsterdam International.This is also the explanation of die remarkable fact that all attempts made by the reformists, after the war and at the present time, to influence the trade unions, or to create their own organizations. have been unsuccessful.In this respect Bulgaria and Yugoslavia offer a noteworthy example. The reformist trade union centre existing in Bulgaria up to the war joined the Red centre in October 1920, the latter being affiliated to the R.I.L.U. since its foundation. This effected the complete unity of the Bulgarian trade union movement, a unity entirely revolutionary.After the revolutionary trade unions were destroyed in Yugoslavia, the reformists endeavoured to head a legal trade union movement. But although they were aided by the government to take possession of the buildings, funds, furnishings, etc. of the revolutionary trade unions still they did not succeed in winning over more than a few dozen deluded workers.The working masses of South Slavia utterly scorn the reformists, and the raging Terror does not prevent them from uniting in revolutionary trade unious possessing great powers of resistance. On the other hand, the favourable influence of revolutionary socialism has prevented the trade union movement in the Balkan states from being affected by anarcho-syndicalism.At the present time the capitalist offensive is in full swing in the Balkans. The white Terror enables the capitalists of Yugoslavia to increase the exploitation of labor, for by its aid they have been able to introduce the nine and ten hour working day, and to reduce actual wages to their present level of 40 to 45% of the average pre-war wages.In Roumania and Greece the same conditions obtain: The capitalists seek to reinforce their economic offensive by means of strengthening political reaction.It is in Bulgaria alone that all the attempts of the bourgeoisie to establish the white Terror have been without avail. Thanks to this circumstance the Bulgarian trade unions are in a position to organize the resistance of the masses against the capitalist offensive in comparative peace, and are doing this with great success. At the present time the whole country is pervaded by a united strike movement, and led exclusively by the Red trade unions. This unanimous and organized resistance of the working masses against the attack of capital has already borne excellent fruit in Bulgaria.Not only has the eight-hour day been retained, and the main objective of the capitalist offensive thus successfully defended, but in some of the most important branches of industry it has been possible to gain an actual rise in wages. Thus for instance the average cost of living in Bulgaria rose by 25% between April and October 1922, and during this same period, thanks to the influence of the trade unions, the wages in the leather, sugar, and tobacco industries, and in the building trade, were raised by 35% to 40%. (The average wage in Bulgaria is however still 40% lower than before the war.)This energetic resistance naturally enrages the industrial magnates, and they are organizing armed bands in their works and factories, led by While Guard Russian officers. In many places these bands have already attempted to attack the workers, and to render strikes impossible, it is gratifying to note that the favorable influence of the R.I.L.U. and of the C.I. is promoting the rapid formation of the proletarian fighting front of the workers of the Balkans against the capitalist offensive.At the same lime we are enabled to see with increasing clearness that the first prerequisites for an organized fighting front must be created in the Balkans for the trade union movement. The formation of this front is the most important task of the trade union movement in the Balkan states at the present time." }
{ "content": "There is no doubt whatever that the tremendous difficulties obstructing the development of the trade union movement, the white Terror in Yugoslavia, the violent persecutions in Roumania, Greece, and Turkey, and the attacks of armed bourgeois bands in Bulgaria, will be shortly overcome by the revolutionary trade union movement.Dimitrov ArchiveLast updated on 3 May 2021" }
{ "content": "Georgi DimitrovSpeech on the Chinese Question Delivered 10 August 1937 at the Meeting of the Secretariat of the ECCI First Published:1986 in 'Kommunisticheskii Internatsional i kitaiskaya revolutsiya' p. 274-277Translated by: Tahir AsgharSource: revolutionarydemocracy.orgTranscribed: revolutionarydemocracy.orgHTML Markup: Mathias BismoOnline Version: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2001 The speech by Comrade Wang Ming was somewhat in the nature of propaganda and was optimistic. He knows well, and we have talked with him on more than one occasion as I am the one directly dealing with the Chinese party, that the problems confronting the Chinese party are extremely complex and the position of the party is exceptional.Imagine all that has occurred during the past two years. The Chinese Communist Party, which was leading the Red Army in China, takes a crucial turn. You will not find a single section of the Comintern that has been put into such a situation and that has made such a crucial change in its policies and its tactics during the past few years as has been done by the Chinese Communist Party. It fought for the Soviets in China, for Soviet regions, created a Soviet government, created an army, estranged a part of the army of Chiang Kai-shek from him in its aim of sovietisation etc.The cadre of the party, materials of the party and the strength of the party - all of this was concentrated up to 95% if not wholly 100% in these Soviet regions. And in the armed struggle against Nanking the cadre was educated, they matured and grew; good cadre emerged as did their political leaders.But from this orientation it was required at this moment to turn around 180 degrees in the policies and the tactics of the party. And now the same cadres, not another party, not new people but the same members of the party, the same masses must conduct a different policy.Is this policy correct? Certainly. It is being conducted in accordance with the general line of the VII Congress of the Communist International and is in accordance with the development of the Chinese revolution. The issue in China today is not of Sovietisation but about keeping the Chinese people from being devoured by Japanese imperialism. It is necessary to unite large forces of the Chinese people in the struggle against the Japanese aggression for upholding the independence, freedom and integrity of the Chinese people. And here the party was supposed to - and on the whole it did so - make the transition to the position of struggle not for the Sovietisation of China but for democracy, for unification on a democratic base of the forces of the Chinese people against Japanese imperialism, against Japanese aggression.And now the talks and discussions are going ahead with the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek. Our party is ready for it and has already taken the first steps towards transforming and restructuring in practice the Soviet regions from being Soviet to democratic, where the Soviet government is transformed as the government of a Special Region, and the Red Army is being transformed not into the Red Army of the Soviet, but a part of the common All-Chinese anti-imperialist army etc.There are many difficulties and dangers confronting our Chinese comrades and our Chinese Communist Party in these manoeuvres and games of Chiang Kai-shek and his circle. It is easy to imagine what dangers confront our party. Help is necessary here, help with people and strengthening the Chinese cadre within. We must help the Chinese Communist Party so that it is able to organise its forces in Kuomintang China, increase its influence among the working class of Kuomintang China.After all the Red Army of China is a peasants' army. The percentage of the workers is very small. In the party too this share is very small. An important objective today is to put the working masses and the working class of China not under the influence of the Kuomintang or other political groups but under that of the Communist Party so that it can lean on not only the armed forces, which it has, but also in one form or the other on the working class of Kuomintang China, and Shanghai and Canton and other important centres of China.This cadre is available abroad. They can help the party. It is crucial to introduce our cadre in North China. This is the issue that needs to be attended to first.If it was possible to examine the documents of the Chinese party in more detail, some other points could have been identified which pose a threat of slipping up, of ideological malaise in the party and among the party cadre, and can be disorienting. We have to make some corrections here. For this reason new people who are well versed with the international situation are required to help the CC of the Communist Party of China. The CC itself requires help. And also at the time when the war is on - and it is on and will continue. It is not going to be a simple episode, an incident that happened and then is over with the occupation of north China. Not at all.Comrade Wang Ming talked about his views. He said that the occupation would mean strengthening of the positions for further offensive by the Japanese military in China, not to mention the position against the Soviet Union." }
{ "content": "The question of whether the CC of the party, and its members and its apparatus will be in a position to continue their work is very serious. Here the Chinese comrades have to really hurry and do everything possible to strengthen the leadership of the party, to prepare a group of very active members of the Central Committee of the party, and to create better links between the CC of the party and the mass of the party men and the mass of the working class. I think we will discuss these with the Chinese comrades separately in a smaller commission. We will have to come out with concrete proposals but not to approach it with such optimism. The situation is not bad, but difficulties must be kept in view, must be taken account of and hopes need not be raised on flimsy grounds. It would do neither the Chinese comrades nor us any good.The other problem - what is happening in Japan? What is happening within the country? Is it so impossible for the international proletariat to influence the mood of the masses inside the country and use their anti-war sentiments which indubitably are present in the country. This too is a specific problem and its resolution will certainly help the Chinese people in their struggle against the Japanese military. We know from genuine sources that Japan is facing internally financial difficulties and all the time the efforts of the Japanese government are directed towards procuring loans. It is looking for loans in England because Germany, while signing the agreement on war against the Soviet Union, is not ready to give loans. When they are unable to get loans in London, they look for them in Paris then New York. Is it not possible that we, the international proletariat, cannot initiate a campaign which can to some extent prevent or make unpopular release for the Japanese military money that may be used for war against the Chinese people. It is possible to initiate such a campaign. There is the huge press in France and England etc. Prominent personalities that sympathise with the Chinese people can be mobilised, questions can be raised in the parliament and in the press to make it difficult to lend money to the Japanese military. These and a number of other measures can serve as international help to the Chinese people.I think that all these specific questions must be put before the commission, and the excellent report of Comrade Wang Ming must be redone as an article but with additions which we discussed here today. This report must be made into an article for the international press in a manner that can mobilise the masses to the defence of the Chinese people, but it should not give the impression that everything is proceeding well, all 100 per cent, towards an anti-Japanese national front in China. We need to conduct a daily struggle for it. If in Spain we extended the struggle so long that the end is not even in sight at present, and it being said that the decisive defence of the republican Spain will occur in the Spring, then you can imagine what will happen in China, for how long and on what scale the struggle against Japanese imperialism would continue. [...]Dimitrov Works Archive" }
{ "content": "Georgi DimitrovNotes on the Chinese Question From Dimitrov's Diary 11 November 1937 First Published:1997 in Dimitrov, Georgi 'Dnevnik' p. 129.130Source: revolutionarydemocracy.orgTranscribed: revolutionarydemocracy.orgHTML Markup: Mathias BismoOnline Version: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2001 Meeting with Stal(in) in the Kremlin. D(imitrov), Wang Ming, Kang Sheng, Communard.The decree of the Secretariat [of ECCI] is outdated.This is what happens, when people sit in their offices and cook up!'To strengthen by all possible means the struggle against Trotskyites (in the dec[ree]). That is not sufficient. Trotskyites must be pursued, shot and destroyed. They are world-wide provocateurs. Most malicious agents of fascism!'1) Basic for the Chi(nese) Communist Party at present is: to participate in the all-national upheaval and to take a leading position.2) At the moment war is the most important. And not agrarian revolution not confisca(tion) of land.(Necessity is for a tax in support of the war.)Chi(nese) Com(munists) have moved from one extreme to the other - earlier they confiscated everything, now - nothing.3) There is only one slogan: 'Victorious war for the liberation of the Chi(nese) peo(ple).''For a free China, against Japa(nese) war-mongers.'4) How should the Chinese fight against the foreign enemy - that is the basic question. When that is settled, then to tackle the question, how to fight amongst themselves !5) The Chinese are now in more favourable conditions. More than we were in 1918-20. Our country was divided along the line of social revolution.In China national revolution, struggle for nat(ional) liberat(ion) and freedom. Unites the country and the people.6) China has a great reserve of people and I think, that Chiang Kai-shek is right when he asserts that China will win. What is needed is to persist with the war that has started.7) For that it is necessary to create its own war industry.Production of aviation.It is easy to produce aeroplanes, but it is very difficult to transport them.(Mater[ials] for the planes we shall give them!)Aeroplane manufacturing facilities must be built.Must also produce tanks.(We can give materials for tanks!)If China has its own war industry, no one can defeat it.8) 8th Army must have not three, but thirteen divisions.That can be done in the form of reserve regiments as a replacement of the existing divisions.New regiments must be raised, and armed training given night and day.9) Since the 8th army does not have artillery, its tactics should not be of direct attack, but should irritate the enemy, to draw it into the countryside and to attack it from the rear.Must blow up communications.10) Neither England, nor America want China to win. They are afraid of its victory, because of their own imperialist interests.Chinese victory will influence India, Indochina etc.They want Japan to weaken as a result of the war, but would not allow China to stand on its legs.In the form of Japan, they wish to have a dog on the leash - to frighten China, as in the past.1) Tsar's Russia did but they do not want the dog to eat the whole of the sacrificial victim.11) For the Chin(ese) part(y) congress it is not advisable to engage in theoreti(cal) discussions (refers to the 7th Congress of CPC). They can leave theoretical problems for later. After the end of the war.To talk of a non-capitalist path of development for China now has much less chance than earlier.(Isn't capitalism in China now developing!)12) Held up is the question of the setting up of national revolutionary league.13) In Uhumi a suitable representative of the 8th Army and the party.Notes1)In the original scratched text 'in Russia Tsar monarchy'.Dimitrov Works Archive" }
{ "content": " Georgi DimitrovThe Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism Main Report delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist InternationalDelivered: August 2, 1935Source: Source: Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works Sofia Press, Sofia, Volume 2, 1972;Transcription: ZodiacHTML Markup: Mathias BismoI. FASCISM AND THE WORKING CLASSThe class character of fascismWhat does fascist victory bring to the masses?Is the victory of fascism inevitable?Fascism -- A ferocious but unstable power II. UNITED FRONT OF THE WORKING CLASS AGAINST FASCISMSignificance of the United FrontThe chief arguments of the opponents of the United FrontContent and forms of the united frontThe anti-fascist people's frontKey questions of the United Front in individual countriesThe United Front and the fascist mass organizationsThe United Front in countries where the social democratsare in officeThe struggle for trade union unityThe United Front and the youthThe United Front and womenThe anti-imperialist United FrontA United Front governmentThe ideological struggle against fascismIII. CONSOLIDATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL UNITY OF THE PROLETARIATConsolidation of the Communist partiesPolitical unity of the working classConclusion Notes Comrades, as early as the Sixth Congress [1928], the Communist International warned the world proletariat that a new fascist offensive was under way and called for a struggle against it. The Congress pointed out that 'in a more or less developed form, fascist tendencies and the germs of a fascist movement are to be found almost everywhere.'With the development of the very deep economic crisis, with the general crisis of capitalism becoming sharply accentuated and the mass of working people becoming revolutionized, fascism has embarked upon a wide offensive. The ruling bourgeoisie more and more seeks salvation in fascism, with the object of taking exceptional predatory measures against the working people, preparing for an imperialist war of plunder, attacking the Soviet Union, enslaving and partitioning China, and by all these means preventing revolution.The imperialist circles are trying to shift the whole burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of the working people. That is why they need fascism.They are trying to solve the problem of markets by enslaving the weak nations, by intensifying colonial oppression and repartitioning the world anew by means of war. That is why they need fascism.They are striving to forestall the growth of the forces of revolution by smashing the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants and by undertaking a military attack against the Soviet Union -- the bulwark of the world proletariat. That is why they need fascism.In a number of countries, Germany in particular, these imperialist circles have succeeded, before the masses had decisively turned towards revolution, in inflicting defeat on the proletariat, and establishing a fascist dictatorship.But it is characteristic of the victory of fascism that this victory, on the one hand, bears witness to the weakness of the proletariat, disorganized and paralyzed by the disruptive Social-Democratic policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and, on the other, expresses the weakness of the bourgeoisie itself, afraid of the realization of a united struggle of the working class, afraid of revolution, and no longer in a position to maintain its dictatorship over the masses by the old methods of bourgeois democracy and parliamentarism.THE CLASS CHARACTER OF FASCISMComrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.The most reactionary variety of fascism is the German type of fascism. It has the effrontery to call itself National Socialism, though it has nothing in common with socialism. German fascism is not only bourgeois nationalism, it is fiendish chauvinism. It is a government system of political gangsterism, a system of provocation and torture practised upon the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. It is medieval barbarity and bestiality, it is unbridled aggression in relation to other nations.German fascism is acting as the spearhead of international counter-revolution, as the chief instigator of imperialist war, as the initiator of a crusade against the Soviet Union, the great fatherland of the working people of the whole world.Fascism is not a form of state power \"standing above both classes -- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie,\" as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not \"the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state,\" as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.This, the true character of fascism, must be particularly stressed because in a number of countries, under cover of social demagogy, fascism has managed to gain the following of the mass of the petty bourgeoisie that has been dislocated by the crisis, and even of certain sections of the most backward strata of the proletariat. These would never have supported fascism if they had understood its real character and its true nature." }
{ "content": "The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country. In certain countries, principally those in which fascism has no broad mass basis and in which the struggle of the various groups within the camp of the fascist bourgeoisie itself is rather acute, fascism does not immediately venture to abolish parliament, but allows the other bourgeois parties, as well as the Social-Democratic Parties, to retain a modicum of legality. In other countries, where the ruling bourgeoisie fears an early outbreak of revolution, fascism establishes its unrestricted political monopoly, either immediately or by intensifying its reign of terror against and persecution of all rival parties and groups. This does not prevent fascism, when its position becomes particularly acute, from trying to extend its basis and, without altering its class nature, trying to combine open terrorist dictatorship with a crude sham of parliamentarism.The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie -- bourgeois democracy -- by another form -- open terrorist dictatorship. It would be a serious mistake to ignore this distinction, a mistake liable to prevent the revolutionary proletariat from mobilizing the widest strata of the working people of town and country for the struggle against the menace of the seizure of power by the fascists, and from taking advantage of the contradictions which exist in the camp of the bourgeoisie itself. But it is a mistake, no less serious and dangerous, to underrate the importance, for the establishment of fascist dictatorship, of the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie at present increasingly developing in bourgeois-democratic countries -- measures which suppress the democratic liberties of the working people, falsify and curtail the rights of parliament and intensify the repression of the revolutionary movement.Comrades, the accession to power of fascism must not be conceived of in so simplified and smooth a form, as though some committee or other of finance capital decided on a certain date to set up a fascist dictatorship. In reality, fascism usually comes to power in the course of a mutual, and at times severe, struggle against the old bourgeois parties, or a definite section of these parties, in the course of a struggle even within the fascist camp itself -- a struggle which at times leads to armed clashes, as we have witnessed in the case of Germany, Austria and other countries. All this, however, does not make less important the fact that, before the establishment of a fascist dictatorship, bourgeois governments usually pass through a number of preliminary stages and adopt a number of reactionary measures which directly facilitate the accession to power of fascism. Whoever does not fight the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie and the growth of fascism at these preparatory stages is not in a position to prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitates that victory.The Social-Democratic leaders glossed over and concealed from the masses the true class nature of fascism, and did not call them to the struggle against the increasingly reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie. They bear great historical responsibility for the fact that, at the decisive moment of the fascist offensive, a large section of the working people of Germany and of a number of other fascist countries failed to recognize in fascism the most bloodthirsty monster of finance capital, their most vicious enemy, and that these masses were not prepared to resist it.What is the source of the influence of fascism over the masses? Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays on the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions. Why do the German fascists, those lackeys of the bourgeoisie and mortal enemies of socialism, represent themselves to the masses as \"Socialists,\" and depict their accession to power as a \"revolution\"? Because they try to exploit the faith in revolution and the urge towards socialism that lives in the hearts of the mass of working people in Germany.Fascism acts in the interests of the extreme imperialists, but it presents itself to the masses in the guise of champion of an ill-treated nation, and appeals to outraged national sentiments, as German fascism did, for instance, when it won the support of the masses of the petty bourgeoisie by the slogan \"Down with the Versailles Treaty.\"Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of the masses but it approaches them with the most artful anti-capitalist demagogy, taking advantage of the deep hatred of the working people against the plundering bourgeoisie, the banks, trusts and financial magnates, and advancing those slogans which at the given moment are most alluring to the politically immature masses. In Germany -- \"The general welfare is higher than the welfare of the individual,\" in Italy -- \"Our state is not a capitalist, but a corporate state,\" in Japan -- \"For Japan without exploitation,\" in the United States -- \"Share the wealth,\" and so forth.Fascism delivers up the people to be devoured by the most corrupt and venal elements, but comes before them with the demand for \"an honest and incorruptible government.\" Speculating on the profound disillusionment of the masses in bourgeois-democratic governments, fascism hypocritically denounces corruption.It is in the interests of the most reactionary circles of the bourgeoisie that fascism intercepts the disappointed masses who desert the old bourgeois parties. But it impresses these masses by the vehemence of its attacks on the bourgeois governments and its irreconcilable attitude to the old bourgeois parties." }
{ "content": "Surpassing in its cynicism and hypocrisy all other varieties of bourgeois reaction, fascism adapts its demagogy to the national peculiarities of each country, and even to the peculiarities of the various social strata in one and the same country. And the mass of the petty bourgeoisie and even a section of the workers, reduced to despair by want, unemployment and the insecurity of their existence, fall victim to the social and chauvinist demagogy of fascism.Fascism comes to power as a party of attack on the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, on the mass of the people who are in a state of unrest; yet it stages its accession to power as a \"revolutionary\" movement against the bourgeoisie on behalf of \"the whole nation\" and for the \"salvation\" of the nation. One recalls Mussolini's \"march\" on Rome, Pilsudski's \"march\" on Warsaw, Hitler's National-Socialist \"revolution\" in Germany, and so forth.But whatever the masks that fascism adopts, whatever the forms in which it presents itself, whatever the ways by which it comes to powerFascism is a most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people;Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war;Fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution;Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people.WHAT DOES FASCIST VICTORY BRING TO THE MASSES?Fascism promised the workers \"a fair wage,\" but actually it has brought them an even lower, a pauper, standard of living. It promised work for the unemployed, but actually it has brought them even more painful torments of starvation and forced servile labor. In practice it converts the workers and unemployed into pariahs of capitalist society stripped of rights; destroys their trade unions; deprives them of the right to strike and to have their working-class press, forces them into fascist organizations, plunders their social insurance funds and transforms the mills and factories into barracks where the unbridled arbitrary rule of the capitalist reigns.Fascism promised the working youth a broad highway to a brilliant future. But actually it has brought wholesale dismissals of young workers, labor camps and incessant military drilling for a war of conquest.Fascism promised to guarantee office workers, petty officials and intellectuals security of existence, to destroy the omnipotence of the trusts and wipe out profiteering by bank capital. But actually it has brought them an ever greater degree of despair and uncertainty as to the morrow; it is subjecting them to a new bureaucracy made up of the most submissive of its followers, it is setting up an intolerable dictatorship of the trusts and spreading corruption and degeneration to an unprecedented extent.Fascism promised the ruined and impoverished peasants to put an end to debt bondage, to abolish rent and even to expropriate the landed estates without compensation, in the interests of the landless and ruined peasants. But actually it is placing the laboring peasants in a state of unprecedented servitude to the trusts and the fascist state apparatus, and pushes to the utmost limit the exploitation of the great mass of the peasantry by the big landowners, the banks and the usurers.\"Germany will be a peasant country, or will not be at all,\" Hitler solemnly declared. And what did the peasants of Germany get under Hitler? The moratorium, 1) which has already been cancelled? Or the law on the inheritance of peasant property, which leads to millions of sons and daughters of peasants being squeezed out of the villages and reduced to paupers? Farm laborers have been transformed into semi-serfs, deprived even of the elementary right of free movement. The working peasants have been deprived of the opportunity of selling the produce of their farms in the market.And in Poland?The Polish peasant, says the Polish newspaper Czas, employs methods and means Which were used perhaps only in the Middle Ages; he nurses the fire in his stove and lends it to his neighbor; he splits matches into several parts; he lends dirty soapwater to others; he boils herring barrels in order to obtain salt water. This is not a fable, but the actual state of affairs in the countryside, of the truth of which anybody may convince himself.And it is not Communists who write this, Comrades, but a Polish reactionary newspaper.But this is by no means all.Every day, in the concentration camps of fascist Germany, in the cellars of the Gestapo (German secret police), in the torture chambers of Poland, in the cells of the Bulgarian and Finnish secret police, in the Glavnyacha in Belgrade, in the Rumanian Siguranza and on the Italian islands, the best sons of the working class, revolutionary peasants, fighters for the splendid future of mankind, are being subjected to revolting tortures and indignities, before which pale the most abominable acts of the tsarist Okhranka2). The blackguardly German fascists beat husbands to a bloody pulp in the presence of their wives, and send the ashes of murdered sons by parcel post to their mothers. Sterilization has been made a method of political warfare. In the torture chambers, imprisoned anti-fascists are given injections of poison, their arms are broken, their eyes gouged out; they are strung up and have water pumped into them; the fascist swastika is carved in their living flesh.I have before me a statistical summary drawn up by the International Red Aid [international organization of that time for aid to revolutionary fighters] regarding the number of killed, wounded, arrested, maimed and tortured to death in Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In Germany alone, since the National-Socialists came to power, over 4,200 anti-fascist workers, peasants, employees, intellectuals -- Communists, Social Democrats and members of opposition Christian organizations -- have been murdered, 317,800 arrested, 218,600 injured and subjected to torture. In Austria, since the battles of February last year the \"Christian\" fascist government has murdered 1,900 revolutionary workers, maimed and injured 10,000 and arrested 40,000. And this summary, comrades is far from complete." }
