While reading the chapter from German Social Democracy, I found it particularly interesting how the German Social Democrats’ evolving interpretations of Marxism (or as Shorske calls one particular brand on page 2, “Marxian Socialism”) varied so greatly and often strayed so far from those of Marx himself, especially since the original Social Democratic Labor Party was cofounded by one of his disciples. Although Shorske notes that the German Socialists did not become “really receptive” to Marxism until after the Gotha Conference and the ensuing counterattacks from Bismarck, the Gotha Program still claimed ties to Marxism. These claims insulted Marx, who in turn wrote the essay Critique of the Gotha Program.
He found the program to be more Lassalian than Marxian, and criticized its demands (universal suffrage, direct legislation) as hackneyed, “nothing beyond the old democratic litany familiar to all”:
It is as if, among slaves who have at last got behind the secret of slavery and broken out in rebellion, a slave still in thrall to obsolete notions were to inscribe on the program of the rebellion: Slavery must be abolished because the feeding of slaves in the system of slavery cannot exceed a certain low maximum!
He also accused Lasalle of being an opportunist who was compromising the goals of the movement in exchange for government concession. It seems like Marx was accusing Lasalle and those who drafted the program of essentially “selling out” so that they could have the backing of the very institution they should have been revolting against.
Only after Bismarck’s repression pressured the German Socialists to drop their goal of attaining their goals “by all legal means” did they fully embrace Marx’s ideology; Marxism was considered the “official gospel” of German Social Democracy as outlined in the 1891 Erfurt program.
Thanks for the article. Rumsfeld is employing a pathetically weak take on myth to mobilize people, it's a tactic that has persisted and apparently been watered down. Your post is an early indicator of a popular trend- that of Marx's ideas flourishing far beyond Marx himself, reaching into modern times in spheres he couldn't anticipate. Just look at Marxist application in anarchist circles (Murray Bookchin).
ReplyDeleteThe dissent that you discuss is at the heart of the problem experienced by the SPD in Germany; it was a forging of two very different strains of Social Democracy. Lasalle believed in democracy and saw universal suffrage as the key to improving the lives of the workers while Marx believed that history proved the inevitability of a proletarian revolution that would destroy the state that Lasalle sought to reform. At its heart, the difference between the two movements lay in their attitude toward revolution versus reform. Hence the great irony that the party advocated revolution with fiery rhetoric while actually working quite effectively for reform.
ReplyDelete