{ "content": "Words fail me in describing the indignation which seizes us at the thought of the torments which the working people are now undergoing in a number of fascist countries. The facts and figures we quote do not reflect one hundredth part of the true picture of the exploitation and tortures inflicted by the White terror and forming part of the daily life of the working class in many capitalist countries. Volumes cannot give a just picture of the countless brutalities inflicted by fascism on the working people.With feelings of profound emotion and hatred for the fascist butchers, we dip the banners of the Communist International before the unforgettable memory of John Scheer, Fiete Schulze and Luttgens in Germany, Koloman Wallisch and Munichreiter in Austria, Sallai and Furst in Hungary, Kofardjiev, Lyutibrodski and Voykov in Bulgaria -- before the memory of thousands and thousands of Communists, Social-Democrats and non-party workers, peasants and representatives of the progressive intelligentsia who have laid down their lives in the struggle against fascism.From this platform we greet the leader of the German proletariat and the honorary chairman of our Congress -- Comrade Thaelmann. We greet Comrades Rakosi, Gramsci, Antikainen. We greet Tom Mooney, who has been languishing in prison for eighteen years, and the thousands of other prisoners of capitalism and fascism, and we say to them: \"Brothers in the fight, brothers in arms, you are not forgotten. We are with you. We shall give every hour of our lives, every drop of our blood, for your liberation, and for the liberation of all working people from the shameful regime of fascism.\"Comrades, it was Lenin who warned us that the bourgeoisie may succeed in overwhelming the working people by savage terror, in checking the growing forces of revolution for brief periods of time, but that, nevertheless, this would not save it from its doom.Life will assert itself -- Lenin wrote -- Let the bourgeoisie rave, work itself into a frenzy, overdo things, commit stupidities, take vengeance on the Bolsheviks in advance and endeavour to kill off (in India, Hungary, Germany, etc.) hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousands more of yesterday's and tomorrow's Bolsheviks. Acting thus, the bourgeoisie acts as all classes doomed by history have acted. Communists should know that the future, at any rate, belongs to them; therefore we can and must combine the most intense passion in the great revolutionary struggle with the coolest and most sober evaluation of the mad ravings of the bourgeoisie. [V. I. Lenin, \"Left-Wing\" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, New York (1949), pp. 81-82; Collected Works 31:101]Ay, if we and the proletariat of the whole world firmly follow the path indicated by Lenin, the bourgeoisie will perish in spite of everything.IS THE VICTORY OF FASCISM INEVITABLE?Why was it that fascism could triumph, and how? Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and working people, who constitute nine-tenths of the German people, nine-tenths of the Austrian people, nine-tenths of the people in other fascist countries. How, in what way, could this vicious enemy triumph?Fascism was able to come to power primarily because the working class, owing to the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie pursued by the Social-Democratic leaders, proved to be split, politically and organizationally disarmed, in face of the onslaught of the bourgeoisie. And the Communist Parties, on the other hand, apart from and in opposition to the Social-Democrats, were not strong enough to rouse the masses and to lead them in a decisive struggle against fascism.And, indeed, let the millions of Social-Democratic workers, who together with their Communist brothers are now experiencing the horrors of fascist barbarism, seriously reflect on the following: If, in 1918, when revolution broke out in Germany and Austria, the Austrian and German proletariat had not followed the Social Democratic leadership of Otto Bauer, Friedrich Adler and Karl Renner in Austria and Ebert and Scheidemann in Germany, but had followed the road of the Russian Bolsheviks, the road of Lenin, there would now be no fascism in Austria or Germany, in Italy or Hungary, in Poland or in the Balkans. Not the bourgeoisie, but the working class would long ago have been the master of the situation in Europe.Take, for example, the Austrian Social-Democratic Party. The revolution of 1918 raised it to a tremendous height. It held the power in its hands, it held strong j positions in the army and in the state apparatus. Relying on these positions, it could have nipped fascism in the bud. But it surrendered one position of the working class after another without resistance. It allowed the bourgeoisie to strengthen its power, annul the constitution, purge the state apparatus, army and police force of Social-Democratic functionaries, and take the arsenals away from the workers. It allowed the fascist bandits to murder Social-Democratic workers with impunity and accepted the terms of the H�ttenberg Pact 3), which gave the fascist elements entry to the factories. At the same time the Social-Democratic leaders fooled the workers with the Linz program 4), which contained the alternative possibility of using armed force against the bourgeoisie and establishing the proletarian dictatorship, assuring them that in the event of the ruling class using force against the working class, the Party would reply by a call for general strike and for armed struggle. As though the whole policy of preparation for a fascist attack on the working class were not one chain of acts of violence against the working class masked by constitutional forms. Even on the eve and in the course of the February battles the Austrian Social Democratic leaders left the heroically fighting Schutzbund 5) isolated from the broad masses, and doomed the Austrian proletariat to defeat.Was the victory of fascism inevitable in Germany? No, the German working class could have prevented it.But in order to do so, it should have achieved a united anti-fascist proletarian front, and forced the Social-Democratic leaders to discontinue their campaign against the Communists and to accept the repeated proposals of the Communist Party for united action against fascism." }
{ "content": "When fascism was on the offensive and the bourgeois-democratic liberties were being progressively abolished by the bourgeoisie, it should not have contented itself with the verbal resolutions of the Social-Democrats, but should have replied by a genuine mass struggle, which would have made the fulfilment of the fascist plans of the German bourgeoisie more difficult.It should not have allowed the prohibition of the League of Red Front Fighters by the government of Braun and Severing 6), and should have established fighting contact between the League and the Reichsbanner 7), with its nearly one million members, and should have compelled Braun and Severing to arm both these organizations in order to resist and smash the fascist bands.It should have compelled the Social-Democratic leaders who headed the Prussian government to adopt measures of defence against fascism, arrest the fascist leaders, close down their press, confiscate their material resources and the resources of the capitalists who were financing the fascist movement, dissolve the fascist organizations, deprive them of their weapons, and so forth.Furthermore, it should have secured the re-establishment and extension of all forms of social assistance and the introduction of a moratorium and crisis benefits for the peasants -- who were being ruined under the impact of crisis -- by taxing the banks and the trusts, in this way winning the support of the working peasants. It was the fault of the Social-Democrats of Germany that this was not done, and that is why fascism was able to triumph.Was it inevitable that the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy should have triumphed in Spain, a country where the forces of proletarian revolt are so advantageously combined with a peasant war?The Spanish Socialists were in the government from the first days of the revolution. Did they establish fighting contact between the working class organizations of every political opinion, including the Communists and the Anarchists, and did they weld the working class into a united trade union organization? Did they demand the confiscation of all lands of the landlords, the church and the monasteries in favor of the peasants in order to win over the latter to the side of the revolution? Did they attempt to fight for national self-determination for the Catalonians and the Basques, and for the liberation of Morocco? Did they purge the army of monarchist and fascist elements and prepare it for passing over to the side of the workers and peasants? Did they dissolve the Civil Guard, so detested by the people, the executioner of every movement of the people? Did they strike at the fascist party of Gil Robles and at the might of the Catholic church? No, they did none of these things. They rejected the frequent proposals of the Communists for united action against the offensive of the bourgeois-landlord reaction and fascism; they passed election laws which enabled the reactionaries to gain a majority in the Cortes (parliament), laws which penalized the popular movement, laws under which the heroic miners of Asturias are now being tried. They had peasants who were fighting for land shot by the Civil Guard, and so on.This is the way in which the Social-Democrats, by disorganizing and splitting the ranks of the working class, cleared the path to power for fascism in Germany, Austria and Spain.Comrades, fascism also attained power for the reason that the proletariat found itself isolated from its natural allies. Fascism attained power because it was able to win over large masses of the peasantry, owing to the fact that the Social-Democrats in the name of the working class pursued what was in fact an anti-peasant policy. The peasant saw in power a number of Social-Democratic governments, which in his eyes were an embodiment of the power of the working class; but not one of them put an end to peasant want, none of them gave land to the peasantry. In Germany, the Social-Democrats did not touch the landlords; they combated the strikes of the farm laborers, with the result that long before Hitler came to power the farm laborers of Germany were deserting the reformist trade unions and in the majority of cases were going over to the Stahlhelm and to the National Socialists.Fascism also attained power for the reason that it was able to penetrate into the ranks of the youth, whereas the Social-Democrats diverted the working class youth from the class struggle, while the revolutionary proletariat did not develop the necessary educational work among the youth and did not pay enough attention to the struggle for its specific interests and demands. Fascism grasped the very acute need of the youth for militant activity, and enticed a considerable section of the youth into its fighting detachments. The new generation of young men and women has not experienced the horrors of war. They have felt the full weight of the economic crisis, unemployment and the disintegration of bourgeois democracy. But, seeing no prospects for the future, large sections of the youth proved to be particularly receptive to fascist demagogy, which depicted for them an alluring future should fascism succeed.In this connection, we cannot avoid referring also to a number of mistakes made by the Communist Parties, mistakes that hampered our struggle against fascism.In our ranks there was an impermissible underestimation of the fascist danger, a tendency which to this day has not everywhere been overcome. A case in point is the opinion formerly to be met with in our Parties that \"Germany is not Italy,\" meaning that fascism may have succeeded in Italy, but that its success in Germany was out of the question, because the latter is an industrially and culturally highly developed country, with forty years of traditions of the working-class movement, in which fascism was impossible. Or the kind of opinion which is to be met with nowadays, to the effect that in countries of \"classical\" bourgeois democracy the soil for fascism does not exist. Such opinions have served and may serve to relax vigilance towards the fascist danger, and to render the mobilization of the proletariat in the struggle against fascism more difficult." }
{ "content": "One might also cite quite a few instances where Communists were taken unawares by the fascist coup. Remember Bulgaria, where the leadership of our Party, took up a \"neutral,\" but in fact opportunist, position with regard to the coup d'�tat of June 9, 1923; Poland, where in May 1926 the leadership of the Communist Party, making a wrong estimate of the motive forces of the Polish revolution, did not realize the fascist nature of Pilsudski's coup, and trailed in the rear of events; Finland, where our Party based itself on a false conception of slow and gradual fascization and overlooked the fascist coup which was being prepared by the leading group of the bourgeoisie and which took the Party and the working class unawares.When National Socialism had already become a menacing mass movement in Germany, there were comrades who regarded the Bruening government as already a government of fascist dictatorship, and who boastfully declared: \"If Hitler's Third Reich ever comes about, it will be six feet underground, and above it will be the victorious power of the workers.\"Our comrades in Germany for a long time failed to fully reckonwith the wounded national sentiments and the indignation of the massesagainst the Versailles Treaty; they treated as of little account the waveringsof the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie; they were late in drawing up theirprogram of social and national emancipation, and when they did put it forwardthey were unable to adapt it to the concrete demands and to the level ofthe masses. They were even unable to popularize it widely among the masses.In a number of countries, the necessary development of a massfight against fascism was replaced by barren debates on the nature of fascism\"in general\" and by a narrow sectarian attitude in formulating and solvingthe immediate political tasks of the Party.Comrades, it is not simply because we want to dig up the pastthat we speak of the causes of the victory of fascism, that we point tothe historical responsibility of the Social Democrats for the defeat ofthe working class, and that we also point out our own mistakes in the fightagainst fascism. We are not historians divorced from living reality; we,active fighters of the working class, are obliged to answer the questionthat is tormenting millions of workers: Can the victory of fascism beprevented, and how? And we reply to these millions of workers: Yes,comrades, the road to fascism can be blocked. It is quite possible. Itdepends on ourselves-on the workers, the peasants and all working people.Whether the victory of fascism can be prevented depends firstand foremost on the militant activity of the working class itself,on whether its forces are welded into a single militant army combatingthe offensive of capitalism and fascism. By establishing its fighting unity,the proletariat would paralyze the influence of fascism over the peasantry,the urban petty bourgeoisie, the youth and the intelligentsia, and wouldbe able to neutralize one section of them and win over the other section.Second, it depends on the existence of a strong revolutionaryparty, correctly leading the struggle of the working people against fascism.A party which systematically calls on the workers to retreat in the faceof fascism and permits the fascist bourgeoisie to strengthen its positionsis doomed to lead the workers to defeat.Third, it depends on a correct policy of the working classtowards the peasantry and the petty-bourgeois masses of the towns. Thesemasses must be taken as they are, and not as we should like to have them.It is in the process of the struggle that they will overcome theirdoubts and waverings. It is only by a patient attitude towards their inevitablewaverings, it is only by the political help of the proletariat, that theywill be able to rise to a higher level of revolutionary consciousness andactivity.Fourth, it depends on the vigilance and timely action ofthe revolutionary proletariat. The latter must not allow fascism to takeit unawares, it must not surrender the initiative to fascism, but mustinflict decisive blows on it before it can gather its forces, it must notallow fascism to consolidate its position, it must repel fascism whereverand whenever it rears its head, it must not allow fascism to gain new positions.This is what the French proletariat is so successfully trying to do.These are the main conditions for preventing the growth of fascismand its accession to power.FASCISM -- A FEROCIOUS BUT UNSTABLE POWERThe fascist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is a ferociouspower, but an unstable one.What are the chief causes of the instability of fascist dictatorship?Fascism undertakes to overcome the differences and antagonismswithin the bourgeois camp, but it makes these antagonisms even more acute.Fascism tries to establish its political monopoly by violentlydestroying other political parties. But the existence of the capitalistsystem, the existence of various classes and the accentuation of classcontradictions inevitably tend to undermine and explode the political monopolyof fascism. In a fascist country the party of the fascists cannot set itselfthe aim of abolishing classes and class contradictions. It puts an endto the legal existence of bourgeois parties. But a number of them continueto maintain an illegal existence, while the Communist Party even in conditionsof illegality continues to make progress, becomes steeled and temperedand leads the struggle of the proletariat against the fascist dictatorship.Hence, under the blows of class contradictions, the political monopolyof fascism is bound to explode.Another reason for the instability of the fascist dictatorshipis that the contrast between the anti-capitalist demagogy of fascism andits policy of enriching the monopolist bourgeoisie in the most piraticalfashion makes it easier to expose the class nature of fascism and tendsto shake and narrow its mass basis.Furthermore, the victory of fascism arouses the deep hatred andindignation of the masses, helps to revolutionize them, and provides apowerful stimulus for a united front of the proletariat against fascism.By conducting a policy of economic nationalism (autarchy) andby seizing the greater part of the national income for the purpose of preparingfor war, fascism undermines the whole economic life of the country andaccentuates the economic war between the capitalist states. To the conflictsthat arise among the bourgeoisie it lends the character of sharp and attimes bloody collisions that undermine the stability of the fascist state" }
{ "content": "power in the eyes of the people. A government which murders its own followers,as happened in Germany on June 30 8) of last year, a fascist governmentagainst which another section of the fascist bourgeoisie is conductingan armed fight (the National-Socialist putsch in Austria and theviolent attacks of individual fascist groups on the fascist governmentin Poland, Bulgaria, Finland and other countries) -- a government of thischaracter cannot for long maintain its authority in the eyes of the broadmass of the petty bourgeoisie.The working class must be able to take advantage of the antagonismsand conflicts within the bourgeois camp, but it must not cherish the illusionthat fascism will exhaust itself of its own accord. Fascism will not collapseautomatically. Only the revolutionary activity of the working class canhelp to take advantage of the conflicts which inevitably arise within thebourgeois camp in order to undermine the fascist dictatorship and to overthrowit.By destroying the relics of bourgeois democracy, by elevatingopen violence to a system of government, fascism shakes democratic illusionsand undermines the authority of the law in the eyes of the working people.This is particularly true in countries such as Austria and Spain, wherethe workers have taken up arms against fascism. In Austria, the heroicstruggle of the Schutzbund and the Communists in spite of its defeat, shookthe stability of the fascist dictatorship from the very outset.In Spain, the bourgeoisie did not succeed in putting the fascistmuzzle on the working people. The armed struggles in Austria and Spainhave resulted in ever wider masses of the working class coming to realizethe necessity for a revolutionary class struggle.Only such monstrous philistines, such lackeys of the bourgeoisie,as the superannuated theoretician of the Second International, Karl Kautsky,are capable of casting reproaches at the workers, to the effect that theyshould not have taken up arms in Austria and Spain. What would the workingclass movement in Austria and Spain look like today if the working classof these countries were guided by the treacherous counsels of the Kautskys?The working class would be experiencing profound demoralization in itsranks.The school of civil war -- Lenin says -- does not leave the peopleunaffected. It is a harsh school, and its complete curriculum inevitablyincludes the victories of the counterrevolution, the debaucheries of enragedreactionaries, savage punishments meted out by the old governments to therebels, etc. But only downright pedants and mentally decrepit mummies cangrieve over the fact that nations are entering this painful school; thisschool teaches the oppressed classes how to conduct civil war; it teacheshow to bring about a victorious revolution; it concentrates in the massesof present-day slaves that hatred which is always harboured by the downtrodden,dull, ignorant slaves, and which leads those slaves who have become consciousof the shame of their slavery to the greatest historic exploits. [V. I. Lenin, Collected Works 15:183]The triumph of fascism in Germany has, as we know, been followed by a newwave of the fascist offensive, which in Austria led to the provocationby Dollfuss, in Spain to the new onslaughts of counter-revolution on therevolutionary conquests of the masses, in Poland to the fascist reformof the constitution, while in France it spurred the armed detachments ofthe fascists to attempt a coup d'�tat in February 1934. But thisvictory, and the frenzy of the fascist dictatorship, called forth a countermovementfor a united proletarian front against fascism on an international scale.The burning of the Reichstag, which served as a signal for thegeneral attack of fascism on the working class, the seizure and spoliationof the trade unions and the other working class organizations, the groansof the tortured anti-fascists rising from the vaults of the fascist barracksand concentration camps, are making clear to the masses what has been theoutcome of the reactionary, disruptive role played by the German Social-Democraticleaders, who rejected the proposal made by the Communists for a joint struggleagainst advancing fascism. These things are convincing the masses of thenecessity of uniting all forces of the working class for the overthrowof fascism.Hitler's victory also provided a decisive stimulus for the creationof a united front of the working class against fascism in France. Hitler'svictory not only aroused in the workers a fear of the fate that befellthe German workers, not only kindled hatred for the executioners of theirGerman class brothers, but also strengthened in them the determinationnever in any circumstances to allow in their country what happened to theworking class in Germany.The powerful urge towards a united front in all the capitalistcountries shows that the lessons of defeat have not been in vain. The workingclass is beginning to act in a new way. The initiative shown bythe Communist Parties in the organization of a united front and the supremeself-sacrifice displayed by the Communists, by the revolutionary workersin the struggle against fascism, have resulted in an unprecedented increasein the prestige of the Communist International. At the same time, the SecondInternational is undergoing a profound crisis, a crisis which is particularlynoticeable and has particularly accentuated since the bankruptcy of GermanSocial-Democracy. With ever greater ease the Social-Democratic workersare able to convince themselves that fascist Germany, with all its horrorsand barbarities, is in the final analysis the result of the Social-Democraticpolicy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie. These masses arecoming ever more clearly to realize that the path along which the GermanSocial-Democratic leaders led the proletariat must not be traversed again.Never has there been such ideological dissension in the camp of the SecondInternational as at the present time. A process of differentiation is takingplace in all Social-Democratic Parties. Within their ranks two principalcamps are forming: side by side with the existing camp of reactionaryelements, who are trying in every way to preserve the bloc between theSocial-Democrats and the bourgeoisie, and who rabidly reject a united frontwith the Communists, there is beginning to emerge a camp of revolutionaryelements who entertain doubts as to the correctness of the policy of classcollaboration with the bourgeoisie, who are in favor of the creation ofa united front with the Communists, and who are increasingly coming toadopt the position of the revolutionary class struggle.Thus fascism, which appeared as the result of the decline of thecapitalist system, in the long run acts as a factor in its further disintegration.Thus fascism, which has undertaken to bury Marxism, the revolutionary movement" }
{ "content": "of the working class, is, as a result of the dialectics of life and theclass struggle, itself leading to the further development of the forcesthat are bound to serve as its grave-diggers, the grave-diggers of capitalism.II. UNITED FRONT OF THE WORKING CLASS AGAINST FASCISMComrades, millions of workers and working peopleof the capitalist countries are asking the question: How can fascism beprevented from coming to power and how can fascism be overthrown afterit has attained power? To this the Communist International replies: Thefirst thing that must be done, the thing with which to begin, is to forma united front, to establish unity of action of the workers in every factory,in every district, in every region, in every country, all over the world.Unity of action of the proletariat on a national and international scaleis the mighty weapon which renders the working class capable not only ofsuccessful defense but also of successful counterattack against fascism,against the class enemy.SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNITED FRONTIs it not clear that joint action by the supportersof the parties and organizations of the two Internationals, the Communistand the Second International, would make it easier for the masses to repulsethe fascist onslaught, and would heighten the political importance of theworking class?Joint action by the parties of both internationals against fascism,however, would not be confined in its effects to influencing their presentadherents, the Communists and Social-Democrats; it would also exert a powerfulimpact on the ranks of the Catholic, Anarchist and unorganized workers,even upon those who have temporarily become the victims of fascist demagogy.Moreover, a powerful united front of the proletariat would exerttremendous influence on all other strata of the working people,on the peasantry, on the urban petty bourgeoisie, on the intelligentsia.A united front would inspire the wavering groups with faith in the strengthof the working class.But even this is not all. The proletariat of the imperialist countrieshas possible allies not only in the working people of its own countries,but also in the oppressed nations of the colonies and semi-colonies.Inasmuch as the proletariat is split both nationally and internationally,inasmuch as one of its parts supports the policy of collaboration withthe bourgeoisie, in particular its system of oppression in the coloniesand semi-colonies, a barrier is put between the working class and the oppressedpeoples of the colonies and semi-colonies, and the world anti-imperialistfront is weakened. Every step by the proletariat of the imperialist countrieson the road to unity of action in the direction of supporting the strugglefor the liberation of the colonial peoples means transforming the coloniesand semi-colonies into one of the most important reserves of the worldproletariat.If, finally, we bear in mind that international unity of actionby the proletariat relies on the steadily growing strength of the proletarianstate, the land of socialism, the Soviet Union, we see what broad perspectivesare revealed by the realization of proletarian unity of action on a nationaland international scale.The establishment of unity of action by all sections of the workingclass, irrespective of the party or organization to which they belong,is necessary even before the majority of the working class is unitedin the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the victory of theproletarian revolution.Is it possible to realize this unity of action of the proletariatin the individual countries and throughout the whole world? Yes, it is.And it is possible at this very moment. The Communist International putsno conditions for unity of action except one, and at that an elementarycondition acceptable to all workers, viz., that the unity of action bedirected against fascism, against the offensive of capital, against thethreat of war, against the class enemy. This is our condition.THE CHIEF ARGUMENTS OF THE OPPONENTS OF THEWhat objections can the opponents of the united fronthave, and what objections do they voice?Some say: \"The Communists use the slogan of the united frontmerely as a maneuver.\" But if this is the case, we reply, why don'tyou expose this \"Communist maneuver\" by your honest participation in theunited front? We declare frankly: We want unity of action by the workingclass so that the proletariat may grow strong in its struggle against thebourgeoisie, in order that while defending today its current interestsagainst attacking capital, against fascism, the proletariat may reach aposition tomorrow to create the preliminary conditions for its final emancipation.\"The Communists attack us,\" say others. But listen, wehave repeatedly declared: We shall not attack anyone, whether persons,organizations or parties, standing for the united front of the workingclass against the class enemy. But at the same time it is our duty, inthe interests of the proletariat and its cause, to criticize those persons,organizations and parties that hinder unity of action by the workers.\"We cannot form a united front with the Communists, since theyhave a different program,\" says a third group. But you yourselves saythat your program differs from the program of the bourgeois parties, andyet this did not and does not prevent you from entering into coalitionswith these parties.\"The bourgeois-democratic parties are better allies againstfascism that the Communists,\" say the opponents of the united frontand the advocates of coalition with the bourgeoisie. But what does Germany'sexperience teach? Did not the Social-Democrats form a bloc with those \"better\"allies? And what were the results?\"If we establish a united front with the Communists, the pettybourgeoisie will take fright at the 'Red danger' and will desert to thefascists,\" we hear it said quite frequently. But does the united frontrepresent a threat to the peasants, small traders, artisans, working intellectuals?No, the united front is a threat to the big bourgeoisie, the financialmagnates, the junkers and other exploiters, whose regime brings completeruin to all these strata.\"Social-Democracy is for democracy, the Communists are fordictatorship; therefore we cannot form a united front with the Communists,\"say some of the Social-Democratic leaders. But are we offering you nowa united front for the purpose of proclaiming the dictatorship of the proletariat?We make no such proposal now.\"Let the Communists recognize democracy, let them come outin its defense; then we shall be ready for a united front.\" To thiswe reply: We are the adherents of Soviet democracy, the democracy of theworking people, the most consistent democracy in the world. But in thecapitalist countries we defend and shall continue to defend every inch" }
{ "content": "of bourgeois-democratic liberties, which are being attacked by fascismand bourgeois reaction, because the interests of the class struggle ofthe proletariat so dictate.\"But can the tiny Communist Parties contribute anything byparticipating in the united front brought about by the Labour Party,\"say, for instance, the Labour leaders of Great Britain. Remember how theAustrian Social-Democratic leaders said the same thing with reference tothe small Austrian Communist Party. And what have events shown? It wasnot the Austrian Social-Democratic Party headed by Otto Bauer and Rennerthat proved right, but the small Austrian Communist Party which signalledthe fascist danger in Austria at the right moment and called upon the workersto struggle. The whole experience of the labor movement has shown thatthe Communists with all their relative insignificance in numbers, are themotive power of the militant activity of the proletariat. Moreover, itmust not be forgotten that the Communist Parties of Austria or Great Britainare not only the tens of thousands of workers who are adherents of theParty, but are parts of the world Communist movement, are Sections of theCommunist International, whose leading Party is the Party of a proletariatwhich has already achieved victory and rules over one-sixth of the globe.\"But the united front did not prevent fascism from being victoriousin the Saar,\" is another objection advanced by the opponents of theunited front. Strange is the logic of these gentlemen. First they leaveno stone unturned to ensure the victory of fascism and then they rejoicewith malicious glee because the united front which they entered into onlyat the last moment did not lead to the victory of the workers.\"If we were to form a united front with the Communists, weshould have to withdraw from the coalition, and reactionary and fascistparties would enter the government,\" say the Social-Democratic leadersholding cabinet posts in various countries. Very well. Was not the GermanSocial-Democratic Party in a coalition government? It was. Was not theAustrian Social-Democratic Party in office? Were not the Spanish Socialistsin the same government as the bourgeoisie? They were. Did the participationof the Social-Democratic Parties in the bourgeois coalition governmentsin these countries prevent fascism from attacking the proletariat? It didnot. Consequently it is as clear as daylight that participation of Social-Democraticministers in bourgeois governments is not a barrier to fascism.\"The Communists act like dictators, they want to prescribeand dictate everything to us.\" No. We prescribe nothing and dictatenothing. We only put forward our proposals, being convinced that if realizedthey will meet the interests of the working people. This is not only theright but the duty of all those acting in the name of the workers. Youare afraid of the 'dictatorship' of the Cornmunists? Let us jointly submitto the workers all proposals, both yours and ours, jointly discuss themtogether with all the workers, and choose those proposals which are mostuseful to the cause of the working class.Thus all these arguments against a united front will not standthe slightest criticism. They are rather the flimsy excuses of thereactionary leaders of Social-Democracy, who prefer their united frontwith the bourgeoisie to the united front of the proletariat.No. These excuses will not hold water. The international proletariathas experienced the suffering caused by the split in the working class,and becomes more and more convinced that the united front, the unityof action of the proletariat on a national and international scale, isat once necessary and perfectly possible.CONTENT AND FORMS OF THE UNITED FRONTWhat is and ought to be the basic content of the unitedfront at the present stage? The defense of the immediate economic and politicalinterests of the working class, the defense of the working class againstfascism, must form the starting point and main content ofthe united front in all capitalist countries.We must not confine ourselves to bare appeals to struggle forthe proletarian dictatorship. We must find and advance those slogans andforms of struggle which arise from the vital needs of the masses, fromthe level of their fighting capacity at the present stage of development.We must point out to the masses what they must do todayto defend themselves against capitalist spoliation and fascist barbarity.We must strive to establish the widest united front with the aidof joint action by workers' organizations of different trends for the defenseof the vital interests of the laboring masses. This means:First, joint struggle really to shift the burden of the consequencesof the crisis onto the shoulders of the ruling classes, the shoulders ofthe capitalists and landlords -- in a word, onto the shoulders of the rich.Second, joint struggle against all forms of the fascistoffensive, in defense of the gains and the rights of the working people,against the abolition of bourgeois-democratic liberties.Third, joint struggle against the approaching danger ofan imperialist war, a struggle that will make the preparation of such awar more difficult.We must tirelessly prepare the working class for a rapid change in formsand methods of struggle when there is a change in the situation. Asthe movement grows and the unity of the working class strengthens, we mustgo further, and prepare the transition from the defensive to the offensiveagainst capital, steering towards the organization of a mass politicalstrike. It must be an absolute condition of such a strike to draw intoit the main trade unions of the countries concerned.Communists, of course, cannot and must not for a moment abandontheir own independent work of Communist education, organizationand mobilization of the masses. However, to ensure that the workers findthe road of unity of action, it is necessary to strive at the same timeboth for short-term and for long-term agreements that provide for jointaction with Social Democratic Parties, reformist trade unions and otherorganizations of the working people against the class enemies of theproletariat. The chief stress in all this must be laid on developing massaction, locally, to be carried out by the local organizationsthrough local agreements. While loyally carrying out the conditions ofall agreements made with them, we shall mercilessly expose all sabotageof joint action on the part of persons and organizations participatingin the united front. To any attempt to wreck the agreements -- and suchattempts may possibly be made -- we shall reply by appealing to the masseswhile continuing untiringly to struggle for restoration of the broken unityof action.It goes without saying that the practical realization of a united" }
{ "content": "front will take various forms in various countries, depending uponthe condition and character of the workers' organizations and their politicallevel, upon the situation in the particular country, upon the changes inprogress in the international labor movement, etc.These forms may include, for instance: coordinated joint actionof the workers to be agreed upon from case to case on definite occasions,on individual demands or on the basis of a common platform; coordinatedactions in individual enterprises or by whole industries; coordinatedactions on a local, regional, national or international scale,coordinated actions for the organization of the economic struggleof the workers, for carrying out mass political actions, for theorganization of joint self-defense against fascist attacks, coordinatedactions in rendering aid to political prisoners and their families,in the field of struggle against social reaction; joint actionsin the defense of the interests of the youth and women, in the fieldof the cooperative movement, cultural activity, sport, etc.It would be insufficient to rest content with the conclusion ofa pact providing for joint action and the formation of contact committeesfrom the parties and organizations participating in the united front, likethose we have in France, for instance. That is only the first step. Thepact is an auxiliary means for obtaining joint action, but by itself itdoes not constitute a united front. A contact commission between the leadersof the Communist and Socialist Parties is necessary to facilitate the carryingout of joint action, but by itself it is far from adequate for a real developmentof the united front, for drawing the widest masses into the struggle againstfascism.The Communists and all revolutionary workers must strive for theformation of elected (and in the countries of fascist dictatorship -- selectedfrom among the most authoritative participants in the united front movement)nonparty class bodies of the united front, at the factories,among the unemployed, in the working class districts, amongthe small towns-folk and in the villages. Only such bodieswill be able to include also the vast masses of unorganized working peoplein the united front movement, and will be able to assist in developingmass initiative in the struggle against the capitalist offensive, againstfascism and reaction, and on this basis create the necessary broad activerank-and-file of the united front and train hundreds and thousandsof non-Party Bolsheviks in the capitalist countries.Joint action of the organized workers is the beginning,the foundation. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the unorganizedmasses constitute the vast majority of workers. Thus, in Francethe number of organized workers -- Communists, Socialists, trade unionmembers of various trends-is altogether about one million, whilethe total number of workers is eleven million. In Great Britainthere are approximately five million members of trade unions andparties of various trends. At the same time the total number of workersis fourteen million. In the United States of America aboutfive million workers are organized, while altogether there are thirty-eightmillion workers in that country. About the same ratio holds good fora number of other countries. In \"normal\" times this mass in the main doesnot participate in political life. But now this gigantic mass is gettinginto motion more and more, is being brought into political life, comesout onto the political arena.The creation of nonpartisan class bodies is the best formfor carrying out, extending and strengthening a united front among therank-and-file of the masses. These bodies will likewise be the best bulwarkagainst any attempt of the opponents of the united front to disrupt thegrowing unity of action of the working class.THE ANTI-FASCIST PEOPLE'S FRONTIn mobilizing the mass of working people for the struggleagainst fascism, the formation of a wide anti-fascist People's Fronton the basis of the proletarian united front is a particularly importanttask. The success of the whole struggle of the proletariat is closely boundup with the establishment of a fighting alliance between the proletariat,on the one hand, and the laboring peasantry and basic mass of the urbanpetty bourgeoisie who together form the majority of the population evenin industrially developed countries, on the other.In its agitation, fascism, desirous of winning these masses toits own side, tries to set the mass of the working people in town and countrysideagainst the revolutionary proletariat, frightening the petty bourgeoisiewith the bogey of the \"Red peril.\" We must turn this weapon againstthose who wield it and show the working peasants, artisans and intellectualswhence the real danger threatens. We must show concretely who it is thatpiles the burden of taxes and imposts onto the peasant and squeezes usuriousinterest out of him; who it is that, while owning the best land and everyform of wealth, drives the peasant and his family from their plot of landand dooms them to unemployment and poverty. We must explain concretely,patiently and persistently who it is that ruins the artisans and handicraftsmenwith taxes, imposts, high rents and competition impossible for them towithstand; who it is that throws into the street and deprives of employmentthe wide masses of the working intelligentsia.But this is not enough.The fundamental, the most decisive thing in establishing an anti-fascistPeople's Front is resolute action of the revolutionary proletariatin defense of the demands of these sections of the people, particularlythe working peasantry -- demands in line with the basic interests of theproletariat -- and in the process of struggle combining the demands ofthe working class with these demands.In forming an anti-fascist People's Front, a correct approachto those organizations and parties whose membership comprises a considerablenumber of the working peasantry and the mass of the urban petty bourgeoisieis of great importance.In the capitalist countries the majority of these parties andorganizations, political as well as economic, are still under the influenceof the bourgeoisie and follow it. The social composition of these partiesand organizations is heterogeneous. They include rich peasants side byside with landless peasants, big businessmen alongside petty shopkeepers;but control is in the hands of the former, the agents of big capital. Thisobliges us to approach the different organizations in different ways,remembering that often the bulk of the membership ignores the real politicalcharacter of its leadership. Under certain conditions we can and must tryto draw these parties and organizations or certain sections of them tothe side of the anti-fascist People's Front, despite their bourgeois leadership.Such, for instance, is today the situation in France with the Radical party," }
{ "content": "in the United States with various farmers' organizations, in Poland withthe \"Stronnictwo Ludowe,\" 9) in Yugoslavia with theCroatian Peasants' Party, in Bulgaria with the Agrarian Union, in Greecewith the Agrarians, etc. But regardless of whether or not there is anychance of attracting these parties and organizations as a whole to thePeople's Front, our tactics must under all circumstances be directedtowards drawing the small peasants, artisans, handicraftsmen, etc., amongtheir members into an anti-fascist People's Front.Hence, you see that in this field we must all along the line putan end to what has not infrequently occurred in our work-neglect or contemptof the various organizations and parties of the peasants, artisans andthe mass of petty bourgeoisie in the towns.KEY QUESTIONS OF THE UNITED FRONT IN INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIESIn every country there are certain key questions,which at the present stage are agitating vast masses of the populationand around which the struggle for the establishment of a united front mustbe developed. If these key points, or key questions, are properly graspedit will ensure and accelerate the establishment of a united front.The United States of AmericaLet us take, for example, so important a country in the capitalistworld as the United States of America. There millions of peoplehave been set into motion by the crisis. The program for the recovery ofcapitalism has collapsed. Vast masses are beginning to abandon the bourgeoisparties and are at present at the crossroads.Embryo American fascism is trying to direct the disillusionmentand discontent of these masses into reactionary fascist channels. It isa peculiarity of the development of American fascism that at the presentstage it comes forward principally in the guise of an opposition to fascism,which it accuses of being an \"un-American\" trend imported from abroad.In contradistinction to German fascism, which acts under anti-constitutionalslogans, American fascism tries to portray itself as the custodian of theConstitution and \"American democracy.\" It does not as yet represent a directlymenacing force. But if it succeeds in penetrating the wide masses who havebecome disillusioned with the old bourgeois parties, it may become a seriousmenace in the very near future.And what would the victory of fascism in the United States involve?For the mass of working people it would of course, involve the unprecedentedstrengthening of the regime of exploitation and the destruction of theworking-class movement. And what would be the international significanceof this victory of fascism? As we known, the United States is not Hungary,nor Finland, nor Bulgaria, nor Latvia. The victory of fascism in the UnitedStates would vitally change the whole international situation.Under these circumstances, can the American proletariat contentitself with organizing only its class conscious vanguard, which is preparedto follow the revolutionary path? No.It is perfectly obvious that the interests of the American proletariatdemand that all its forces dissociate themselves from the capitalist partieswithout delay. It must find in good time ways and suitable forms to preventfascism from winning over the wide mass of discontented working people.And here it must be said that under American conditions the creation ofa mass party of the working people, a Workers' and Farmers' Party,might serve as such a suitable form. Such a party would be a specificform of the mass People's Front in America and should be put in oppositionto the parties of the trusts and the banks, and likewise to growing fascism.Such a party, of course, will be neither Socialist nor Communist.But it must be an anti-fascist party and must not be an anti-Communistparty. The program of this party must be directed against the banks, trustsand monopolies, against the principal enemies of the people, who are gamblingon the woes of the latter. Such a party will justify its name only if itdefends the urgent demands of the working class; only if it fights forgenuine social legislation, for unemployment insurance; only if it fightsfor land for the white and Black sharecroppers and for their liberationfrom debt burdens; only if it tries to secure the cancellation of the farmers'indebtedness; only if it fights for an equal status for Negroes; only ifit defends the demands of the war veterans and the interests of membersof the liberal professions, small businessmen and artisans. And so on.It goes without saying that such a party will fight for the electionof its own candidates to local government, to the state legislatures, tothe House of Representatives and the Senate.Our comrades in the United States acted rightly in taking theinitiative in the setting up of such a party. But they still have to takeeffective measures in order to make the creation of such a party the causeof the masses themselves. The questions of forming a Workers' and Farmers'Party, and its program should be discussed at mass meetings of the people.We should develop the most widespread movement for the creation of sucha party, and take the lead in it. In no case must the initiative of organizingthe party be allowed to pass to elements desirous of utilizing the discontentof the millions who have become disillusioned in both the bourgeois parties,Democratic and Republican, in order to create a \"third party\" in the UnitedStates as an anti-Communist party, a party directed against the revolutionarymovement.Great BritainIn Great Britain, as a result of the mass action of theBritish workers, Mosley's fascist organization has for the time being beenpushed into the background. But we must not close our eyes to the factthat the so-called \"National Government\" is passing a number of reactionarymeasures directed against the working class, as a result of which conditionsare being created in Great Britain, too, which will make it easier forthe bourgeoisie, if necessary, to pass to a fascist regime.At the present stage, fighting the fascist danger in Great Britainmeans primarily fighting the \"National Government\" and its reactionarymeasures, fighting the offensive of capital, fighting for the demands ofthe unemployed, fighting against wage cuts and for the repeal of all thoselaws with the help of which the British bourgeoisie is lowering the standardof living of the masses.But the growing hatred of the working class for the \"NationalGovernment\" is uniting increasingly large numbers under the slogan of theformation of a new Labor Government in Great Britain. Can the Communistsignore this frame of mind of the masses, who still retain faith in a Labor" }
{ "content": "Government? No, Comrades. We must find a way of approaching these masses.We tell them openly, as did the Thirteenth Congress of the British CommunistParty, that we Communists are in favor of a soviet government [\"soviet\"meant a workers' and peasants' council, or people's council, in a systemthat nationalized the major resources and means of production] as theonly form of government capable of emancipating the workers from the yokeof the capital. But you want a Labor Government? Very well. We have beenand are fighting hand in hand with you for the defeat of the \"NationalGovernment.\" We are prepared to support your fight for the formation ofa new Labor government, in spite of the fact that both the previous Laborgovernments failed to fulfil the promises made to the working class bythe Labour Party. We do not expect this government to carry out socialistmeasures. But we shall present it with the demand, in the name ofmillions of workers, that it defend the most essential economic and politicalinterests of the working class and of all working people. Let us jointlydiscuss a common program of such demands, and let us achieve that unityof action which the proletariat requires in order to repel the reactionaryoffensive of the \"National Government,\" the attack of capital and fascismand the preparations for a new war. On this basis, the British comradesare prepared at the forthcoming parliamentary elections to cooperate withbranches of the Labour Party against the \"National Government,\" and alsoagainst Lloyd George who is trying in his own way in the interests of theBritish bourgeoisie to lure the masses into following him against the causeof the working class.The position of the British Communists is a correct one. It willhelp them to set up a militant united front with the millions of membersof the British trade unions and Labour Party. While always remaining inthe front ranks of the fighting proletariat, and pointing out to the massesthe only right path -- the path of struggle for the revolutionary overthrowof the rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a soviet government-- the Communists, in defining their immediate political aims, must notattempt to leap over those necessary stages of the mass movement in thecourse of which the working class by its own experience outlives its illusionsand passes over to Communism.FranceFrance, as we know, is a country in which the working class issetting an example to the whole international proletariat of how to fightfascism. The French Communist Party is setting an example to all the sectionsof the Comintern of how the tactics of the united front should be applied;the Socialist workers are setting an example of what the Social-Democraticworkers of other capitalist countries should now be doing in the fightagainst fascism.The significance of the anti-fascist demonstration attended byhalf a million people in Paris on July 14 of this year, and of the numerousdemonstrations in other French cities, is tremendous.This is not merely a United Front movement of the workers; itis the beginning of a wide general front of the people against fascismin France. This united front movement enhances the confidence of the workingclass in its own forces; it strengthens its consciousness of the leadingrole it is playing in relation to the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie,and the intelligentsia; it extends the influence of the Communist Partyamong the mass of the working class and therefore makes the proletariatstronger in the fight against fascism. It is arousing in good time thevigilance of the masses in regard to the fascist danger. And it will serveas a contagious example for the development of the anti-fascist strugglein other capitalist countries, and will exercise a heartening influenceon the proletarians of Germany, oppressed by the fascist dictatorship.The victory, needless to say, is a big one; but still it doesnot decide the issue of the anti-fascist struggle. The overwhelming majorityof the French people are undoubtedly opposed to fascism. But the bourgeoisieis able by armed force to violate the popular will. The fascist movementis continuing to develop absolutely freely, with the active support ofmonopoly capital, the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie, the general staffof the French army, and the reactionary leaders of the Catholic Church-- that stronghold of all reaction. The most powerful fascist organization,the Croix de Feu, now commands 300,000 armed men, the backbone ofwhich consists of 60,000 officers of the reserve. It holds strong positionsin the police, the gendarmerie, the army, the air force and in all governmentoffices. The recent municipal elections have shown that in France it isnot only the revolutionary forces that are growing, but also the forcesof fascism. If fascism succeeds in penetrating widely among the peasantryand in securing the support of one section of the army, while the othersection remains neutral, the masses of the French working people will notbe able to prevent the fascists from coming to power. Comrades, do notforget the organizational weakness of the French labor movement which facilitatesa fascist offensive. The working class and all anti-fascists in Francehave no grounds for resting content with the results achieved so far.What are the tasks facing the working class in France? First,to establish a united front not only in the political sphere, but alsoin the economic sphere, in order to organize the struggle against the capitalistoffensive, and by its pressure to smash the resistance offered to the unitedfront by the leaders of the reformist Confederation of Labor.Second, to achieve trade union unity in France -- unitedtrade unions based on the class struggle.Third, to enlist the broad mass of the peasants and pettybourgeoisie in the anti-fascist movement, devoting special attention totheir urgent demands in the program of the anti-fascist People's Front.Fourth, to strengthen organizationally and extend furtherthe anti-fascist movement which has already developed, by the widespreadcreation of nonpartisan elected bodies of the anti-fascist People's Front,whose influence will extend to wider masses than those in the present partiesand organizations of the working people in France.Fifth, to force the disbanding and disarming of the fascistorganizations, as being organizations of conspirators against the republicand agents of Hitler in France.Sixth, to secure that the state apparatus, army and policeshall be purged of the conspirators who are preparing a fascist coup.Seventh, to develop the struggle against the leaders of" }
{ "content": "the reactionary cliques of the Catholic Church, one of the most importantstrongholds of French fascism.Eighth, to link up the army with the anti-fascist movementby creating in its ranks committees for the defense of the republic andthe constitution, directed against those who want to utilize the army foran anti-constitutional coup d'�tat; to prevent the reactionary forcesin France from wrecking the Franco-Soviet pact, which defends the causeof peace against the aggression of German fascism.And if in France the anti-fascist movement leads to the formationof a government which will carry on a real struggle against French fascism-- not in words but in deeds -- and which will carry out the program ofdemands of the antifascist People's Front, the Communists, while remainingthe irreconcilable foes of every bourgeois government and supporters ofa soviet government, will nevertheless, in face of the growing fascistdanger, be prepared to support such a government.THE UNITED FRONT AND THE FASCIST MASS ORGANIZATIONSComrades, the fight for the establishment of a unitedfront in countries where the fascists are in power is perhaps the mostimportant problem facing us. In such countries, of course, the fight iscarried on under far more difficult conditions than in countries with alegal labor movement. Nevertheless, all the conditions exist in fascistcountries for the development of a real anti-fascist People's Front inthe struggle against the fascist dictatorship since the Social-Democratic,Catholic and other workers, in Germany for instance, are able to realizemore directly the need for a joint struggle with the Communists againstthe fascist dictatorship. Wide strata of the petty bourgeoisie and thepeasantry, having already tasted the bitter fruits of fascist rule, aregrowing increasingly discontented and disillusioned which makes it easierto enlist them in the antifascist People's Front.The principal task in fascist countries, particularly in Germanyand Italy, where fascism has managed to gain a mass basis and has forcedthe workers and other working people into its organizations, consists inskilfully combining the fight against the fascist dictatorship from withoutwith the undermining of it from within, inside the fascist mass organizationsand bodies. Special methods and means of approach, suited to the concreteconditions prevailing in these countries, must be learned, mastered andapplied, so as to facilitate the rapid disintegration of the mass baseof fascism and to prepare the way for the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship.We must learn, master and apply this, and not only shout \"Down with Hitler\"and \"Down with Mussolini.\" Yes, learn, master and apply.This is a difficult and complex task. It is all the more difficultin that our experience in successfully combating a fascist dictatorshipis extremely limited. Our Italian comrades, for instance, have alreadybeen fighting under the conditions of a fascist dictatorship for aboutthirteen --years. Nevertheless, they have not yet succeeded in developinga real mass struggle against fascism, and therefore they have unfortunatelybeen little able in this respect to help the Communist Parties in otherfascist countries by their positive experience.The Germany and Italian Communists, and the Communists in otherfascist countries, as well as the Communist youth, have displayed prodigiousvalor; they have made and are daily making tremendous sacrifices. We allbow our heads in honor of such heroism and sacrifices. But heroism aloneis not enough. Heroism must be combined with day-to-day work among themasses, with concrete struggle against fascism, so as to achieve the mosttangible results in this sphere. In our struggle against fascist dictatorshipit is particularly dangerous to confuse the wish with fact. We must baseourselves on the facts, on the actual concrete situation.What is now the actual situation in Germany, for instance?The masses are becoming increasingly restless and disillusionedwith the policy of the fascist dictatorship, and this even assumes theform of partial strikes and other actions. In spite of all its efforts,fascism has failed to win over politically the basic masses of the workers;it is losing even its former supporters, and will lose them more and morein the future. Nevertheless, we must realize that the workers who are convincedof the possibility of overthrowing the fascist dictatorship, and who arealready prepared to fight for it actively, are still in the minority --they consist of us, the Communists, and the revolutionary section of theSocial-Democratic workers. But the majority of the working people havenot yet become aware of the real, concrete possibilities and methods ofoverthrowing this dictatorship, and still adopt a waiting attitude. Thiswe must bear in mind when we outline our tasks in the struggle againstfascism in Germany, and when we seek, study and apply special methods ofapproach for the undermining and overthrow of the fascist dictatorshipin Germany.In order to be able to strike a telling blow at the fascist dictatorship,we must first find out what is its most vulnerable point. What is the Achilles'heel of the fascist dictatorship? Its social basis. The latter is extremelyheterogeneous. It is made up of various strata of society. Fascism hasproclaimed itself the sole representative of all classes and strata ofthe population: the manufacturer and the worker, the millionaire and theunemployed, the Junker and the small peasant, the big businessman and theartisan. It pretends to defend the interests of all these strata, the interestsof the nation. But since it is a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, fascismmust inevitably come into conflict with its mass social basis, all themore since, under the fascist dictatorship, the class contradictions betweenthe pack of financial magnates and the overwhelming majority of the peopleare brought out in greatest relief.We can lead the masses to a decisive struggle for the overthrowof the fascist dictatorship only by getting the workers who have been forcedinto the fascist organizations, or have joined them through ignorance,to take part in the most elementary movements for the defense of theireconomic, political and cultural interests. It is for this reason thatthe Communists must work in these organizations, as the best championsof the day-to-day interests of the mass of members, bearing in mind thatas the workers belonging to these organizations begin more and more frequentlyto demand their rights and defend their interests, they inevitably comeinto conflict with the fascist dictatorship.In defending the urgent and at first the most elementary interestsof the working people in town and countryside it is comparatively easierto find a common language not only with the conscious anti-fascists, but" }
{ "content": "also with those of the working people who are still supporters of fascism,but are disillusioned and dissatisfied with its policy and are grumblingand seeking an occasion for expressing their discontent. In general, wemust realize that all our tactics in countries with a fascist dictatorshipmust be of such a character as not to repulse the rank-and-file followersof fascism drawn from the working sections of society.We need not be dismayed, comrades, if the people mobilized aroundthese day-to-day interests consider themselves either indifferent to politicsor even followers of fascism. The important thing for us is to draw theminto the movement, which, although it may not at first proceed openly underthe slogans of the struggle against fascism, is already objectively ananti-fascist movement putting these masses into opposition to the fascistdictatorship.Experience teaches us that the view that it is generally impossible,in countries with a fascist dictatorship, to come out legally or semi-legally,is harmful and incorrect. To insist on this point of view means to fallinto passivity, and to renounce real mass work altogether. True, underthe conditions of a fascist dictatorship, to find forms and methods oflegal or semi-legal action is a difficult and complex problem. But, asin many other questions, the path is indicated by life itself and by theinitiative of the masses themselves, who have already provided us witha number of examples that must be generalized and applied in an organizedand effective manner.We must very resolutely put an end to the tendency to underestimatework in the fascist mass organizations. In Italy, in Germany and in a numberof other fascist countries, our comrades tried to conceal their passivity,and frequently even their direct refusal to work in the fascist mass organizations,by putting forward work in the factories as against work in the fascistmass organizations. In reality however, it was just this mechanical distinctionwhich led to work being conducted very feebly, and sometimes not at all,both in the fascist mass organizations and in the factories.Yet it is particularly important that Communists in the fascistcountries should be wherever the masses are to be found. Fascism has deprivedthe workers of their own legal organizations. It has forced the fascistorganizations upon them, and it is there that the masses are --by compulsion, or to some extent voluntarily. These mass fascist organizationscan and must be made our legal or semi-legal field of action where we canmeet the masses. They can and must be made our legal or semi-legal startingpoint for the defense of the day-to-day interests of the masses. To utilizethese possibilities, Communists must win elected positions in the fascistmass organizations, for contact with the masses, and must rid themselvesonce and for all of the prejudice that such activity is unseemly and unworthyof a revolutionary worker.In Germany, for instance, there is a system of so-called \"shopstewards.\" But where is it stated that we must leave the fascists a monopolyin these organizations? Cannot we try to unite the Communist, Social-Democratic,Catholic and other anti-fascist workers in the factories so that when thelist of \"shop stewards\" is voted upon, the known agents of the employersmay be struck off and other candidates, enjoying the confidence of theworkers, inserted in their stead? Practice has already shown that thisis possible.And does not practice also go to show that it is possible jointlywith the Social-Democratic and other discontented workers, to demand thatthe \"shop stewards\" really defend the interests of the workers?Take the \"Labor Front\" in Germany, or the fascist trade unionsin Italy. Is it not possible to demand that the functionaries of the LaborFront be elected, and not appointed, to insist that the leading bodiesof the local groups report to meetings of the members of the organizations;to address these demands, following a decision by the group, to the employer,to the \"labor trustee,\" to higher bodies of the Labor Front? This is possible,provided the revolutionary workers actually work within the Labor Frontand try to obtain posts in it.Similar methods of work are possible and essential in other massfascist organizations also -- in the Hitler Youth Leagues, in the sportsorganizations, in the Kraft durch Freude 10)organizations, in the Dopo lavoro 11) in Italy,in the cooperatives and so forth.Comrades, you recall the ancient legend about the capture of Troy.Troy was inaccessible to the armies attacking her, thanks to her impregnablewalls. And the attacking army, after suffering heavy casualties, was unableto achieve victory until with the aid of the famous Trojan horse it managedto penetrate to the very heart of the enemy's Camp.We revolutionary workers, it appears to me, should not be shyabout using the same tactics with regard to our fascist foe, who is defendinghimself against the people with the help of a living wall of his cutthroats.He who fails to understand the necessity of using such tacticsin the case of fascism, he who regards such an approach as \"humiliating,\"may be a most excellent comrade, but if you will allow me to say so, heis a windbag and not a revolutionary, he will be unable to lead the massesto the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship.The mass movement for a united front, starting with the defenseof the most elementary needs, and changing its forms and watchwords ofstruggle as the latter extends and grows, is growing up outside and insidethe fascist organizations in Germany, Italy, and the other countries inwhich fascism has a mass basis. It will be the battering ram which willshatter the fortress of the fascist dictatorship that at present seemsimpregnable to many.THE UNITED FRONT IN COUNTRIES WHERE THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS ARE IN OFFICEThe struggle for the establishment of a united frontraises another very important problem, the problem of a united front inCountries where Social-Democratic governments, or coalition governmentsin which Socialists participate, are in power, as, for instance, in Denmark,Norway, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Belgium.Our attitude of absolute opposition to Social-Democratic governments,which are governments of compromise with the bourgeoisie, is well known.But this notwithstanding, we do not regard the existence of a Social-Democraticgovernment or of a government coalition with bourgeois parties as aninsurmountable obstacle to establishing a united front with theSocial-Democrats on certain issues.We believe that in such a case, too, a united front in defenseof the vital interests of the working people and in the struggle against" }
{ "content": "fascism is quite possible and necessary. It stands to reasonthat in countries where representatives of Social-Democratic parties takepart in the government the Social-Democratic leadership offers the strongestresistance to the proletarian united front. This is quite comprehensible.After all, they want to show the bourgeoisie that they, better and moreskilfully than anyone else, can keep the discontented working masses undercontrol and prevent them from falling under the influence of Communism.The fact, however, that Social-Democratic ministers are opposedto the proletarian united front can by no means justify a situation inwhich the Communists do nothing to establish a united front of the proletariat.Our comrades in the Scandinavian countries often follow the lineof least resistance, confining themselves to propaganda exposing theSocial-Democratic governments. This is a mistake. In Denmark,for example, the Social-Democratic leaders have been in the governmentfor the past ten years, and for ten years, day in and day out, the Communistshave been reiterating that it is a bourgeois capitalist government. Wehave to assume that the Danish workers are acquainted with this propaganda.The fact that a considerable majority nevertheless vote for the Social-Democraticgovernment party only goes to show that the Communists' exposure of thegovernment by means of propaganda is insufficient. It does notprove, however, that these hundreds of thousands of workers are satisfiedwith all the government measures of the Social-Democratic ministers. No,they are not satisfied with the fact that by its so-called crisis'agreement' the Social-Democratic government assists the big capitalistsand landlords and not the workers and poor peasants. They are not satisfiedwith the decree issued by the government in January 1933, which deprivedthe workers of the right to strike. They are not satisfied withthe project of the Social Democratic leadership for a dangerous anti-democraticelectoral reform (which would considerably reduce the number of deputies).I shall hardly be in error, comrades, if I state that 99 per cent of theDanish workers do not approve of these political steps taken bythe Social-Democratic leaders and ministers.Is it not possible for the Communists to call upon the trade unionsand Social-Democratic organizations of Denmark to discuss some of theseburning issues, to express their opinions on them and come out jointlyfor a proletarian united front with the object of obtaining the workers'demands? In October of last year, when our Danish comrades appealed tothe trade unions to act against the reduction of unemployment relief andfor the democratic rights of the trade unions, about 100 local trade unionorganizations joined the united front.In Sweden a Social-Democratic government is in powerfor the third time, but the Swedish Communists have for a long time abstainedfrom applying the united front tactics in practice. Why? Was it becausethey were opposed to the united front? Of course not; they were in principlefor a united front, for a united front in general, but they failed to understandin what circumstances, on what questions, in defense of what demands aproletarian united front could be successfully established, where and howto \"hook on.\" A few months before the formation of the Social democraticgovernment, the Social Democratic Party advanced during the elections aplatform containing a number of demands which would have been the verything to include in the platform of the proletarian united front. For example,the slogans Against custom duties, Against militarization, Put an endto the policy of delay in the question of unemployment insurance, Grantadequate old age pensions, Prohibit organizations like the \"Munch\" corps(a fascist organization), Down with class legislation against the unionsdemanded by the bourgeois parties.Over a million of the working people of Sweden voted in 1932 forthese demands advanced by the Social-Democrats, and welcomed in 1933 theformation of a Social-Democratic government in the hope that now thesedemands would be realized. What could have been more natural in such asituation and what would have been better suited the mass of the workersthan an appeal of the Communist Party to all Social-Democratic and tradeunion organizations to take joint action to secure these demands advancedby the Social-Democratic Party?If we had succeeded in really mobilizing wide masses and in weldingthe Social-Democratic and Communist workers' organizations into a unitedfront to secure these demands of the Social-Democrats themselves, thereis no doubt that the working class of Sweden would have gained thereby.The Social-Democratic ministers of Sweden, of course, would not have beenvery happy over it, for in that case the government would have been compelledto meet at least some of these demands. At any rate, what has happenednow, when the government instead of abolishing has raised some of the duties,instead of restricting militarism has enlarged the military budget, andinstead of rejecting all legislation directed against the trade unionshas itself introduced such a bill in Parliament, would not have happened.True, on the last issue the Communist party of Sweden carried through agood mass campaign in the spirit of the proletarian united front, withthe result that in the end even the Social-Democratic parliamentary factionfelt constrained to vote against the government bill, and for the timebeing it has been voted down.The Norwegian Communists were right in calling uponthe organizations of the Labor Party to organize joint May Day demonstrationsand in putting forward a number of demands which in the main coincidedwith the demands contained in the election platform of the Norwegian LaborParty. Although this step in favor of a united front was poorly preparedand the leadership of the Norwegian Labor Party opposed it, united frontdemonstrations took place in thirty localities.Formerly many Communists used to be afraid it would be opportunismon their part if they did not counter every partial demand of the Social-Democratsby demands of their own which were twice as radical. That was a naive mistake.If Social-Democrats, for instance, demanded the dissolution of the fascistorganizations, there was no reason why we should add: \"and the disbandingof the state police\" (a demand which would be expedient under differentcircumstances). We should rather tell the Social-Democratic workers: Weare ready to accept these demands of your Party as demands of the proletarianunited front and are ready to fight to the end for their realization. Letus join hands for the battle.In Czechoslovakia also certain demands advancedby the Czech and German Social-Democrats, and by the reformist trade unions,can and should be utilized for establishing a united front of the workingclass. When the Social-Democrats, for instance, demand work for the unemployed" }
{ "content": "or the abolition of the laws restricting municipal self-government, asthey have done ever since 1927, these demands should be made concrete ineach locality, in each district, and a fight should be carried on handin hand with the Social-Democratic organizations for their actual realization.Or, when the Social-Democratic Parties thunder \"in general terms\" againstthe agents of fascism in the state apparatus, the proper thing to do isin each particular district to drag into the light of day the particularlocal fascist spokesmen, and together with the Social Democratic workersdemand their removal from government employ.In Belgium the leaders of the Social-DemocraticParty, with Emile Vandervelde at their head, have entered a coalition government.This \"success\" they achieved thanks to their lengthy and extensive campaignsfor two main demands: 1) abolition of the emergency decrees, and2) realization of the de Man 12) Plan. The firstissue is very important. The preceding government issued 150 reactionaryemergency decrees, which are an extremely heavy burden on the working people.They were expected to be repealed at once. This was the demand of the SocialistParty. But have many of these emergency decrees been repealed by the newgovernment? It has not repealed a single one. It has only mollified somewhata few of the emergency decrees in order to make a sort of \"token payment\"in settlement of the generous promises of the Belgian Socialist leaders(like that \"token dollar\" which some European powers proffered the USAin payment of the millions due as war debts).As regards the realization of the widely advertized de Man Plan,the matter has taken a turn quite unexpected by the Social Democratic masses.The Socialist ministers announced that the economic crisis must be overcomefirst and only those provisions of the de Man Plan should be carriedinto effect which improve the position of the industrial capitalists andthe banks; only afterwards would it be possible to adopt measures to improvethe condition of the workers. But how long must the workers waitfor their share in the \"benefits\" promised them in the de Man Plan?The Belgian bankers have already had their veritable shower of gold.The Belgian franc has been devalued 28 per cent; by this manipulation thebankers were able to pocket 4,500 million francs as their spoils at theexpense of the wage earners and the savings of the small depositors. Buthow does this tally with the contents of the de Man Plan? Why, if we areto believe the letter of the plan, it promises to \"prosecute monopolistabuses and speculative manipulations.\"On the basis of the de Man Plan, the government has appointeda commission to supervise the banks. But the commission consists ofbankers who can now gaily and lightheartedly supervise themselves.The de Man Plan also promises a number of other good things, suchas a shorter working day, standardization of wages, a minimum wage,organization of an all-embracing system of social insurance,\"greater convenience in living conditions through new housing construction,\"and so forth. These are all demands which we Communists can support. Weshould go to the labor organizations of Belgium and say to them: The capitalistshave already received enough and even too much. Let us demand that theSocial-Democratic ministers now carry out the promises they made to theworkers. Let us get together in a united front for the successful defenseof our interests. Minister Vandervelde, we support the demands on behalfof the workers contained in your platform; but we tell you franklythat we take these demands seriously, that we want action and notempty words, and therefore are rallying hundreds of thousands of workersto struggle for these demands.Thus, in countries having Social-Democratic governments, the Communists,by utilizing appropriate individual demands taken from the platforms ofthe Social-Democratic ministers as a starting point for achieving jointaction with the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations, can afterwardsmore easily develop a campaign for the establishment of a united fronton the basis of other mass demands in the struggle against the capitalistoffensive, against fascism and the threat of war.It must further be borne in mind that, in general, joint actionwith the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations requires from Communistsserious and substantiated criticism of Social Democracy as the ideologyand practice of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and untiring,comradely explanation to the Social-Democratic workers of the program andslogans of Communism. In countries having Social-Democratic governmentsthis task is of particular importance in the struggle for a united front.THE STRUGGLE FOR TRADE UNION UNITYComrades, a most important stage in the consolidationof the united front must be the establishment of national and internationaltrade union unity.As you know, the splitting tactics of the reformist leaders wereapplied most virulently in the trade unions. The reason for this is clear.Here their policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie found itspractical culmination directly in the factories, to the detriment of thevital interests of the working class. This, of course, gave rise to sharpcriticism and resistance on the part of the revolutionary workers underthe leadership of the Communists. That is why the struggle between communismand reformism raged most fiercely in the trade unions.The more difficult and complicated the situation became for capitalism,the more reactionary was the policy of the leaders of the Amsterdam tradeunions, [The International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), basedin Amsterdam] and the more aggressive their measures against all oppositionelements within the trade unions. Even the establishment of the fascistdictatorship in Germany and the intensified capitalist offensive in allcapitalist countries failed to diminish this aggressiveness. Is it nota characteristic fact that in 1933 alone, most disgraceful circulars wereissued for the expulsion of Communists and revolutionary workers from thetrade unions in Great Britain, Holland, Belgium and Sweden?In Great Britain a circular was issued in 1933 prohibiting thelocal branches of the trade unions from joining anti-war or other revolutionaryorganizations. That was a prelude to the notorious \"Black Circular\" ofthe Trade Union Congress General Council, which outlawed any trade councilsadmitting delegates \"directly or indirectly associated with Communist organizations.\"What is there left to be said of the leadership of the German trade unions,which applied unprecedented repressive measures against the revolutionaryelements in the trade unions?Yet we must base our tactics, not on the behavior of individualleaders of the Amsterdam unions, no matter what difficulties their behaviormay cause the class struggle, but primarily on the question of wherethe masses of workers are to be found. And here we must openly declare" }
{ "content": "that work in the trade unions is the most vital question in the work ofall the Communist Parties. We must bring about a real change for the betterin trade union work and make the question of struggle for trade union unitythe central issue.Ignoring the urge of the workers to join the trade unions, andfaced with the difficulties of working within the Amsterdam unions, manyof our comrades decided to pass by this complicated task. They invariablyspoke of an organizational crisis in the Amsterdam unions, of the workersdeserting the unions, but failed to notice that after some decline at thebeginning of the world economic crisis, these unions later began to growagain. A peculiarity of the trade union movement has been precisely thefact that the attacks of the bourgeoisie on trade union rights, the attemptsin a number of countries to \"coordinate\" the trade unions (Poland, Hungary,etc.), the curtailment of social insurance, and the cutting of wages forcedthe workers, notwithstanding the lack of resistance on the part of thereformist trade union leaders, to rally still more closely around theseunions, because the workers wanted and still want to see in the trade unionsthe militant champions of their vital class interests. This explains thefact that most of the Amsterdam unions -- in France, Czechoslovakia, Belgium,Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, etc. -- have grown in membership during thelast few years. The American Federation of Labor has also considerablyincreased its membership in the past two years.Had the German comrades better understood the problem of tradeunion work of which Comrade Thaelmann spoke on many occasions, there wouldundoubtedly have been a better situation in the trade unions than was thecase at the time the fascist dictatorship was established. At the end of1932 only about ten percent of the Party members belonged to the free tradeunions. This in spite of the fact that after the Sixth Congress of theComintern the Communists took the lead in quite a number of strikes. Ourcomrades used to write in the press of the need to assign 90 per cent ofour forces to work in the trade unions, but in reality activity was concentratedexclusively around the revolutionary trade union opposition, which actuallysought to replace the trade unions. And how about the period after Hitler'sseizure of power? For two years many of our comrades stubbornly and systematicallyopposed the correct slogan of fighting for the re-establishment of thefree unions.I could cite similar examples about almost every other capitalistcountry.But we already have the first serious achievements to our creditin the struggle for trade union unity in European countries. I have inmind little Austria, where on the initiative of the Communist Party a basishas been created for an illegal trade union movement. After the Februarybattles the Social-Democrats, with Otto Bauer at their head, issued thewatchword: \"The free unions can be re-established only after the downfallof fascism.\" The Communists applied themselves to the task of reestablishingthe trade unions. Every phase of that work was a bit of the livingunited front of the Austrian proletariat. The successful re-establishmentof the free trade unions in underground conditions was a serious blow tofascism. The Social-Democrats were at the parting of the ways. Some ofthem tried to negotiate with the government. Others, seeing our successes,created their own parallel illegal trade unions. But there could be onlyone road: either capitulation to fascism, or towards trade union unitythrough joint struggle against fascism. Under mass pressure, the waveringleadership of the parallel unions created by the former trade union leadersdecided to agree to amalgamation. The basis of this amalgamation is irreconcilablestruggle against the offensive of capitalism and fascism and the guaranteeof trade union democracy. We welcome this fact of the amalgamation of thetrade unions, which is the first of its kind since the formal split ofthe trade unions after the war and which is therefore of internationalimportance.In France the united front has unquestionably served asa mighty impetus for achieving trade union unity. The leaders of the GeneralConfederation of Labor have hampered and still hamper in every way therealization of unity, countering the main issue of the class policy ofthe trade unions by raising issues of a subordinate and secondary or formalcharacter. An unquestionable success in the struggle for trade union unityhas been the establishment of single unions on a local scale embracing,in the case of the railroad workers, for instance, approximately three-quartersof the membership of both trade unions.We are definitely for the re-establishment of trade union unityin every country and on an international scale.We are for one union in every industry. We are for one federationof trade unions in every countryWe are for single international federations of trade unionsorganized by industries.We stand for one international of trade unions based on theclass struggle.We are for united class trade unions as one of the major bulwarksof the working class against the offensive of capital and fascism.Our only condition for uniting the trade unions is: Struggle againstcapital, against fascism and for internal trade union democracy.Time does not wait. To us the question of trade union unity ona national as well as international scale is a question of the great taskof uniting our class in mighty single trade union organizations againstthe class enemy. We welcome the fact that on the eve of May Day of thisyear the Red International of Labor Unions approached the Amsterdam Internationalwith the proposal to consider jointly the question of the terms, methodsand forms of uniting the world trade union movement. The leaders of theAmsterdam International rejected that proposal, using the outworn pretextthat unity in the trade union movement is possible only within the AmsterdamInternational, which, by the way, includes trade unions in only a partof the European countries.But the communists working in the trade unions must continue tostruggle tirelessly for the unity of the trade union movement. The taskof the Red Trade Unions and the R.I.L.U. is to do all in their power tohasten the achievement of a joint struggle of all trade unions againstthe offensive of capital and fascism, and to bring about unity in the tradeunion movement, despite the stubborn resistance of the reactionary leadersof the Amsterdam International. The Red Trade Unions and the R.I.L.U mustreceive our unstinted support along this line.In countries where small Red trade unions exist, we recommend" }
{ "content": "working for their inclusion in the big reformist unions, but demandingthe right to defend their views and the reinstatement of expelled members.But in countries where big Red trade unions exist parallel with big reformisttrade unions, we must work for the convening of unity congresseson the basis of a platform of struggle against the capitalist offensiveand the guarantee of trade union democracy.It should be stated categorically that any Communist worker, anyrevolutionary worker who does not belong to the mass trade union of hisindustry, who does not fight to transform the reformist trade union intoa real class trade union organization, who does not fight for trade unionunity on the basis of the class struggle, such a Communist worker, sucha revolutionary worker, does not discharge his elementary proletarian duty.THE UNITED FRONT AND THE YOUTHComrades, I have already pointed out the role playedin the victory of fascism by the enlistment of the youth in the fascistorganizations. In speaking of the youth, we must state frankly that wehave neglected our task of drawing the masses of the working youth intothe struggle against the offensive of capital, against fascism and thedanger of war; we have neglected this task in a number of countries. Wehave underestimated the enormous importance of the youth in the fight againstfascism. We have not always taken into account the special economic, politicaland cultural interests of the youth. We have likewise not paid proper attentionto the revolutionary education of the youth.All this has been utilized very cleverly by fascism, which insome countries, particularly in Germany, has inveigled large sections ofthe youth onto the anti-proletarian road. It should be borne in mind thatit is not only by the glamor of militarism that fascism entices the youth.It feeds and clothes some of them in its detachments, gives work to others,and even sets up so-called cultural institutions for the youth, tryingin this way to imbue them with the idea that it really can and wants tofeed, clothe, teach and provide work for the mass of the working youth.In a number of capitalist countries our Young Communist Leaguesare still mainly sectarian organizations divorced from the masses. Theirfundamental weakness is that they still try to copy the Communist Parties,to copy their forms and methods of work, forgetting that the YCL is nota Communist party of the youth. They do not take sufficient accountof the fact that it is an organization with its own special tasks. Itsmethods and forms of work, education and struggle must be adapted to theactual level and needs of the youth.Our Young Communists have shown memorable examples of heroismin the fight against fascist violence and bourgeois reaction. But theystill lack the ability to win the masses of the youth away from hostileinfluences by dint of stubborn concrete work, as is evident from the factthat they have not yet overcome their opposition to work in the fascistmass organizations, and that their approach to the Socialist youth andother non-Communist youth is not always correct.A great part of the responsibility for all this must be borne,of course, by the Communist parties as well, for they ought to lead andsupport the YCL in its work. For the problem of the youth is not only aYCL problem. It is a problem for the whole Communist movement. Inthe struggle for the youth, the Communist Parties and the YCL organizationsmust effect a genuine decisive change. The main task of the Communist youthmovement in capitalist countries is to advance boldly in the directionof bringing about a united front along the path of organizing andrallying the young generation of working people. The tremendous influencethat even the first steps taken in this direction exert on the revolutionarymovement of the youth is shown by the examples of France and theUnited States during the recent past. It was sufficient in thesecountries to proceed to apply the united front for considerable successesto be immediately achieved. In the sphere of the international united front,the successful initiative of the committee against war and fascism in Parisin bringing about the international cooperation of all non-fascistyouth organizations is also worthy of note in this connection.These recent successful steps in the united front movement ofthe youth also show that the forms which the united front of the youthshould assume must not be stereotyped, nor necessarily be the same as thosemet with in the practice of the Communist parties. The Young CommunistLeagues must strive in every way to unite the forces of all non-fascistmass organizations of the youth, including the formation of various kindsof common organizations for the struggle against fascism, against the unprecedentedmanner in which the youth is being stripped of every right, against themilitarization of the youth and for the economic and cultural rights ofthe young generation, in order to draw these young workers over to theside of the anti-fascist front, no matter where they may be -- in the factories,the forced labor camps, the labor exchanges, the army barracks and thefleet, the schools, or in the various sports, cultural or other organizations.In developing and strengthening the YCL, our YCL members mustwork for the formation of anti-fascist associations of the Communist andSocialist Youth Leagues on a platform of class struggle.THE UNITED FRONT AND WOMENComrades, work among working women -- among womenworkers, unemployed women, peasant women and housewives -- has been underestimatedno less than work among the youth. While fascism exacts most of all fromyouth, it enslaves women with particular ruthlessness and cynicism, playingon the innermost feelings of the mother, housewife, the single workingwoman, uncertain of the morrow. Fascism, posing as a benefactor, throwsthe starving family a few beggarly scarps, trying in this way to stiflethe bitterness aroused, particularly among the working women by the unprecedentedslavery which fascism brings them. It drives working women out of industry,forcibly sends needy girls into the country, dooming them to the positionof unpaid servants of rich farmers and landlords. While promising womena happy home and family life, it drives women to prostitution more thanany other capitalist regime.Communists, above all our women Communists, must remember thatthere cannot be a successful fight against fascism and war unless the widemasses of women are drawn into the struggle. Agitation alone will not accomplish" }
{ "content": "this. Taking into account the concrete situation in each instance, we mustfind a way of mobilizing the mass of women by work around their vital interestsand demands-in a fight for their demands against high prices, for higherwages on the basis of the principle of equal pay for equal work, againstmass dismissals, against every manifestation of inequality in the statusof women and against fascist enslavement.In endeavoring to draw women who work into the revolutionary movement,we must not be afraid of forming separate women's organizations for thispurpose, wherever necessary. The preconceived notion that the women's organizationsunder Communist party leadership in the capitalist countries should beabolished as part of the struggle against 'women's separatism' in the labormovement, has often done great harm.The simplest and most flexible forms should be sought to establishcontact and a joint struggle between the revolutionary, Social-Democraticand progressive antiwar and anti-fascist women's organizations. We mustspare no pains to see that the women workers and working women in generalfight shoulder to shoulder with their class brothers in the ranks of theunited working-class front and the anti-fascist People's Front.THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST UNITED FRONTThe changed international and internal situation lendsexceptional importance to the question of the anti-imperialist unitedfront in all colonial and semi-colonial countries.In forming a broad anti-imperialist united front of struggle inthe colonies and semi-colonies it is necessary above all to recognize thevariety of conditions in which the anti-imperialist struggle of the massesis proceeding, the varying degree of maturity of the national liberationmovement, the role of the proletariat within it and the influence of theCommunist party over the masses.In Brazil the problem differs from that in India, China and othercountries.In Brazil the Communist Party, having laid a correct foundationfor the development of the united anti-imperialist front by the establishmentof the National Liberation Alliance, 13) must makeevery effort to extend this front by drawing into it first and foremostthe many millions of the peasantry, leading up to the formation of unitsof a people's revolutionary army, completely devoted to the revolutionand to the establishment of a government of the National Liberation Alliance.In India the Communists must support, extend and participatein all anti-imperialist mass activities, not excluding those which areunder national reformist leadership. While maintaining their politicalorganizational independence, they must carry on active work inside theorganizations which take part in the Indian National Congress, facilitatingthe process of crystallization of a national revolutionary wing among them,for the purpose of further developing the national liberation movementof the Indian peoples against British imperialism.In China, where the people's movement has already led tothe formation of soviet districts over a considerable territory of thecountry and to the organization of a powerful Red Army, the predatory offensiveof Japanese imperialism and the treason of the Nanking government havebrought into jeopardy the national existence of the great Chinese people.The Chinese soviets act as a unifying center in the struggle against theenslavement and partition of China by the imperialists, as a unifying centerwhich will rally all anti-imperialist forces for the national defense ofthe Chinese people.We therefore approve the initiative taken by our courageous brotherParty of China in the creation of a most extensive anti-imperialist unitedfront against Japanese imperialism and its Chinese agents, jointly withall those organized forces existing on the territory of China which areready to wage a real struggle for the salvation of their country and theirpeople. I am sure that I express the sentiments and thoughts of our entireCongress in saying that we send our warmest fraternal greetings, in thename of the revolutionary proletariat of the whole world, to all the sovietsin China, to the Chinese revolutionary people. We send our ardent fraternalgreetings to the heroic Red Army of China, tried in a thousand battles.And we assure the Chinese people of our firm resolve to support its strugglefor its complete liberation from all imperialist robbers and their Chinesehenchmen.A UNITED FRONT GOVERNMENTComrades, we have taken a bold, resolute course towardsthe united front of the working class, and are ready to carry it out withfull consistency.If we Communists are asked whether we advocate the united frontonly in the fight for partial demands, or whether we are preparedto share the responsibility even when it will be a question of forminga government on the basis of the united front, then we say with a fullsense of our responsibility: Yes, we recognize that a situation may arisein which the formation of a government of the proletarian united front,or of an anti-fascist People's Front, will become not only possiblebut necessary. And in that case we shall advocate for the formation ofsuch a government without the slightest hesitation.I am not speaking here of a government which may be formed afterthe victory of the proletarian revolution. It is not impossible, of course,that in some country, immediately after the revolutionary overthrow ofthe bourgeoisie, there may be formed a government on the basis of a governmentbloc of the Communist party with a certain party (or its Left wing) participatingin the revolution. After the October Revolution the victorious party ofthe Russian Bolsheviks, as we know, included representatives of the LeftSocialist-Revolutionaries in the Soviet Government. This was a specificfeature of the first Soviet government after the victory of the OctoberRevolution.I am not speaking of such a case, but of the possible formationof a united front government on the eve of and before the victory of therevolution.What kind of government is this? And in what situation could therebe any question of such a government?It is primarily a government of struggle against fascism andreaction. It must be a government arising as the result of the unitedfront movement and in no way restricting the activity of the Communistparty and the mass organizations of the working class, but on the contrary,taking resolute measures against the counterrevolutionary financial magnatesand their fascist agents.At a suitable moment, relying on the growing united front movement,the Communist Party of a given country will advocate the formation of sucha government on the basis of a definite anti-fascist platform.Under what objective conditions will it be possible to form sucha government? In the most general terms, one can reply to this questionas follows: under conditions of a political crisis, when the rulingclasses are no longer able to cope with the powerful rise of the mass anti-fascist" }
{ "content": "movement. But this is only a general perspective, without which it willscarcely be possible in practice to form a united front government. Onlythe existence of certain special prerequisites can put on the agendathe question of forming such government as a politically essential task.It seems to me that the following prerequisites deserve the greatest attentionin this connection:First, the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie must already besufficiently disorganized and paralyzed, so that the bourgeoisiecannot prevent the formation of a government of struggle against reactionand fascism.Second, the widest masses of working people, particularly themass trade unions, must be in a state of vehement revolt against fascismand reaction, though not ready to rise in insurrection so asto fight under Communist Party leadership for the establishment of afully socialist government.Third, the differentiation and radicalization in the ranks ofSocial-Democracy and other parties participating in the united front mustalready have reached the point where a considerable proportion of themdemand ruthless measures against the fascists and other reactionaries,fight together with the Communists against fascism and openly oppose thereactionary section of their own party which is hostile to Communism.When and in what countries a situation will actually arise inwhich these prerequisites will be present in a sufficient degree, it isimpossible to state in advance. But as such a possibility is not tobe ruled out in any of the capitalist countries, we must reckon withit, and not only so orient and prepare ourselves, but also orient the workingclass accordingly.The fact that we are bringing up this question for discussionat all today is, of course, connected with our estimate of the situationand immediate prospects, as well as with the actual growth of the unitedfront movement in a number of countries during the recent past. For morethan ten years the situation in the capitalist countries was such thatit was not necessary for the Communist International to discuss a questionof this kind.You remember, Comrades, that at our Fourth Congress in 1922, andagain at the Fifth Congress in 1924, the question of the slogan of a workers',or a workers' and peasants' government was under discussion. Originallythe issue turned essentially upon a question was almost comparable to theone we are discussing today. The debates that took place at that time inthe Communist International around this question, and in particular thepolitical errors which were committed in connection with it, haveto this day retained their importance for sharpening our vigilance againstthe danger of deviations to the \"Right\" or \"Left\" from the Bolshevikline on this question. Therefore I shall briefly point out a few ofthese errors, in order to draw from them the lessons necessary for thepresent policy of our Parties.The first series of mistakes arose from the fact that thequestion of a workers' government was not clearly and firmly bound up withthe existence of a political crisis. Owing to this, the Right opportunistswere able to interpret matters as though we should strive for the formationof a workers' government, supported by the Communist party, in any, soto speak, \"normal\" situation. The ultra-Lefts, on the other hand, recognizedonly a workers' government formed by an armed insurrection after the overthrowof the bourgeoisie. Both views were wrong. In order, therefore, to avoida repetition of such mistakes, we now lay great stress on the exactconsideration of the specific, concrete circumstances of the politicalcrisis and the upsurge of the mass movement, in which the formation ofa united front government may prove possible and politically necessary.The second series of errors arose from the fact that thequestion of a workers' government was not bound up with the developmentof a militant mass united front movement of the proletariat. Thusthe Right opportunists were able to distort the question, reducing it tothe unprincipled tactics of forming blocs with Social-Democratic Partieson the basis of purely parliamentary combinations.The ultra-Lefts, on the contrary, shrieked: \"No coalitions withcounter-revolutionary Social-Democrats!\" -- considering all Social-Democratsas essentially counterrevolutionary.Both were wrong, and we now emphasize, on the one hand, that weare not in the least anxious for a workers government\" that would be nothingmore nor less than an enlarged Social-Democratic government. We even prefernot to use the term \"workers' government,\" and speak of a united frontgovernment, which in political character is something absolutely different,different in principle, from all the Social-Democratic governmentswhich usually call themselves \"workers' (or labor) government.\" While theSocial-Democratic government is an instrument of class collaboration withthe bourgeoisie in the interests of the preservation of the capitalistorder, a united front government is an instrument of the collaborationof the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat with other anti-fascistparties, in the interests of the entire working population, a governmentof struggle against fascism and reaction. Obviously there is a radicaldifference between these two things.On the other hand, we stress the need to see the differencebetween the two different camps of Social-Democracy. As I have alreadypointed out, there is a reactionary camp of Social-Democracy, but alongsidewith it there exists and is growing the camp of the Left Social-Democrats(without quotation marks), of workers who are becoming revolutionary. Inpractice the decisive difference between them consists in their attitudetowards the united front of the working class. The reactionary Social-Democratsare against the united front; they slander the united front movement,they sabotage and disintegrate it, as it undermines their policy of compromisewith the bourgeoisie. The Left Social-Democrats are for the united front;they defend, develop and strengthen the united front movement. Inasmuchas this united front movement is a militant movement against fascism andreaction, it will be a constant driving force, impelling the united frontgovernment to struggle against the reactionary bourgeoisie. The more powerfulthis mass movement, the greater the force with which it can back the governmentin combating the reactionaries. And the better this mass movement willbe organized from below, the wider the network of non-party classorgans of the united front in the factories, among the unemployed,in the workers' districts, among the people of town and country,the greater will be the guarantee against a possible degeneration of thepolicy of the united front government.The third series of mistaken views which came to lightduring our former debates touched precisely on the practical policy ofthe \"workers' government.\" The right opportunists considered that a \"workers'government\" ought to keep \"within the framework of bourgeois democracy,\"" }
{ "content": "and consequently ought not to take any steps going beyond this framework.The ultra-Lefts, on the other hand, in practice refused to make any attemptto form a united front government.In 1923 Saxony and Thuringia presented a clear picture of a Rightopportunist \"workers' government\" in action. The entry of the Communistsinto the Workers' Government of Saxony jointly with the Left Social-Democrats(Ziegner group) was no mistake in itself; on the contrary, the revolutionarysituation in Germany fully justified this step. But in taking part in thegovernment, the Communists should have used their positions primarily forthe purpose of arming the proletariat. This they did not do. They didnot even requisition a single apartment of the rich, although the housingshortage among the workers was so great that many of them with their wivesand children were still without a roof over their heads. They also didnothing to organize the revolutionary mass movement of the workers.They behaved in general like ordinary parliamentary ministers \"withinthe framework of bourgeois democracy.\" As you know, this was the resultof the opportunist policy of Brandler and his adherents. The result wassuch bankruptcy that to this day we have to refer to the government ofSaxony as the classical example of how revolutionaries should not behavewhen in office.Comrades, we demand an entirely different policy from a unitedfront government. We demand that it should carry out definite and fundamentalrevolutionary demands required by the situation. For instance, controlof production, control of the banks, disbanding of the police and its replacementby an armed workers' militia, etc.Fifteen years ago Lenin called upon us to focus all our attentionon \"searching out forms of transition or approach to theproletariat revolution.\" It may be that in a number of countries theunited front government will prove to be one of the most importanttransitional forms.\"Left\" doctrinaires have always avoided this precept of Lenin's.Like the narrow-minded propagandists that they were, they spoke only ofaims, without ever worrying about \"forms of transition.\" The Right Opportunists,on the other hand, have tried to establish a special democratic intermediatestage lying between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorshipof the proletariat, for the purpose of instilling into the workers theillusion of a peaceful parliamentary passage from the one dictatorshipto the other. This fictitious \"intermediate stage\" they have also called\"transitional form,\" and even quoted Lenin's words. But this piece of swindlingwas not difficult to expose: for Lenin spoke of the form of transitionand approach to the proletarian revolution, that is, to the overthrowof the bourgeois dictatorship, and not of some transitional form betweenthe bourgeois and the proletarian dictatorship.Why did Lenin attach such exceptionally great importance to theform of transition to the proletarian revolution? Because he had in mindthe fundamental law of all great revolutions, the law that for themasses propaganda and agitation alone cannot take the place of theirown political experience, when it is a question of attracting reallybroad masses of the working people to the side of the revolutionary vanguard,without which a victorious struggle for power is impossible. It is a commonmistake of a Leftist character to imagine that as soon as a political (orrevolutionary) crisis arises, it is enough for the Communist leaders toput forth the slogan of revolutionary insurrection, and the broad masseswill follow them. No, even in such a crisis the masses are by no meansalways ready to do so. We saw this in the case of Spain. To help themillions to master as rapidly as possible, through their own experience,what they have to do, where to find a radical solution, and what Partyis worthy of their confidence -- these among others are the purposes forwhich both transitional slogans and special \"forms of transition orapproach to the proletarian revolution\" are necessary. Otherwise thegreat mass of the people, who are under the influence of petty bourgeoisdemocratic illusions and traditions, may waver even when there is a revolutionarysituation, may procrastinate and stray, without finding the road to revolution-- and then come under the ax of the fascist executioners.That is why we indicate the possibility of forming an anti-fascistunited front government in the conditions of a political crisis. In sofar as such a government will really prosecute the struggle against theenemies of the people, and give a free hand to the working class and theCommunist party, we Communists shall accord it our unstinted support, andas soldiers of the revolution shall take our place in the first lineof fire. But we state frankly to the masses:Final salvation this government cannot bring. It is notin a position to overthrow the class rule of the exploiters, and for thisreason cannot finally remove the danger of fascist counter-revolution.Consequently it is necessary to prepare for the socialist revolution.In estimating the present development of the world situation,we see that a political crisis is maturing in quite a number ofcountries. This makes a firm decision by our Congress on the question ofa united front government a matter of great urgency and importance.If our parties are able to utilize in a Bolshevik fashion theopportunity of forming a united front government and of waging the strugglefor the formation and maintenance in power of such a government, forthe revolutionary training of the masses, this will be the bestpolitical justification in our policy in favor of the formation ofunited front governments.THE IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE AGAINST FASCISMOne of the weakest aspects of the anti-fascist struggleof our Parties is that they react inadequately and too slowly to thedemagogy of fascism, and to this day continue to neglect the problemsof the struggle against fascist ideology. Many comrades did not believethat so reactionary a brand of bourgeois ideology as the ideology of fascism,which in its stupidity frequently reaches the point of lunacy, would beable to gain any mass influence. This was a serious mistake. The putrefactionof capitalism penetrates to the innermost core of its ideology and culture,while the desperate situation of wide masses of the people renders certainsections of them susceptible to infection from the ideological refuse ofthis putrefaction.Under no circumstances must we underrate fascism's power of ideologicalinfection. On the contrary, we for our part must develop an extensive ideologicalstruggle based on clear, popular arguments and a correct, well thoughtout approach to the peculiarities of the national psychology of the massesof the people." }
{ "content": "The fascists are rummaging through the entire history ofevery nation so as to be able to pose as the heirs and continuators ofall that was exalted and heroic in its past, while all that was degradingor offensive to the national sentiments of the people they make use ofas weapons against the enemies of fascism. Hundreds of books are beingpublished in Germany with only one aim -- to falsify the history of theGerman people and give it a fascist complexion. The new-baked NationalSocialist historians try to depict the history of Germany as if for thepast two thousand years, by virtue of some historical law, a certain lineof development had run through it like a red thread, leading to the appearanceon the historical scene of a national 'savior', a 'Messiah' of the Germanpeople, a certain 'Corporal' of Austrian extraction. In these books thegreatest figures of the German people of the past are represented as havingbeen fascists, while the great peasant movements are set down as the directprecursors of the fascist movement.Mussolini does his utmost to make capital for himself out of theheroic figure of Garibaldi. The French fascists bring to the fore as theirheroine Joan of Arc. The American fascists appeal to the traditions ofthe American War of Independence, the traditions of Washington and Lincoln.The Bulgarian fascists make use of the national-liberation movement ofthe seventies and its heroes beloved by the people, Vassil Levsky, StephanKaraj and others.Communists who suppose that all this has nothing to do with thecause of the working class, who do nothing to enlighten the masses on thepast of their people in a historically correct fashion, in a genuinelyMarxist-Leninist spirit, who do nothing to link up the present strugglewith the people's revolutionary traditions and past -- voluntarilyhand over to the fascist falsifiers all that is valuable in the historicalpast of the nation, so that the fascists may fool the masses.No, Comrades, we are concerned with every important question,not only of the present and the future, but also of the past of our ownpeoples. We Communists do not pursue a narrow policy based on the craftinterests of the workers. We are not narrow-minded trade union functionaries,or leaders of medieval guilds of handicraftsmen and journeymen. We arethe representatives of the class interests of the most important, the greatestclass of modern society-the working class, to whose destiny it falls tofree mankind from the sufferings of the capitalist system, the class whichin one-sixth of the world has already cast off the yoke of capitalism andconstitutes the ruling class. We defend the vital interests of all theexploited, toiling strata, that is, of the overwhelming majority in anycapitalist country.We Communists are the irreconcilable opponents, in principle,of bourgeois nationalism in all its forms. But we are not supportersof national nihilism, and should never act as such. The task of educatingthe workers and all working people in the spirit of proletarian internationalismis one of the fundamental tasks of every Communist Party. But anyone whothinks that this permits him, or even compels him, to sneer at all thenational sentiments of the broad masses of working people is far from beinga genuine Bolshevik, and has understood nothing of the teaching of Leninon the national question.Lenin, who always fought bourgeois nationalism resolutely andconsistently, gave us an example of the correct approach to the problemof national sentiments in his article \"On the National Pride of the GreatRussians\" written in 1914. He wrote:Are we class-conscious Great-Russian proletarians impervious to thefeeling of national pride? Certainly not. We love our language and ourmotherland; we, more than any other group, are working to raise its laboringmasses (i.e., nine-tenths of its population) to the level of intelligentdemocrats and socialists. We, more than anybody are grieved to see andfeel to what violence, oppression and mockery our beautiful motherlandis being subjected by the tsarist hangmen, the nobles and the capitalists.We are proud of the fact that those acts of violence met with resistancein our midst, in the midst of the Great Russians; that this midst broughtforth Radischev, the Decembrists, the intellectual revolutionaries of theseventies; that in 1905 the Great-Russian working class created a powerfulrevolutionary party of the masses. .We are filled with national pride because of the knowledge thatthe Great-Russian nation, too, has created a revolutionary class,that it, too, has proved capable of giving humanity great examples of strugglefor freedom and for socialism; that its contribution is not confined solelyto great pogroms, numerous scaffolds, torture chambers, severe faminesand abject servility before the priests, the tsars, the landowners andthe capitalists.We are filled with national pride, and therefore we particularlyhate our slavish past... and our slavish present, in which the samelandowners, aided by the capitalists, lead us into war to stifle Polandand the Ukraine, to throttle the democratic movement in Persia and in China,to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskis, Puriskeviches that coverwith shame our Great-Russian national dignity.[V. I. Lenin, CollectedWorks 21:103-4]This is what Lenin wrote on national pride.I think, comrades, that when at the Reichstag Fire Trial the fasciststried to slander the Bulgarians as a barbarous people, I was not wrongin taking up the defense of the national honor of the working masses ofthe Bulgarian people, who are struggling heroically against the fascistusurpers, the real barbarians and savages, nor was I wrong in declaringthat I had no cause to be ashamed of being a Bulgarian, but that, on thecontrary, I was proud of being a son of the heroic Bulgarian working class.Comrades, proletarian internationalism must, so to speak, \"acclimatizeitself\" in each country in order to strike deep roots in its native land.National forms of the proletarian class struggle and of the labormovement in the individual countries are in no contradiction to proletarianinternationalism; on the contrary, it is precisely in these forms thatthe international interests of the proletariat can be successfullydefended.It goes without saying that it is necessary everywhere andon all occasions to expose before the masses and prove to them concretelythat the fascist bourgeoisie, on the pretext of defending general nationalinterests, is conducting its selfish policy of oppressing and exploitingits own people, as well as robbing and enslaving other nations. But wemust not confine ourselves to this. We must at the same time prove" }
{ "content": "by the very struggle of the working class and the actions of the CommunistParties that the proletariat, in rising against every manner of bondageand national oppression, is the only true fighter for national freedomand the independence of the people.The interests of the class struggle of the proletariat againstits native exploiters and oppressors are not in contradiction to the interestsof a free and happy future of the nation. On the contrary, the socialistrevolution will signify the salvation of the nation and will openup to it the road to loftier heights. By the very fact of buildingat the present time its class organizations and consolidating its positions,by the very fact of defending democratic rights and liberties against fascism,by the very fact of fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, theworking class is fighting for the future of the nation.The revolutionary proletariat is fighting to save the cultureof the people, to liberate it from the shackles of decaying monopoly capitalism,from barbarous fascism, which is laying violent hands on it. Onlythe proletarian revolution can avert the destruction of culture and raiseit to its highest flowering as a truly national culture -- nationalin form and socialist in content -- which is being realized in theUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics before our very eyes.Proletarian internationalism not only is not in contradictionto this struggle of the working people of the individual countries fornational, social and cultural freedom, but, thanks to international proletariansolidarity and fighting unity, assures the support that is necessaryfor victory in this struggle. The working class in the capitalist countriescan triumph only in the closest alliance with the victorious proletariatof the great Soviet Union. Only by struggling hand in hand withthe proletariat of the imperialist countries can the colonial peoples andoppressed national minorities achieve their freedom. The sole roadto victory for the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countrieslies through the revolutionary alliance of the working class of the imperialistcountries with the national-liberation movement in the colonies and dependentcountries, because, as Marx taught us, \"no nation can be free ifit oppresses other nations.\"Communists belonging to an oppressed, dependent nation cannotcombat chauvinism successfully among the people of their own nation ifthey do not at the same time show in practice, in the mass movement,that they actually struggle for the liberation of their nation from thealien yoke. And again, on the other hand, the Communists of an oppressingnation cannot do what is necessary to educate the working masses of theirnation in the spirit of internationalism without waging a resolutestruggle against the oppressor policy of their \"own\" bourgeoisie, for theright of complete self-determination for the nations kept in bondage byit. If they do not do this, they likewise do not make it easier for theworking people of the oppressed nation to overcome their nationalist prejudices.If we act in this spirit, if in all our mass work we prove convincinglythat we are free of both national nihilism and bourgeois nationalism, thenand only then shall we be able to wage a really successful struggle againstthe jingo demagogy of the fascists.That is the reason why a correct and practical application ofthe Leninist national policy is of such paramount importance. It is unquestionablyan essential preliminary condition for a successful struggle againstchauvinism -- this main instrument of ideological influence of the fascistsupon the masses.III. CONSOLIDATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIESAND THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL UNITY OF THE PROLETARIATComrades, in the struggle to establish a unitedfront the importance of the leading role of the Communist Party increasesextraordinarily. Only the Communist Party is at bottom the initiator, theorganizer and the driving force of the united front of the working class.The Communist Parties can ensure the mobilization of the broadestmasses of working people for a united struggle against fascism and theoffensive of capital only if they strengthen their own ranks in everyrespect, if they develop their initiative, pursue a Marxist-Leninistpolicy and apply correct, flexible tactics which take into account theactual situation and alignment of class forces.III. CONSOLIDATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIESIn the period between the Sixth and Seventh Congress,our Parties in the capitalist countries have undoubtedly grown in statureand have been considerably steeled. But it would be a most dangerousmistake to rest content with this achievement. The more the united frontof the working class extends, the more will new, complex problems arisebefore us and the more will it be necessary for us to work on the politicaland organizational consolidation of our Parties. The united front of theproletariat brings to the fore an army of workers who will be able to carryout their mission if this army is headed by a leading force that will pointout its aims and paths. This leading force can only be a strong proletarian,revolutionary party.If we Communists exert every effort to establish a united front,we do this not for the narrow purpose of recruiting new members for theCommunist Parties. But we must strengthen the Communist Parties in everyway and increase their membership for the very reason that we seriouslywant to strengthen the united front. The strengthening of the CommunistParties is not a narrow Party concern but the concern of the entire workingclass.The unity, revolutionary solidarity and fighting preparednessof the Communist Parties constitute a most valuable capital which belongsnot only to us but to the whole working class. We have combined and shallcontinue to combine our readiness to march jointly with the Social-DemocraticParties and organizations to the struggle against fascism with an irreconcilablestruggle against Social-Democracy as the ideology and practice of compromisewith the bourgeoisie, and consequently also against any penetration ofthis ideology into our own ranks.In boldly and resolutely carrying out the policy of the unitedfront, we meet in our own ranks with obstacles which we must remove atall costs in the shortest possible time.After the Sixth Congress of the Communist International, a successfulstruggle was waged in all Communist Parties of the capitalist countriesagainst any tendency towards an opportunist adaptation to the conditionsof capitalist stabilization and against any infection with reformist andlegalist illusions. Our Parties purged their ranks of various kinds ofRight opportunists, thus strengthening their Bolshevik unity and fightingcapacity. Less successful, and frequently entirely lacking, was the fightagainst sectarianism. Sectarianism no longer manifested itself in primitive," }
{ "content": "open forms, as in the first years of the existence of the Communist International,but, under cover of a formal recognition of the Bolshevik theses, hinderedthe development of a Bolshevik mass policy. In our day this is often nolonger an \"infantile disorder,\" as Lenin wrote, but a deeply rootedvice, which must be shaken off or it will be impossible to solve theproblem of establishing the united front of the proletariat and of leadingthe masses from the positions of reformism to the side of revolution.In the present situation sectarianism, self-satisfied sectarianism,as we designate it in the draft resolution, more than anything else impedesour struggle for the realization of the united front: sectarianism, satisfiedwith its doctrinaire narrowness, its divorce from the real lifeof the masses, satisfied with its simplified methods of solvingthe most complex problems of the working class movement on the basis ofstereotyped schemes; sectarianism which professes to know all and considersit superfluous to learn from the masses, from the lessons of the labormovement; in short, sectarianism, to which as they say, mountains are merestepping-stones.Self-satisfied sectarianism will not and cannot understandthat the leadership of the working class by the Communist Party does notcome of itself. The leading role of the Communist Party in the strugglesof the working class must be won. For this purpose it is necessary, notto rant about the leading role of the Communists, but to earn and winthe confidence of the working masses by everyday mass work and a correctpolicy. This will be possible only if in our political work we Communistsseriously take into account the actual level of the class consciousnessof the masses, the degree to which they have become revolutionized, ifwe soberly appraise the actual situation, not on the basis of our wishesbut on the basis of the actual state of affairs. Patiently, step by step,we must make it easier for the broad masses to come over to the Communistposition. We ought never to forget the words of Lenin, who warns us asstrongly as possible:... This is the whole point -- we must not regard that which is obsoletefor us, as obsolete for the class, as obsolete for the masses. [V. I.Lenin, \"Left-Wing\" Communism, an Infantile Disorder, New York (1940), pp.42; Collected Works 31:58]Is it not a fact, comrades, that in our ranks there are still quite a fewsuch doctrinaire elements, who at all times and places sense nothing butdanger in the policy of the united front? For such comrades the whole unitedfront is one unrelieved peril. But this sectarian \"sticking to principle\"is nothing but political helplessness in face of the difficulties of directlyleading the struggle of the masses.Sectarianism finds expression particularly in overestimatingthe revolutionization of the masses, in overestimating the speed at whichthey are abandoning the positions of reformism, and in attempting to leapover difficult stages and the complicated tasks of the movement. In practice,methods of leading the masses have frequently been replaced by the methodsof leading a narrow party group. The strength of the traditional tie-upbetween the masses and their organizations and leaders was underestimated,and when the masses did not break off these connections, immediately theattitude taken toward them was just as harsh as that adopted toward theirreactionary leaders. Tactics and slogans have tended to become stereotypedfor all countries, the special features of the actual situation in eachindividual country being left out of account. The necessity of stubbornstruggle in the very midst of the masses themselves to win their confidencehas been ignored, the struggle for the partial demands of the workers andwork in the reformist trade unions and fascist mass organizations havebeen neglected. The policy of the united front has frequently been replacedby bare appeals and abstract propaganda.In no less a degree have sectarian views hindered the correctselection of people, the training and developing of cadres connectedwith the masses, enjoying the confidence of the masses, cadres whoserevolutionary mettle has been tried and tested in class battles, cadrescapable of combining the practical experience of mass work witha Bolshevik staunchness of principle.Thus sectarianism has to a considerable extent retarded the growthof the Communist Parties, made it difficult to carry out a real mass policy,prevented our taking advantage of the difficulties of the class enemy tostrengthen the positions of the revolutionary movement, and hindered thewinning over of the broad masses of the proletariat to the side of theCommunist Parties.While fighting most resolutely to overcome and exterminate thelast remnants of self-satisfied sectarianism, we must increase in everyway our vigilance toward Right opportunism and the struggle against itand against every one of its concrete manifestations, bearing in mind thatthe danger of Right opportunism will increase in proportion as the broadunited front develops. Already there are tendencies to reduce the roleof the Communist Party in the ranks of the united front and to effect areconciliation with Social-Democratic ideology. Nor must we lose sightof the fact that the tactics of the united front are a method of clearlyconvincing the Social-Democratic workers of the correctness of the Communistpolicy and the incorrectness of the reformist policy, and that they arenot a reconciliation with Social-Democratic ideology and practice.A successful struggle to establish the united front imperatively demandsconstant struggle in our ranks against tendencies to depreciate therole of the Party, against legalist illusions, against relianceon spontaneity and automatism, both in liquidating fascism and inimplementing the united front against the slightest vacillation at themoment of decisive action.POLITICAL UNITY OF THE WORKING CLASSComrades, the development of the united front of jointstruggle of the Communist and Social-Democratic workers against fascismand the offensive of capital also brings to the fore the question of politicalunity, of a single political mass party of the working class.The Social Democratic workers are becoming more and more convinced by experiencethat the struggle against the class enemy demands unity of political leadership,inasmuch as duality in leadership impedes the further developmentand reinforcement of the joint struggle of the working class.The interests of the class struggle of the proletariat and thesuccess of the proletarian revolution make it imperative that there bea single party of the proletariat in each country. Of course, itis not so easy or simple to achieve this. It requires stubborn work andstruggle and is bound to be a more or less lengthy process. The Communist" }
{ "content": "Parties, basing themselves on the growing urge of the workers for a unificationof the Social-Democratic Parties or of individual organizations with theCommunist Parties, must firmly and confidently take the initiative in thisunification. The cause of amalgamating the forces of the working classin a single revolutionary proletarian party at the time when the internationallabor movement is entering the period of closing the split in its ranks,is our cause.But while it is sufficient for the establishment of the unitedfront of the Communist and Social-Democratic Parties to have an agreementto fight against fascism, the offensive of capital and war, the achievementof political unity is possible only on the basis of a number of certainconditions involving principles.This unification is possible only on the following conditions:First, complete independence from the bourgeoisie and dissolutionof the bloc of Social-Democracy with the bourgeoisie;Second, preliminary unity of action;Third, recognition of the revolutionary overthrow ofthe rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorshipof the proletariat in the form of soviets a sine qua non;Fourth, refusal to support one's own bourgeoisie in animperialist war;Fifth, building up the Party on the basis of democraticcentralism, which ensures unity of purpose and action, and which hasbeen tested by the experience of the Russian Bolsheviks.We must explain to the Social-Democratic workers, patiently and in comradelyfashion, why political unity of the working class is impossible withoutthese conditions. We must discuss together with them the sense and significanceof these conditions.Why is it necessary for the realization of the political unityof the proletariat that there be complete independence from the bourgeoisieand a rupture of the bloc of Social-Democrats with the bourgeoisie?Because the whole experience of the labor movement, particularlythe experience of the fifteen years of coalition policy in Germany, hasshown that the policy of class collaboration, the policy of dependenceon the bourgeoisie, leads to the defeat of the working class and to thevictory of fascism. And the only true road to victory is the road of irreconcilableclass struggle against the bourgeoisie, the road of the Bolsheviks.Why must unity of action be first established as a preliminarycondition of political unity?Because unity of action to repel the offensive of capital andof fascism is possible and necessary even before the majority of the workersare united on a common political platform for the overthrow of capitalism,while the working out of unity of views on the main lines and aims of thestruggle of the proletariat, without which a unification of the partiesis impossible, requires a more or less extended period of time. And unityof views is worked out best of all in joint struggle against the classenemy already today. To propose to unite at once instead of forming a unitedfront means to place the cart before the horse and to imagine that thecart will then move ahead. Precisely for the reason that for us the questionof political unity is not a maneuver, as it is for many Social-Democraticleaders, we insist on the realization of unity of action as one of themost important stages in the struggle for political unity.Why is it necessary to recognize the necessity of the revolutionaryoverthrow of the bourgeoisie and the setting up of the dictatorship ofthe proletariat in the form of soviet power?Because the experience of the victory of the great October Revolution,on the one hand and, on the other, the bitter lessons learned in Germany,Austria and Spain during the entire postwar period have confirmed oncemore that the victory of the proletariat is possible only by means of therevolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and that the bourgeoisie wouldrather drown the labor movement in a sea of blood than allow the proletariatto establish socialism by peaceful means. The experience of the OctoberRevolution has demonstrated patently that the basic content of the proletarianrevolution is the question of the proletarian dictatorship, which is calledupon to crush the resistance of the overthrown exploiters, to arm the revolutionfor the struggle against imperialism and to lead the revolution to thecomplete victory of socialism. To achieve the dictatorship of the proletariatas the dictatorship of the vast majority over an insignificant minority,over the exploiters -- and only as such can it be brought about -- forthis soviets are needed embracing all sections of the working class, thebasic masses of the peasantry and the rest of the working people, withoutwhose awakening, without whose inclusion in the front of the revolutionarystruggle, the victory of the proletariat cannot be consolidated.Why is the refusal of support to the bourgeoisie in an imperialistwar a condition of political unity?Because the bourgeoisie wages imperialist wars for its predatorypurposes, against the interests of the vast majority of the peoples, underwhatever guise this war may be waged. Because all imperialists combinetheir feverish preparations for war with extremely intensified exploitationand oppression of the working people in their own country. Support of thebourgeoisie in such a war means treason to the country and the internationalworking class.Why, finally, is the building of the Party on the basis of democraticcentralism a condition of unity?Because only a party built on the basis of democratic centralismcan ensure unity of purpose and action, can lead the proletariat to victoryover the bourgeoisie, which has at its disposal so powerful a weapon asthe centralized state apparatus. The application of the principle of democraticcentralism has stood the splendid historical test of the experience ofthe Russian Bolshevik Party, the Party of Lenin.This explains why it is necessary to strive for political unityon the basis of the conditions indicated.We are for the political unity of the working class. Therefore,we are ready to collaborate most closely with all Social-Democrats whoare for the united front and sincerely support unity on the above-mentionedprinciples.But precisely because we are for unity, we shall struggle resolutelyagainst all \"Left\" demagogues who try to make use of the disillusionmentof the Social Democratic workers to create new Socialist Parties or Internationalsdirected against the Communist movement, and thus keep deepening the splitin the working class.We welcome the growing efforts among Social-Democratic workersfor a united front with the Communists. In this fact we see a growth oftheir revolutionary consciousness and a beginning of the healing of thesplit in the working class. Being of the opinion that unity of action is" }
{ "content": "a pressing necessity and the truest road to the establishment of the politicalunity of the proletariat as well, we declare that the Communist Internationaland its sections are ready to enter into negotiations with the Second Internationaland its sections for the establishment of the unity of the working classin the struggle against the offensive of capital, against fascism and themenace of an imperialist war.CONCLUSIONComrades, I am concluding my report. As you see, takinginto account the change in the situation since the Sixth Congress and thelessons of our struggle, and relying on the degree of consolidation alreadyachieved, we are raising a number of questions today in a new way, primarilythe question of the united front and of the approach to Social-Democracy,the reformist trade unions and other mass organizations.There are wiseacres who will sense in all this a digression fromour basic positions, some sort of turn to the Right from the straight lineof Bolshevism. Well, in my country, Bulgaria, they say that a hungry henalways dreams of millet. Let those political chickens think so.This interests us little. For it is important that our own Partiesand the broad masses throughout the world should correctly understand whatwe are striving for.We would not be revolutionary Marxists, Leninists, worthy pupilsof Marx, Engels, and Lenin, if we did not suitably reconstruct ourpolicies and tactics in accordance with the changing situation and thechanges occurring in the world labor movement.We would not be real revolutionaries if we did not learn fromour own experience and the experience of the masses.We want our Parties in the capitalist countries to come out andact as real political parties of the working class, to become inactual fact a political factor in the life of their countries, topursue at all times an active Bolshevik mass policy and not confinethemselves to propaganda and criticism, and bare appeals to struggle fora proletarian dictatorship.We are enemies of all cut-and-dried schemes. We want totake into account the concrete situation at each moment, in each place,and not act according to a fixed, stereotyped form anywhere andeverywhere, not to forget that in varying circumstances the positionof the Communists cannot be identical.We want soberly to take into account all stages in the developmentof the class struggle and in the growth of the class consciousness of themasses themselves, to be able to locate and solve at each stage the concreteproblems of the revolutionary movement corresponding to this stage.We want to find a common language with the broadest massesfor the purpose of struggling against the class enemy, to find ways offinally overcoming the isolation of the revolutionary vanguard fromthe masses of the proletariat and all other working people, as well asof overcoming the fatal isolation of the working class itself fromits natural allies in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, against fascism.We want to draw increasingly wide masses into the revolutionaryclass struggle and lead them to the proletarian revolution proceedingfrom their vital interests and needs as the starting point, and their ownexperience as the basis.Following the example of our glorious Russian Bolsheviks, theexample of the leading party of the Communist International, the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union, we want to combine the revolutionary heroismof the German, the Spanish, the Austrian and other Communists with genuinerevolutionary realism, and put an end to the last remnants of scholastictinkering with serious political questions.We want to equip our Parties from every angle for the solutionof the highly complex political problems confronting them. For this purposewe want to raise ever higher their theoretical level, to train themin the spirit of living Marxism-Leninism and not fossilized doctrinairism.We want to eradicate from our ranks all self-satisfied sectarianism,which above all blocks our road to the masses and impedes the carryingout of a truly Bolshevik mass policy.We want to intensify in every way the struggle against concretemanifestations of Right opportunism, bearing in mind that the danger fromthis side will arise precisely in the course of carrying out our mass policyand struggle.We want the Communists of every country promptly to draw and applyall the lessons that can be drawn from their own experience as therevolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. We want them as quickly aspossible to learn how to sail on the turbulent waters of the class struggle,and not to remain on the shore as observers and registrars of the surgingwaves in the expectation of fine weather.This is what we want.And we want all this because only in this way will the workingclass at the head of all the working people, welded into a million-strongrevolutionary army, led by the Communist International, be able to fulfilits historical mission with certainty -- to sweep fascism off the faceof the earth and, together with it, capitalism!(At the close of the report all delegates joined in a lengthy ovation,cheering enthusiastically and singing the revolutionary songs of theircountries.) NOTES1) Moratorium -- A deferment, or suspension of payment, usually under extraordinary circumstances, such as war pestilence, natural calamities, etc. Hitler, to win over the middle and small peasant masses, proclaimed a moratorium of their debts to the state at the very beginning of his rule, but failed to fulfil his promise.2) Tsarist Okhrana -- Gendarmeinstitution in Tsarist Russia, set up at the Police Department in 1881 to combat the revolutionary movement, dissolved during the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution in 1917.3) In the autumn of 1922, the reactionary government of Seipel, President of the Christian-Social Party and agent of big business, the landowners and the Vatican, concluded a pact with the German National Party for the establishment of a government of the so-called anti-Marxist front, which would comprise all the reactionary forces in the struggle against the workers' movement.4) Referring to the program adopted by the Congress of the Social-Democratic Party in Linz.5) Schutzbund -- Social-Democratic para-military organization in Austria." }
{ "content": "6) The Social-Democratic Government of Braun and Severing ruled Prussia from 1920 to 1932, pursuing a policy inimical to the Communist Party and the working masses, suppressing the Red Front mass organization, using police force to smash every action of the proletariat and forming an armed force of the bourgeoisie. When von Papen organized a coup d'�tat in Prussia in July 1932, overthrowing the Social-Democratic Government, Braun and Severing, although they had armed forces at their disposal, ignominiously capitulated together with the other leaders of the German Social-Democratic party. 7) Reichsbanner -- 'Union of the Imperial Banner', para-military Social-Democratic mass organization in Germany. 8) On the pretext that a 'second revolution' for the overthrow of Hitler was being prepared, on the eve of June 30, 1934, the entire leadership of the SA organization of storm troops was arrested and its chief commanders, including Minister R�hm, who headed the SA, were shot on the spot. The operation was conducted under the personal direction of Hitler in M�nich and of G�ring in Berlin. Several thousand commanders were arrested, and the SA was temporarily dissolved, to be radically purged and reorganized. Hitler was forced to this measure under the direct pressure of big business, so as to put an end to the demagogic propaganda of a 'second revolution' and to destroy its petty bourgeois advocates among the SA. 9) Stronnictwo Ludowe (People's Party) -- A democratic agrarian party in Poland, defending the interests mainly of the well-to-do peasants, headed the general strike of the peasant masses in August 1937 under the pressure of the local peasants' organizations. 10) Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) -- A mass fascist organization in Nazi Germany, aimed at the fascization of workers and their training for future soldiers. 11) Dopo lavoro -- 'After work' -- organization in Italy similar to Kraft durch Freude.12) De Man -- One of the leaders of the Social-Democratic Party in Belgium, on whose orders he drafted in 1933 the so-called 'Plan of de Man', envisaging a 'peaceful transition to socialism', which was adopted as the official party program at the end of 1933. 13)The National-Liberation Alliance -- A mass antifascist organization formed at the beginning of 1935 in Brazil by progressive political parties and organizations headed by the Communist Party, defeated in an armed struggle against reaction in November 1935.Dimitrov Works Archive" }
{ "content": "Marxists Internet Archive: Georgi Dimitrov SELECTED WORKS OF GEORGI DIMITROVIn Three Volumes Published by Sofia Press (Sofia, Bulgaria) in 1978. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVolume 1 (1906 - 1934)\t\t\t \t\t\tVolume 2 (1936 - 1946)\t\t\t \t\t\tVolume 3 (1946 - 1948)\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Last updated on 7 April 2024" }
{ "content": " Georgi Dimitrov Policy Declaration of the New Fatherland Front Government First Published: November 29, 1946, in Rabotnichesko Delo No. 278 Source: Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works Sofia Press, Sofia, Volume 3, 1972, pp. 7-19 Transcription/HTML Markup: Mathias Bismo Online Version: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002 Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! The Government, which I have the honour to preside, is by composition and character a government of the Fatherland Front1). It will carry- on still more energetically and firmly the policy of the preceding government for the complete and consistent implementation of the Fatherland Front programme. Having assumed the country's government as a result of the historic victory of the people's uprising on September 9, 1944, the Fatherland Front has been able to consult the people's will three times in the course of two years, and has been given the people's confidence on all three occasions. The elections for the Grand National Assembly, held on the basis of a perfectly democratic electoral law, proceeded in a spirit of complete order and freedom, as all impartial observers admit. The brilliant victory, of the Fatherland Front in these elections showed with particular clarity the unshakable confidence of the great majority of the Bulgarian people in the Fatherland Front. This victory evidences what deep roots the Fatherland Front has struck, as a historically indispensable union of the anti-fascist, democratic and progressive forces of the Bulgarian people. The proclamation of the People's Republic and the elections for the Grand National Assembly, based on the democratic reforms carried out since September 9, round off a stage in our country's development and in our efforts to consolidate the people's rule. The hopes of reaction for a restoration, to drive new Bulgaria back to the hateful past, were shattered in the elections for the Grand National Assembly. The Fatherland Front has been completely consolidated as guide of Bulgaria's fate. The question about the representative character of the Fatherland Front's Government has been solved by our people in a positive sense. Our country now enters upon a new stage of development. The foundations of people's democracy have firmly been laid. The way for the all-round reconstruction of our young People's Republic has been paved. The possibility of completely normalizing the country's internal and external situation is at hand. The Government is well aware that the enemies of our people will not give up their efforts to undermine the people's rule. That is why it will continue to fight firmly and consistently to liquidate the survivals of fascism and to tame reaction. Parallel with this, it thinks it possible and necessary to abolish in the near future a number of measures which in the first stage after the people's uprising of September 9, 1944, were absolutely indispensable for securing the democratic acquisitions of our people. In the economic field as well, it thinks it possible and necessary, in order to intensify production, to moderate and abolish a number of limitations imposed on private economic enterprise and activity, especially as regards farmers, insofar as these limitations are not dictated by the need of securing the people's food supply and other needs of the nation as a whole. The Government is firmly resolved to do all within its power to establish strict law, order and perfect security for creative work, for every useful economic private initiative, for the life and property of the population. The Government is firmly resolved to establish strict state discipline, requiring of all administrative departments and officials to perform their duties and fulfil the Government's decisions and orders promptly and conscientiously. It will continue resolutely and without hesitation the consolidation and strengthening of the state apparatus, social and cultural institutions, educational institutions and courses, so that they may become perfectly fit to serve the people. The Government will take strict measures to eradicate bureaucracy and all signs of corruption in the administration. The Government emphasizes the improvements made in the organization and functions of the people's militia. It will be its task to consolidate and develop these improvements to such an extent that the people's militia may be fit to fulfil with dignity its duties as a guardian of law and order under the new conditions. The Government will show special concern for the consolidation of the fighting capacity of our army as a people's army, linked with the people forever, and a true guard of our land and our national freedom and independence. The necessary moral and political conditions will be provided to ensure stable service and material standards for the officers and NCOs in our army. The Government will continue with still greater systematic efficiency the public health and social welfare policy, especially in the field of mother and child care. It will encourage and assist every private and public initiative for the building of dwelling houses, to cope with the housing shortage. The Government will show concern for the general development and progress of national culture. It will subsidize, assist and sponsor every creative activity and every initiative tending to promote the nation's culture and stimulate its development along progressive lines. The Government will give all-round protection to physical and intellectual work as a fundamental factor in the building of our people's prosperity. Working women and young people will be given special protection and encouragement. The Government will resolutely give priority to youth devotedly serving the people in every sphere of administrative, public, political, economic and cultural life. Our patriotic youth, which took a prominent part in the struggle against fascism and grew up as a strong vanguard of the Fatherland Front will now be given full opportunity to take part in the building of our People's Republic. Care for the education of youth, for the training of numerous cultural and technical cadres, for physical culture, summer camps, the youth labour brigade movement, for children and teenagers will be a subject of special attention on the part of the Government. Evaluating highly the fact that women are taking a more active part in the life of society since they deservedly- obtained equal rights, the Government will take all necessary steps for their broad and useful" }
{ "content": " participation in all spheres of social, political, economic and cultural life. The Fatherland Front has paid due attention to the Bulgarian national church, giving the necessary assistance for its canonic organization, which has helped it put an end to the schism and restore its relations with all Orthodox churches. The positive result manifested itself at this year's celebration of the millennium of the Rila Monastery, which was attended by the Moscow and all-Russian Patriarch Alexei. The separation between church and state, which the Fatherland Front provides for in its programme in compliance with the principle of freedom of conscience and religious creed, has been dictated by the belief that it will enhance the national character of the Bulgarian church, enabling the clergy to serve the people faithfully. The Government wilt assist the democratization of our national church, so that it can be more closely adapted to the needs and development of the people. Respecting the religious sentiments of the believers, it will continue to give the necessary material aid to the church and clergy until it becomes possible for the believers to assume their maintenance. Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! It is hardly necessary for me to emphasize that the Government will continue with still greater energy the correct and tested foreign policy hitherto pursued by the Fatherland Front. The Government believes that the sincere and consistent friendship of the People's Republic of Bulgaria with our liberator, the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, forms the cornerstone of its foreign policy; besides, it will do all in its power to achieve complete normalization of Bulgaria's relations with the United States and Great Britain. It is profoundly convinced that there exist no insurmountable obstacles to this end. The Government feels obliged to express the warm and profound gratitude of the entire Bulgarian nation to the Government of the Soviet Union for the invaluable support given in defence of our national cause. It must also emphasize the strong defence of the rightful Bulgarian demands by the Ukrainian and Byelorussian delegations at the Peace Conference, for which it conveys to them the gratitude of the Bulgarian people. Noting with satisfaction the increasing admiration of democratic France for new Bulgaria, the Government will do all in its power to further consolidate the traditional friendly ties between the two countries. It will work for still greater stabilization of the established friendly relations with Czechoslovakia and Poland, and for strengthening pan-Slav solidarity and unity as an important bastion of world peace. The Government also conveys warm gratitude to Poland and Czechoslovakia, whose delegations supported our efforts for a just peace. The Government appreciates highly the friendship with our northern neighbour, Rumania. The brilliant victory of democracy in both countries guarantees that our nations will give each other increasing assistance and support along the lines of economic and cultural progress. The Government will maintain good neighbourly relations with Turkey and will encourage the development of trade between the two countries. It will make efforts to establish and consolidate diplomatic relations with all democratic countries. The successful development of Bulgaria's economic relations with the Soviet Union and the renewal of trade relations with most of the European countries give us grounds to believe that the Government's efforts to extend the sale of our economic products in European, overseas and Near East countries and to improve our country's supply with the most indispensable raw materials and technical equipment will give positive results. Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! The conclusion of a just peace with the United Nations is the major task of the Government in the field of foreign policy. Our hope for such peace is based on the fact that witq their stubborn resistance the Bulgarian people prevented nazi Germany from using the Bulgarian army for active operations on any front and, in turn, contributed to the final defeat of nazi Germany by taking part in the liberation war on the United Nation's side. This substantial contribution of the Bulgarian people to the cause of freedom has been recognized by the Soviet Union and our fraternal Slav countries, which have been supporting us resolutely in the struggle for a just peace. Despite the hostile opposition at home and abroad, truth is making progress and good disposition towards our nation and new Bulgaria is steadily growing among the authoritative social circles of other countries. World democratic opinion looks upon Bulgaria as a co-belligerent country, and the Government will maintain its efforts to have this expressed in the final text of the peace treaty with Bulgaria, especially with respect to reducing the burdensome reparations to a minimum sum, which will be bearable for our country plundered and devastated by the nazis. The Government will redouble its energy to protect our country from foreign encroachments. In these efforts, the Government will be inspired exclusively by the desire to have lasting peace secured in the Balkans, and sincere cooperation with all neighbouring nations, including the Greeks, for whom the Bulgarian people harbour most friendly feelings. And if good neighbourly relations have not yet been established between Bulgaria and Greece, such as exist between us and all other of our neighbours, we are not to blame. The Government categorically denies all slanderous accusations against Bulgaria, systematically propagated from Athens, among which the latest assertion is that guerrilla detachments passed into Greek territory from Bulgaria. In a few words, acting in the spirit of the Fatherland Front programme, the Government will do its best to have Bulgaria fulfil successfully her role as a sound element of peace, democracy and fraternal co-operation among nations. Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! The new Fatherland Front Government will lay particular stress on economic problems. It will give priority to them throughout its activity and will do all in its power to cope as quickly as possible with the hardships and economic disorder inherited from fascism and the war, and aggravated by two subsequent droughts. Considerable successes have so far been achieved in this respect by the former Fatherland Front Government. Under the difficult conditions caused by last year's drought, the people" }
{ "content": " were saved from famine and the livestock from starvation thanks to the ready response of the population, and to the timely aid of provisions and forage sent by the Soviet Union. Despite the drought which was repeated this summer, the total agricultural output was higher than last year's thanks to the readiness and persistence with which the population fulfilled the Government's sowing plan. Industrial production during the past nine months of the current year has increased by 10 per cent. It will rise still higher in the forthcoming months as a result of better supply of our industry with local farm products and imported materials and to the improvement of labour productivity and discipline. Traffic in the railway and other transport systems has also marked a considerable increase. The turnover of home trade has increased. Foreign trade has increased both as regards turnover and expansion of trade relations with other countries. Exports and imports during the past ten months have considerable surpassed last year's level. Parallel with the favourable development of our trade relations with the Soviet Union, we have also restored and expanded our trade relations with Czechoslovakia, Poland, Switzerland, France, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, and other countries. The stabilization of the lev testifies to the Government's successful efforts to consolidate the country's financial and economic position and shows the people's confidence in the Fatherland Front Government. Despite all these undoubted successes, achieved in the current year, Bulgaria's economic condition is still tense and serious. The Government is fully aware of the fact that we are still faced with great difficulties, the solution of which will require exceedingly strong efforts on the part of the Government and all sections of the people. Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! In its future economic policy the Government will follow the principle that only by increasing production, improving its quality and reducing production costs will it be able to secure the rehabilitation and development of the nation's economy and the full consolidation of state finances. The Government will continue resolutely and without hesitation to take measures for the speediest possible industrialization of the country. For this purpose it will launch the construction with state, municipal co-operative and private funds of a number of new factories and plants,such as a nitrogen fertilizer plant, a soda works and a sulphuric acid plant and others, and expand and recondition the existing industrial enterprises. In order to make most rational use of agricultural production, to increase the farmers' incomes, improve the population's food supply and extend our export potentials, steps will be taken to rationalize the branches of industry processing farm products and will build a large number of such enterprises. The Government will encourage private initiative in the construction of new industrial enterprises and in the development of the existing ones. Particular stress will be laid on the speedy liquidation of the shortage of power supply, for which purpose an integral electrification system will be created, based on sufficient number of powerful thermo- and hydro-electric power stations with a grid covering the whole country, reaching the most remote corners of the land. In view of the great drawback of our insufficient and backward coal production for the development of the entire national economy, the Government will provide in its programme for the maximum acceleration of the opening of new mines in our rich Sofia and Maritsa lignite coal basins. The Government will take pains to improve and develop our railway, automobile and air transport. In order to improve the standards of the rural districts and thereby strengthen the basis of the development of the entire economy, the Government will assist agriculture and stockbreeding in every respect. It will encourage and support the mechanization and rationalization of agriculture. To increase the yields per unit of land through irrigation, the Government will include in its programme the broadest and fullest utilization of the water resources. The construction of the basic dams will be completed in shorter terms. The Government will also take extensive measures to complete in the next few years the drainage of the Danubian and other lowlands. The Government will continue to give all-round support to the producers' co-operatives based on the principle of voluntary participation. It will take measures to prevent conflicts and misunderstandings between the producers' co-operatives and private farmers. The Government will also show special concern in the development and modernization of the crafts, for the regular supply of the craftsmen with raw materials. It will encourage the formation of craftsmen's co-operatives. In the field of home trade the Government will continue its efforts to rationalize commission agents system, for which purpose it will first of all eliminate the socially harmful and economically unjustified brokerage, especially in wholesale trade. To be able to regulate prices, the Government will encourage the foundation of a new trade enterprise, Naroden Magazin. The latter will promote the participation of the co-operatives in commodity exchange, so as to shorten and cheapen the path of goods from producer to consumer, and will simultaneously fight energetically against pseudo-co-operativism and co-operative parasitism existing in some co-operatives. It will allow private traders to participate in the exchange along with the co-operatives and to compete with them. In order to promote the general expansion of foreign trade, the Government will maintain its efforts to build a sound foreign trade apparatus with the participation of state enterprises, co-operative societies and other social establishments, and the solid and trustworthy private firms. The Government will lay special stress on the improvement and extension of vocational education, in order to train the necessary qualified cadres for our growing industry building, crafts and agriculture. Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! Continuing the economic policy of the Fatherland Front, tending to eliminate profiteering and parasitic capital from national economy, to co-ordinate constructive private enterprise with the consolidation of the state-controlled and co-operative sectors of national economy and with the introduction of planning in our economic life, the Government intends to make in its economic policy all necessary corrections, dictated by the experience gained in life. It will work energetically to remove the" }
{ "content": " existing shortcomings in the system of production quotas and the population's supply with provisions, clothing and fuel, to do away with the erroneous extremes and arbitrary acts against labour, constructive private enterprise and property of the citizens, and to co-ordinate private capital and private enterprise with the general interests of the people and the economic policy of the state, so as to guarantee the proper development of the Bulgarian national industry and the entire national economy. Taking the necessary steps to secure the national food supply under the difficult conditions brought about by the nazi pillage, war and drought, the Government will struggle relentlessly against any profiteering on the people's bread and on all goods of prime necessity. Encouraging the shock-worker movement and patriotic emulation, working for the tightening of labour discipline at enterprises and offices and for the establishment of proper relations between workers and employees, on the one side and employees and manager of enterprises and office, on the other, the Government will always bear in mind and do all within its power to improve the conditions of workers, employees and other working people. It emphasizes the fact that only intensified production and a strengthened economy can prepare the ground for improving the conditions of the working class and for raising the living standards of the Bulgarian people as a whole. The Government finds it necessary to revise the pay rolls of the state employees and civil servants, so as to stabilize and improve their status. At the same time it will resort to the necessary rationalization and simplification of the services. To secure a fuller utilization of local resources and potentials, the Government will increasingly advise the municipalities to engage in economic and building activities. In the financial field, the new Government will work out a well-balanced, realistic and constructive budget, which will correspond to the taxation capacities of the Bulgarian people and will promote economic and cultural building schemes. In its taxation policy, the new Government will continue to apply the principle of co-ordinating the levy of each individual tax-payer with his paying capacity, on the basis of a progressive income tax. It will encourage and protect savings and will reconstruct and improve our credit system, so as to make it of still greater use to production. Introducing a strict regime of economies everywhere in the state apparatus and the nation's economy, economies of food and forage, materials, coal and electric power, economies of labour and time, and establishing strict accounting and financial control - the Government will take pains and do all that is necessary to guarantee the stability of the Bulgarian lev in the future. The Government will continue with still greater firmness its policy of balancing the prices of agricultural and industrial products and handicraft services, taking into account the international market prices. For this purpose the Government will reorganize the Prices Institute. It will take severe measures against all who disturb our economic life, against evildoers, profiteers and wreckers. To introduce the necessary planning and order in our economy, for its steady and secure development, and to remove to the largest possible extent the elements of unsystematic work and disorder, the Government will work out a two-year plan for the development of national economy. The fulfilment of the above mentioned economic tasks and of the two-year plan for our economic development in particular, will make it necessary to overcome considerable difficulties resulting from our poverty, our economic backwardness, the disastrous devastations caused by the former reactionary and fascist regimes, as well as by the two dry year . The Government therefore believes that the implementation of the Fatherland Front's economic programme demands of the people to use all their material and moral forces, and be ready to face any temporary privation. Because only stamina and hard labour can guarantee our country's economic progress and our people's prosperity. Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! The Grand National Assembly, as you know, will have to fulfil exceedingly important tasks, tasks of historic significance. In the first place, it will elaborate and adopt a really progressive Constitution of the people's republic, which will take into account the needs of the Bulgarian people, their historic development and which will be co-ordinated with their national characteristics and traditions. There can be no doubt that the Grand National Assembly will pay due attention to the opinions and suggestions made and expressed during the elections and after them, at the nationwide discussions on the draft Constitution, prepared by the National Committee of the Fatherland Front. In the second place, the Government will submit the state budget for 1947 and the Two-Year Economic Plan for consideration and approval by the Grand National Assembly. In the third place, the Government will submit to the Grand National Assembly bills co-ordinating existing legislation with the future Constitution of the people's republic. It will also introduce for consideration and decision bills dictated by current of government affairs. Ladies and Gentlemen National Representatives! For the solution of its great and responsible problems, the Government relies on the support of the Grand National Assembly and the unity of the sound forces of the people integrated in the Fatherland Front. In all its activity, the new Government will be guided by the conception that it is necessary to maintain and deepen co-operation among the Fatherland Front parties and social organizations and strengthen the unity of the Fatherland Front as an invincible union of the sound people's forces, as guiding force of the Bulgarian people's destinies and indestructible mainstay of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. The Government will also welcome the co-operation of those social and political groups and workers outside the Fatherland Front, who would be ready to serve our country sincerely and honestly. It will readily welcome any rational, timely and useful proposal, from whatever source it may come. The Government is deeply convinced that all who are upright and patriotic in our country will firmly unite themselves around the Fatherland Front and will take an active part in implementing its programme. The right and salutary cause of the Fatherland Front will prevail! Long live the People's Republic of Bulgaria! " }
{ "content": " Long live the Fatherland Front! Long live the Bulgarian people! NOTES 1) After the Grand National Assembly ended its work on November 22,1946, the third government after September 9, 1944 headed by Georgi Dimitrov, was formed. Dimitrov Works Archive " }
{ "content": " Georgi DimitrovUnity of the Working Class against Fascism Concluding speech before the Seventh World Congress of the Communist InternationalDelivered: August 13, 1935Source: Dimitrov, Georgi Selected Works, volume 2, Sofia Press 1972, pp. 86-119Transcription/HTML Markup: Mathias BismoThe Struggle against Fascism Must Be ConcreteUnited Proletarian Front or Anti-Fascist Popular FrontThe Role of Social Democracy and Its Attitude towards the United Front of the ProletariatThe United Front GovernmentAttitude towards Burgeois DemocracyA Correct Line Alone is Not EnoughCadresComrades, the very full discussion on my report bear witness to the immense interest taken by the Congress in the fundamental tactical problems and tasks of the struggle of the working class against the offensive of capital and fascism, and against the threat of an imperialist war.Summing up the eight-day discussion, we can state that all the principal propositions contained in the report have met with the unanimous approval of the Congress. None, of the speakers objected to the tactical line we have proposed or to the resolution which has been submitted.I venture to say that at none of the previous Congresses of the Communist International has such ideological and political solidarity been revealed as at the present Congress. The complete unanimity displayed at the Congress indicates that the necessity of revising our policy and tactics in accordance with the changed conditions and on the basis of the extremely abundant and instructive experience of the past few years, has come to be fully recognized in our ranks.This unanimity may, undoubtedly be regarded as one of the most important conditions for success in solving the paramount immediate problem of the international proletarian movement, namely, establishing unity of action of all sections of the working class in the struggle against fascism.The successful solution of this problem requires, first, that Communists, skilfully wield the weapon of Marxist-Leninist analysis, while carefully studying the actual situation and the allignment of class forces as these develop and that they plan their activity and struggle accordinglyWe must mercilessly root out the weakness not infrequently observed among our comrades, for cut-and-dried schemes, lifeless formulas and ready-made patterns. We must put an end to the state of affairs in which Communists, when lacking the knowledge or ability for Marxist-Leninist analysis substitute for it general phrases and slogans such as 'the revolutionary way out of the crisis,' without making the slightest serious attempt to explain what must be the conditions, the relationship of class forces, the degree of revolutionary maturity of the proletariat and mass of working people, and the level of influence of the Communist Party for making possible such a revolutionary way out of the crisis. Without such an analysis all these catchwords become dud shells, empty phrases which only obscure out tasks of the day. Without a concrete Marxist-Leninist analysis we shall never be able correctly to present and solve the problem of fascism, the problems of the proletarian united front and the Popular Front, the problem of our attitude to bourgeois democracy, the problem of a united front government, the problem of the processes going on -within the working class, particularly among the Social Democratic workers, or any of the numerous other new and complex problems with which life itself and the development of the class struggle confront us now and will confront us in the future.Second, we need live people - people who have grown up from the masses of the workers, have sprung from their every-day struggle, people of militant action, whole-heartedly devoted to the cause of the proletariat people whose brains and hands will give effect to the decisions of our Congress. Without Bolshevik, Leninist cadres we shall be unable to solve the enormous problems that confront the working people in the fight against fascism.Third, we need people equipped with the compass of Marxist-Leninist theory, without the skilful use of which they, turn into narrow-minded and shortsighted practicians, unable to look ahead, who take decisions only from case to case, and lose the broad perspective of the struggle which shows the masses where we are going and we are leading the working people.Fourth, we need the organization of the masses in order to put our decisions into practice. Our ideological and political influence alone is not enough. We must put a stop to reliance on the hope that the movement will develop of its own accord, which is one of our fundamental weaknesses. We must remember that without persistent, prolonged, patient, and sometimes seemingly thankless organizational work on our part the masses will never make for the Communist shore. In order to be able to organize the masses we must acquire the Leninist art of making our decisions the property not only of the Communists but also of the widest masses of working people. We must learn to talk to the masses, not in the language of book formulas, but in the language of fighters for the cause of the masses, whose every, word and every idea reflect the innermost thoughts and sentiments of millions.It is primarily with these problems that I should like to deal in my reply to the discussion.Comrades, the Congress has welcomed the new tactical lines with great enthusiasm and unanimity. Enthusiasm and unanimity are, excellent things of course, but it is still better when these are combined with a deeply considered and critical approach to the tasks that confront us, with a proper mastery of the decisions adopted and a real understanding of the means and methods by which these decisions are to be applied to the particular circumstances of each country.After all, we have unanimously. adopted good resolutions before now, but the trouble was that we not infrequently adopted these decisions in a formal manner, and at best made them the property of only the small vanguard of the working class. Our decisions did not become flesh and blood for millions of people, nor a guide to their actions." }
{ "content": "Can we assert that we have already finally, abandoned this formal approach to adopted decisions? No. It must be said that even at this Congress the speeches of some of the comrades gave indication of vestiges of formalism, a desire made itself felt at times to substitute for the concrete analysis of reality, and living experience some sort of new scheme, some sort of new, over-simplified, lifeless formula, to represent as actually existing what we desire, but what does not yet exist.THE STRUGGLE AGAINST FASCISM MUST BE CONCRETENo general characterization of fascism, however correct in itself, can relieve us of the need to study and take into account the special features of the development of fascism and the various forms of fascist dictatorship in the individual countries and at its various stages. It is necessary in each country to investigate, study and ascertain the national peculiar ties, the specific national features of fascism and to map out accordingly effective methods and forms of struggle against fascism.Lenin persistently warned us against such 'stereotyped methods, such mechanical levelling and identification of tactical rules, of rules of struggle.' This warning is particularly to the point when it is a question of fighting at enemy, who so subtly and Jesuitically exploits the national sentiments and prejudices of the masses and the anti-capitalist inclinations in the interests of big capital. Such an enemy must be known to perfection, from every angle. We must, without any, delay whatever, react to his various manoeuvres, discover his hidden moves, be prepared to repel him in any, arena and at any moment. We must not hesitate even to learn from the enemy if that will help us more quickly and more effectively to wring his neck.It would be a gross mistake to lay down any sort of universal scheme of the development of fascism, valid for all countries and all peoples. Such a scheme would not help but would hamper us in carrying on a real struggle. Apart from everything else, it would result in indiscriminately thrusting into the camp of fascism those sections of the population which, if properly approached, could at a certain stage of development be brought into the struggle against fascism or could at least be neutralized.Let us take, for example, the development of fascism in France and in Germany. Some comrades believe that, generally speaking, fascism cannot develop as easily in France as in Germany. What is true and what is false in this contention? It is true that there were no such deepseated democratic traditions in Germany as there are. In France, which went through several revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is true that France is a country which won the war and imposed the Versailles treaty on other countries, that the national sentiments of the French people have not been hurt as they have been in Germany, where this factor played such a great part. It is true that in France the basic masses of the peasantry are prorepublic and anti-fascist, especially in the south, in contrast to Germany, where even before fascism came to power a considerable section of the peasantry was under the influence of reactionary parties.But, Comrades, notwithstanding the existing differences in the development of the fascist movement in France and in Germany, notwithstanding the factors which impede the onslaught of fascism in France, it would be shortsighted not to notice the uninterrupted growth there of the fascist peril or to underestimate the possibility of a fascist coup d'�tat Moreover, a number of factors in France favour the development of fascism. One must not forget that the economic crisis, which began later in France than in other capitalist countries, continues to become deeper and more acute, and that this greatly encourages the orgy of fascist demagogy. French fascism holds strong positions in the army, among the officers, such as the National Socialists did not have in the Reichswehr before their advent to power. Furthermore, in no other country, perhaps, has the parliamentary regime been corrupted to such an enormous extent and caused such indignation among the masses as in France, and the French fascists, as we know, use this demagogically in their fight against bourgeois democracy. Nor must it be forgotten that the development of fascism is furthered by the French bourgeoisie's keen fear of losing its political and military hegemony in Europe.Hence it follows that the successes scored by the antifascist movement in France, of which Comrades Thorez and Cachin have spoken here and over which we so heartily rejoice, are still far from indicating that the working masses have definitely succeeded in blocking the road to fascism. We must emphatically stress once more the great importance of the tasks of the French working class in the struggle against fascism, of which I have already spoken in my report.It would likewise be dangerous to cherish illusions regarding the weakness of fascism in other countries where it does not have a broad mass base. We have the example of such countries as Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Finland, where fascism, although it had no broad base, came to power, relying on the armed forces of the state, and then sought to broaden its base by making use of the state apparatus.Comrade Dutt was right in his contention that there has been a tendency among us to contemplate fascism in general, without taking into account the specific features of the fascist movement in the various countries, erroneously classifying all reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie as fascism and going so far as calling the entire non-Communist camp fascist. The struggle against fascism was not strengthened but rather weakened in consequence." }
{ "content": "Even now we still have survivals of a stereotyped approach to the question of fascism. When some comrades assert that Roosevelt's 'New Deal' represents an even clearer and more pronounced form of the development of the bourgeoisie toward fascism than the 'National Government' in Great Britain, for example, is this not a manifestation of such a stereotyped approach to the question? One must be very partial to hackneyed schemes not to see that the most partial to reactionary circles of American finance capital, which are attacking Roosevelt, are above all the very force which is stimulating and organizing the fascist movement in the United States, Not to see the beginnings of real fascism in the United States behind the hypocritical outpourings of these circles 'in defence of the democratic rights of the American citizen' is tantamount to misleading the working class in the struggle against its worst enemy.In the colonial and semi-colonial countries also, as was mentioned in the discussion, certain fascist groups are developing, but of course there can be no question of the kind of fascism that we are accustomed to see in Germany Italy and other capitalist countries. Here we must study and take into account the quite special economic, political and historical conditions, in accordance with which fascism is assuming and will continue to assume peculiar forms of its own.Unable to approach the phenomena of real life concretely, some comrades who suffer from mental laziness substitute general, noncommittal formulas for a careful and concrete study of the actual situation and the relationship of class forces. They remind us, not of sharpshooters who shoot with unerring aim, but of those 'crack' riflemen who regularly and unfailingly miss the target, shooting either too high or too low, too near or too far. But, we, Comrades, as Communist fighters in the labour movement, as the revolutionary vanguard of the working class, want to be sharpshooters who unfailingly hit the target.UNITED PROLETARIAN FRONT OR ANTI-FASCIST POPULAR FRONTSome comrades are quite needlessly racking their brains over the problem of what to begin with - the united proletarian front or the anti-fascist Popular Front.Some say that we cannot start forming the anti-fascist Popular Front until we have organized a solid united front of the proletariat.Others argue that, since the establishment of the united proletarian front meets in a number of countries with the resistance of the reactionary part of Social Democracy, it is better to start at once with building up the Popular Front, and then develop the united working class front on this basis.Evidently, both groups fail to understand that the united proletarian front and the anti-fascist Popular Front are connected by the living dialectics of struggle; that they are interwoven, the one passing into the other in the process of the practical struggle against fascism, and that there is certainly no Chinese wall to keep them apart.For it cannot be seriously supposed that it is possible to establish a genuine anti-fascist Popular Front without securing the unity of action of the working class itself, the leading force of this anti-fascist Popular Front. At the same time, the further development of the united proletarian front depends, to a considerable degree, upon its transformation into a Popular Front against fascism.Comrades, just picture to yourselves a devotee of cut-and-dried theories of this kind, gazing upon our resolution and contriving his pet scheme with the zeal of a true pedant:First, local united proletarian front from below;Then, regional united front from below;Thereafter, united front from above, passing through the same stages;Then, unity in the trade union movement;After that, the enlistment of other anti-fascist parties;This to be followed by the extended Popular Front, from above and from below.After which the movement must be raised to a higher level, politicized, revolutionized, and so on and so forth.You will say, Comrades, that this is sheer nonsense. I agree with you. But the unfortunate thing is that in some form or other this kind of sectarian nonsense is still to be found quite frequently in our ranks.How does the matter really stand? Of course, we must strive everywhere for a wide Popular Front of struggle against fascism. But in a number of countries we shall not get beyond general talk about the Popular Front unless we succeed in mobilizing the masses of the workers for the purpose of breaking down the resistance of the reactionary, section of Social Democracy to the proletarian united front of struggle. Primarily this is how the matter stands in Great Britain, where the working class comprises the majority, of the population and where the bulk of the working class follows the lead of the trade unions and the Labour Party. That is how matters stand in Belgium and in the Scandinavian countries, where the numerically small Communist Parties must face strong mass trade unions and numerically large Social Democratic Parties.In these countries the Communists would commit a very serious political mistake if they shirked the struggle to establish a united proletarian front, under cover of general talk about the Popular Front, which cannot be formed without the participation of the mass working class organizations. In order to bring about a genuine Popular Front in these countries, the Communists must carry out an enormous amount of political and organizational work among the masses of the workers. They must overcome the preconceived ideas of these masses, who regard their large reformist organizations as already the embodiment of proletarian unity. They must convince these masses that the establishment of a united front with the Communists means a shift on the part of those masses to the position of the class struggle, and that only this shift guarantees success in the struggle against the offensive of capital and fascism. We shall not overcome our difficulties by setting ourselves much wider tasks here. On the contrary, in fighting to remove these difficulties we shall, in fact and not in words alone, prepare the ground for the creation of a genuine Popular Front of struggle against fascism, against the capitalist offensive and against the threat of imperialist war." }
{ "content": "The problem is different in countries like Poland, where a strong peasant movement is developing alongside the labour movement, where the peasant masses have their own organizations, which 'are becoming radicalized as a result of the agrarian crisis, and where national oppression evokes indignation among the national minorities. Here the development of the Popular Front of struggle will proceed parallel with the development of the united proletarian front, and at times in this type of country the movement for a general Popular Front may even outstrip the movement for a working-class front.Take a country like Spain, which is in the process of a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Can it be said that because the proletariat is split up into numerous small organizations, complete fighting unity of the working class must first be established here before a workers' and peasants' front against Lerroux 1) and Gil Robles 2) is created? By tackling the question in this way we would isolate tile proletariat from the peasantry, we would in effect be withdrawing the slogan of the agrarian revolution, and we would make it easier for the enemies of the people to disunite the prolelariat and the peasantry and set the peasantry in opposition to the working class. Yet this, Comrades, as is well known, was one of the main reasons why the working class was defeated in the October events of 1934 in the Asturias.However, one thing must not he forgotten in all countries, where the proletariat is comparatively small in numbers, where the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeois strata predominate, it is all the more necessary to make every effort to set up a firm united front of the working class itself, so that it may be able to take its place as the leading factor in relation to all the working people.Thus, Comrades, in attacking the problem of the proletarian front and the Popular Front, there can be no general panacea suitable for all cases, all countries, all peoples. In this matter universalism, the application of one and the same recipe to all countries, is equivalent, if, you will allow me to say so, to ignorance, and ignorance should be flogged, even when it stalks about, nay, particularly when it stalks about in the cloak of universal cut-and-dried schemes.THE ROLE OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND ITS ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE UNITED FRONT OF THE PROLETARIATComrades, in view of the tactical problems confronting us, it is very important to give a correct reply to the question of whither Social Democracy at the present time is still the principal bulwark of the bourgeoisie, and if so, where?Some of the comrades who participated in the discussion (Comrades Florin, butt) touched upon this question but in view of its importance a fuller reply must be given to it, for it is a question which workers of all trends, particularly Social Democratic workers, are asking and cannot help asking.It must be borne in mind that in a number of countries the position of Social Democracy in the bourgeois state, and its attitude towards the bourgeoisie, has been undergoing a change.In the first place, the crisis has severely shaken the position of even the most secure sections of the working class, the so-called aristocracy of labour which, as we know, is the main support of Social Democracy. These sections, too, are beginning more and more to revise their views as to the expediency of the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie.Second, as I pointed out in my report, the bourgeoisie in a number of countries is itself compelled to abandon bourgeois democracy and resort to the terroristic form of dictatorship, depriving Social Democracy not only of its previous position in the state system of finance capital, but also, under certain conditions, of its legal status, persecuting and even suppressing it.Third, under the influence of the lessons learned from the defeat of the workers in Germany, Austria and Spain 3), a defeat which was largely due to the Social Democratic policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie and, on the other hand, under the influence of the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union as a result of Bolshevik policy and the application of revolutionary Marxism, the Social Democratic workers are becoming revolutionized and are beginning to turn to the class struggle against the bourgeoisie.The combined effect of this has been to make it increasingly difficult, and in some countries actually impossible, for Social Democracy to preserve its former role of a bulwark of the bourgeoisie.Failure to understand this is particularly harmful in those countries where the fascist dictatorship has deprived Social Democracy of its legal status. From this point of view the self-criticism of those German comrades who in their speeches mentioned the necessity of ceasing to cling to the letter of obsolete formulas and decisions concerning Social Democracy, of ceasing to ignore the changes that have taken place in its position, was correct. It is clear that if we ignore these changes, it will lead to a distortion of our policy for bringing about the unity of the working class, and will Make it easier for the reactionary elements of the Social Democratic Parties to sabotage the united front.The process of revolutionization in the ranks of the Social Democratic Parties, now going on in all countries, is developing unevenly. It must not be imagined that the Social Democratic workers who are becoming revolutionized will at once and on a mass scale pass over to the position of consistent class struggle and will straightway unite with the Communists without any intermediate stages. In a number of countries this will be a more or less difficult, complicated and prolonged process, essentially dependent, at any rate, on the correctness of our policy and tactics. We must even reckon with the possibility that, in passing from the position of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, some Social Democratic Parties and organizations will continue to exist for a time as independent organizations or parties. In such an event there can, of course, be no thought of such Social Democratic organizations or parties being regarded as a bulwark of the bourgeoisie." }
{ "content": "It cannot be expected that workers who are under the influence of those Social Democratic the ideology of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, which has been instilled in them for decades, will break with this ideology of their own accord, by the action of objective causes alone. No. It is our business, the business of Communists, to help them free themselves from the hold of reformist ideology. The work of explaining the principles and programme of Communism must be carried on patiently, in a comradely fashion, and must be adapted to the degree of development of the individual Social Democratic workers. Our criticism of Social Democracy must become more concrete and systematic, and must be based on the experience of the Social Democratic masses themselves. It must be borne in mind that primarily by utilizing their experience in the joint struggle with the Communists against the class enemy will it be possible and necessary to facilitate and speed up the revolutionary development of the Social Democratic workers. There is no more effective way for overcoming the doubts and hesitations of the Social Democratic workers than by their participation in the proletarian united front.We shall do all in our power to make it easier, not only for the Social Democratic workers, but also for those leading members of the Social Democratic Parties and organizations who sincerely desire to adopt the revolutionary class position, to work and fight with us against the class enemy. At the same time we declare that any Social Democratic functionary, lower official or worker who continues to uphold the disruptive tactics of the reactionary Social Democratic leaders, who comes out against the united front and thus directly or indirectly aids the class enemy, will thereby incur at least equal guilt before the working class as those who are historically responsible for having supported the Social Democratic policy of class collaboration, the policy which in a number of European countries doomed the revolution in 1918 and cleared the way for fascism.The attitude to the united front marks the watershed between the reactionary sections of Social Democracy and the sections that are becoming revolutionary. Our assistance to the latter will be the more effective the more we intensify, our fight against the reactionary camp of Social Democracy that takes part in a bloc with the bourgeoisie. And within the Left camp the self-determination of its various elements will take place the sooner, the more determinedly the Communists fight for a united front with the Social Democratic Parties. The experience of the class struggle and the participation of the Social Democrats in the united front movement will show who in that camp will prove to be 'Left' in words and who is really Left.THE UNITED FRONT GOVERNMENTWhile the attitude of Social Democracy towards the practical realization of the proletarian united front is, generally speaking, the chief sign in every country of whether the previous role in the bourgeois state of the Social Democratic Party or of its individual parts has changed, and if so, to what extent - the attitude of Social Democracy on the issue of a united front government will be a particularly clear test in this respect.When a situation arises in which the question of creating a united front government becomes an immediate practical problem, this issue will become a decisive test of the policy of Social Democracy in the given country: either jointly with the bourgeoisie, that is moving towards fascism, against the working class, or jointly with the revolutionary proletariat against fascism and reaction, not merely in words but in deeds. That is how the question will inevitably present itself at the time the united front government is formed as well as while it is in power.With regard to the character and conditions for the formation of the united front government or anti-fascist popular Front government, I think that my report gave what was necessary for general tactical direction. To expect us over and above this to indicate all possible forms and all conditions under which such governments may be formed would mean to lose oneself in barren conjecture.I would like to utter a note of warning against oversimplification or the application of cut-and-dried schemes in this question. Life is more complex than any scheme. For example, it would be wrong to imagine that the united front government is an indispensable stage on the road to the establishment of proletarian dictatorship. That is just as wrong as the former assertion that there will be no intermediary .stages in the fascist countries and that fascist dictatorship is certain to be immediately superseded by proletarian dictatorship.The whole question boils down to this: Will the proletariat itself be prepared at the decisive moment for the direct overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of its own power, and will it be able in that event to ensure the ,support of its allies? Or will the movement of the united proletarian from and the anti-fascist Popular Front at the particular stage be in a position only to suppress or overthrow fascism, without directly proceeding to abolish the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie? In the latter case it would be an intolerable piece of political shortsightedness, and not serious revolutionary politics, on this ground alone to refuse to create and support a united front or a Popular Front government.It is likewise not difficult to understand that the establishment of a united front government in countries where fascism is not yet in power is something different from the creation of such a government in countries where the fascist dictatorship holds sway. In the latter countries a united front government can be created only in the process of overthrowing fascist rule. In countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution is developing, a Popular Front government may become the government of the democratic dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry." }
{ "content": "As I have already pointed out in my report, the Communists will do all in their power to support a united front government to the extent that the latter will really fight against the enemies of the people and grant freedom of action to the Communist Party and to the working class. The question of whether Communists will take part in the ,government will be determined entirely by, the actual situation prevailing at the time Such questions will be settled as they arise. No readymade recipes can be prescribed in advance.ATTITUDE TOWARDS BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACYIn his speech Comrade Lenski pointed out that while mobilizing the masses to repel the onslaught of fascism against the rights of the working people, the Polish Party at the same time 'had its misgivings about formulating positive democratic demands lest this would create democratic illusions among the masses.' The Polish Party is, of course, not the only one in which such fear of formulating positive democratic demands exists in one form or another.Where does this fear steam from, Comrades? It comes from an incorrect, non-dialectical conception of our attitude towards bourgeois democracy. We Communists are unswerving upholders of Soviet democracy, the great example of which is the proletarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union, where the introduction of equal suffrage and the direct and secret ballot has been proclaimed by-resolution of the Seventh Congress of Soviets, at the very time when the last vestiges of bourgeois democracy, are being wiped out in the capitalist countries. This Soviet democracy presupposes the victory of the proletarian revolution, the conversion of private ownership of the means of production into public ownership, the adoption of the road to socialism by the overwhelming majority of the people. This democracy does not represent a final form; it develops and will continue to develop, depending on the further achievements of socialist construction, in the creation of a classless society and in the overcoming of the survivals of capitalism in economic life and in the minds of the people.But today the millions of working people living under capitalism are faced with the necessity of deciding their attitude to those forms in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is clad in the various countries. We are not Anarchists, and it is not at all a matter of indifference to us what kind of political regime exists in any given country: whether a bourgeois dictatorship in the form of bourgeois democracy, even with democratic rights and liberties greatly curtailed, or a bourgeois dictatorship in its open, fascist form. While being upholders of Soviet democracy, we shall defend every inch the democratic gains which the working class has wrested in the course of years of stubborn struggle, and shall resolutely fight to extend these gains.How great were the sacrifices of the British working class before it secured the right to strike, a legal status for its trade unions, the right of assembly and freedom of the press, extension of the franchise, and other rights. How many tens of thousands of workers gave their lives in the revolutionary battles fought in France in the nineteenth century to obtain the elementary rights and the lawful opportunity of organizing their forces for the struggle against the exploiters. The proletariat of all countries has shed much of its blood to win bourgeois- democratic liberties and will naturally fight with all its strength to retain them.Our attitude to bourgeois democracy is not the same under all conditions. For instance, at the lime of the OctoberRevolution, the Russian Bolsheviks engaged in a life-and-death struggle against all those political parties which, under the slogan of the defence of bourgeois democracy, opposed the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship. The Bolsheviks fought these parties because the banner of bourgeois democracy had at that time become the standard around which all counter-revolutionary forces mobilized to challenge the victory of the proletariat. The situation is quite different in the capitalist countries at present. Now the fascist counter-revoution is attacking bourgeois democracy in an effort to establish the most barbarous regime of exploitation and suppression of the working masses. Now the working masses in a number of capitalist countries are faced with the necessity of making a definite choice, and of making it today, not between proletarian dictatorship and bourgeois democracy , but between bourgeois democracy and fascism.Besides, we have now a situation which differs from that which existed, for example, in the epoch of capitalist stabilization. At that time the fascist danger was not as acute as it is today. At that time it was bourgeois dictatorship in the form of bourgeois democracy that the revolutionary workers were facing in a number of countries and it was against bourgeois democracy, that they were concentrating their fire. In Germany, they fought against the Weimar Republic, not because it was a republic, but because it was a bourgeois republic that was engaged in crushing the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, especially in 1918-20 and in 1923.But could the Communists retain the same position also when the fascist movement began to raise its head, when, for instance, in 1932 the fascists in Germany, were organizing and arming hundreds of thousands of storm troopers against the working class\" Of course not. It was the mistake of the Communists in a number of countries, particularly in Germany, that they failed to take account of the changes that had taken place, but continued to repeat the slogans and maintain the tactical positions that had been correct a few years before, especially when the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship was an immediate issue, and when the entire German counter-revolution was rallying under the banner of the Weimar Republic, as it did in 1918-20.And the circumstance that even today we can still notice in our ranks a fear of launching positive democratic slogans indicates how little our comrades have mastered the Marxist-Leninist method of approaching such important problems of our tactics. Some say that the struggle for democratic rights may divert the workers from the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship. It may not be amiss to recall what Lenin said on this question:" }
{ "content": "It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure or overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy., so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy. (V. I. Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 133>These words should be firmly fixed in the memories of all our comrades, bearing in mind that in history great revolutions have grown out of small movements for the defence of the elementary rights of the workingclass. But in order to be able to link up the struggle for democratic rights with the struggle of the working class for socialism, it is necessary first and foremost to discard any cut-and-dried approach to the question of defence of bourgeois democracy.A CORRECT LINE ALONE IS NOT ENOUGHComrades, it is clear, of course, that for the Communist International and each of its Sections the fundamental thing is to work out a correct line. But a correct line alone is not enough for concrete leadership in the class struggle.For that, a number of conditions must be fulfilled, above all the following:First, organizational guarantees that adopted decisions will be carried out in practice and that all obstacles in the way will be resolutely overcome. What comrade Stalin said at the 12th Congress of the CPSU(b) about the conditions necessary to carry out the Party line, can and must be applied fully to the decisions taken by our Congress.Comrade Stalin said:Some people imagine that it is quite sufficient to map out a correct Party line, to proclaim it so as to bring it to everyone's attention, to set it forth in general theses and resolutions and to vote it unanimously, and victory will come by itself, so to say, of its own accord Of course this is quite wrong. This is a big illusion. Only incorrigible bureaucrats are capable of such reasoning. . . . Fine resolutions and declarations in favour of the general policy of the Party are just the beginning because they only indicate a desire for victory, not victory itself. After the correct policy has been outlined, and the correct solution indicated, success depends on organizational work, on the organization of the struggle to implement the Party line, and the proper selection of workers, on the control over the implementation of the decisions on the part of the leading organs. If these are lacking, the correct Party line and correct decisions stand a great risk of being seriously impaired. What is more, after the correct policy has been hammered out, everything depends on organizational work, including the political line itself - its implementation or its failure.It is hardly necessary to add anything to these words, which must become a guiding principle in the whole work of our Party.Another condition is the ability to convert decisions of the Communist International and its Sections into decisions of the widest masses themselves. This is all the more necessary 'low, when we are faced with the task of organizing a united front of the proletariat and drawing very wide masses of the people into an anti-fascist Popular Front. The political and tactical genius of Lenin stands out most clearly and vividly in his masterly ability to get the masses to understand the correct line and the slogans of the Party through their own experience. If we trace the history of Bolshevism, that greatest of treasure houses of the political strategy, and tactics of the revolutionary, workers' movement, we shall see that the Bolsheviks never substituted methods of leading the Party for methods of leading the masses.Comrade Stalin pointed out that one of the particular features of the tactics of the Russian Bolsheviks on the eve of the October Revolution resided in the fact that they were able to find the roads and turns which led the masses to the slogans of the Party, and to the very 'threshold of the revolution' in a natural way helping them to feel, check and recognize the correctness of these slogans through their own experience; that they did not confuse Party leadership with leadership of the masses, but clearly saw the difference between the former and the latter, thus elaborating tactics not merely as a science of Party leadership but of the leadership of millions of working people.Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the masses cannot assimilate our decisions unless we learn to speak a language which they understand. We do not always know how to speak simply concretely, in images which are familiar and intelligible to the masses. We are still unable to refrain from abstract formulas which we have learnt by rote. As a matter of fact if you look through our leaflets, newspapers, resolutions and theses, you will find that they are often written in a language and style so heavy that they are difficult for even our Party functionaries to understand, let alone the rank-and-file workers.If we consider, Comrades, that the workers, especially in fascist countries, who distribute or only read these leaflets risk their very lives by doing so, we shall realize still more clearly, the need of writing for the masses in a language which they understand, so that the sacrifices made shall not have been in vain.The same applies in no less degree to our oral agitation and propaganda. We must admit quite frankly that in this respect the fascists have often proved more dexterous and flexible than many of our comrades" }
{ "content": "I recall, for example, a meeting of unemployed in Berlin before Hitler's accession to power. It was at the time of the trial of those notorious swindlers and profiteers, the Sklarek brothers, which dragged on for several months. A National Socialist speaker in addressing the meeting made demagogic use of that trial to further his own ends. He referred to the swindlers, the bribery and other crimes committed by the Sklarek brothers, emphasized that the trial had been dragging on for months and figured out how many hundreds of thousands of marks it had already cost the German people. To the accompaniment of loud applause the speaker declared that such bandits as the Sklarek brothers should have been shot without any ado and the money wasted on the trial should have gone to the unemployed.A Communist rose and asked for the floor. The chairman at first refused but under the pressure of the audience, which wanted to bear a Communist, he had to let him speak. When the Communist got up on the platform, everybody awaited with tense expectation what the Communist speak-er would have to say. Well, what did he say?'Comrades,' he began in a loud and ringing voice, 'the Plenum of the Communist International has just closed. It showed the way to the salvation of the working class. The chief task it puts before You. Comrades, is to win the majority of the working class. ... The Plenum pointed out that the unemployed movement must be politicized. The Plenum calls on us to raise it to a higher level.... The Plenum appeals for this movement to be raised to a higher level.'He went on in the same strain, evidently under the impression that he was 'explaining' authentic decisions of the Plenum.Could such a speech appeal to the unemployed? Could they find any satisfaction in the fact that first we intended to politicize, then revolutionize, and finally mobilize them in order to raise their movement to a higher level?Sitting in a corner of the hall, I observed with chagrin how the unemployed. who had been so eager to hear a Communist in order to find out from him what to do concretely, began to yawn and display unmistakable signs of disappointment. And I was not at all surprised when towards the end the chairman rudely cut our speaker short without any, protest from the meeting.This, unfortunately, is not the only case of its kind in our agitational work. Nor were such cases confined to Germany. To agitate in such fashion means to agitate against one's own cause. It is high time to put an end once and for all to these, to say, the least, childish methods of agitation.During my report, the chairman, Comrade Kuusinen, received a characteristic letter from the floor of the Congress addressed to me. Let me read it:In your speech at the Congress, please take up the following question, namely, that all resolutions and decisions adopted in the future by the Communist International be written so that not only trained Communists can get the meaning, but that any working man reading the material of the Comintern might without any preliminary training be able to see at once what the Communists want, and of what service communism is to mankind. Some Party leaders forget this. They Must be reminded of it, and very strongly, too. Also that agitation for communism be conducted in understandable language.I do not know exactly who is the author of this letter, but I have no doubt that this comrade voiced in his letter the opinion and desire of millions of workers. Many of our comrades think that the more highsounding words and the more formulas, often unintelligible to the masses, they use the better their agitation and propaganda, forgetting that the greatest leader and theoretician of the working class of our epoch, Lenin, has always spoken and written in highly popular language, readily understood by the masses.Every one of us must make this a law , a Bolshevik law, an elementary rule:When writing or speaking, always have in mind the rank-and-file worker who must understand you, must believe in your appeal and be ready to follow you. You must have in mind those for whom you write, to whom you speak.CADRESComrades, our best resolutions will remain scraps of paper if we lack the people who can put them into effect. Unfortunately, however, I must state that the problem of cadres, one of the most important questions facing us, has received almost no attention at this Congress.The report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International was discussed for seven days, there were many speakers from various countries, but only a few, and they only in passing, discussed this question, so extremely vital for the Communist Parties and the labour movement, In their practical work our Parties have not yet realize by far that people, cadres, decide everything.A negligent attitude to the problem of cadres is all the more impermissible as we are constantly losing some of the most valuable of our cadres in the struggle. For we are not a learned society but a militant movement which is constantly in the firing line. Our most energetic, most courageous and most class-conscious elements are in the front ranks. It is precisely these front-line men that the enemy hunts down, murders, throws into jail and concentration camps and subjects to excruciating torture, particularly in fascist countries. This gives rise to the urgent necessity of constantly replenishing the ranks, cultivating and training new cadres as well as carefully preserving the existing cadres." }
{ "content": "The problem of cadres is of particular urgency for the additional reason that under our influence the mass united front movement is gaining momentum and bringing forward many thousands of new working-class militants. Moreover, it is not only voting revolutionary elements, not only workers just becoming revolutionary, who have never before participated in a political movement, that stream into our ranks. Very often former members and militants of the Social Democratic Parties also join us. These new cadres require special attention, particularly in the illegal Communist Parties, the more so because in their practical work these cadres with their poor theoretical training frequently come up against very serious political problems which they have to solve for themselves.The problem of what should be the correct policy with regard to cadres is a very serious one for our Parties, as well as for the Young Communist League and for all other mass organizations - for the entire revolutionary labour movement.What does a correct policy. with regard to cadres imply?First, knowing one's people. As a rule there is no systematic study. of cadres in our Parties. Only, recently have the Communist Parties of France and Poland and, in the East, the Communist Party of China, achieved certain successes in this direction. The Communist Party of Germany, before its underground period, had also undertaken a of its cadres. The experience of these Parties has shown that as soon as they began to study their people, Party workers were discovered who had remained unnoticed before. On the other hand, the Parties began to be purged of alien elements who were ideologically and politically harmful. It is sufficient to point to the example of C�lor and Barb� in France who, when put under the Bolshevik microscope, turned out to be agents of the class enemy, and were thrown out of the Party'. In Hungary the verification of cadres made it easier to discover nests of provocateurs, agents of the enemy, who had sedulously, concealed their identity.Second, proper promotion of cadres. Promotion should not be something casual but one of the normal functions of the Party. It is bad when promotion is made exclusively on the basis of narrow Party considerations, without regard to whether the Communist promoted has contact with the masses or not. Promotion should take place on the basis of the ability, of the various Party workers to discharge particular functions, and of their popularity, among the masses. We have examples in our Parties of promotions which have produced excellent results. For instance, we have a Spanish woman Communist, sitting in the Presidium of this Congress, Comrade Dolores. Two years ago she was still a rank-and-file Party-worker. But in the very first clashes with the class enemy she proved to be an excellent agitator and fighter. Subsequently. promoted to the leading body. of the Party, she has proved herself a most worthy member of that body.I could point to a number of similar cases in several other countries, but in the majority of cases promotions are made in an unorganized and haphazard manner, and therefore are not always fortunate. Sometimes moralizers, phrasemongers and chatterboxes who actually harm the cause are promoted to leading positions.Third, the ability to use people to the best advantage. We must be able to ascertain and utilize the valuable qualities of every, single active member. There are no ideal people; we must take them as they are and correct their weaknesses and shortcomings. We know of glaring examples in our Parties of the wrong utilization of good, honest Communists who might have been very useful had they, been given work that they were better fit to do.Fourth, proper distribution of cadres. First of all, we must see to it that the main links of the movement are in the hands of capable people who have contacts with the masses, who have sprung from the grassroots, who have initiative and are staunch. The more important districts should have an appropriate number of such activists. In capitalist countries it is not an easy matter to transfer cadres from one place to another. Such a task encounters a number of obstacles and difficulties, including lack of funds, family considerations, etc., difficulties which must be taken into account and properly overcome. But usually we neglect to do this altogether.Fifth, systematic assistance to cadres. This assistance should consist in detailed instruction, in friendly check-up, in correction of shortcomings and errors, and in concrete day-to-day guidance of cadres.Sixth, care for the preservation of cadres. We must learn promptly to withdraw Party workers to the rear whenever circumstances so require and replace them by others. We must demand that the Party, leadership, particularly in countries where the Parties are illegal, assume paramount resposibility for the preservation of cadres. The proper preservation of cadres also presupposes a highly efficient organization of secrecy in the Party. In some of our Parties many, comrades think that the Parties are already prepared for the event of illegality even though they, have reorganized them only formally, according to ready-made rules. We had to pay very dearly for having started the real work of reorganization only after the Party had gone underground under the direct heavy blows of the enemy. Remember the severe losses the Communist Party of Germany suffered during its transition to underground conditions. Its experience should serve as a serious warning to those of our Parties which today are still legal but may lose their legal status tomorrow.Only, a correct policy in regard to cadres will enable our Parties to develop and utilize all available forces to the utmost, and obtain from the enormous reservoir of the mass movement ever fresh reinforcements of new and] better active workers.What should be our main criterion in selecting cadres?First, absolute devotion to the cause of the working class, loyalty to the Party, tested in face of the class enemy - in battle, in prison, in court." }