Clarity, Collection, Organization.

In his article “Problems of Young Socialism in Austria” in numbers 12 and 13 of “Arbeiterpolitik”, Comrade Dickmann earns the merit of answering anew the three fundamental questions of proletarian politics: opinion on parliamentarism, opinion on the struggle for small reforms (the work of charitable associations) and the question of founding an independent radical left party, and thus putting them up for debate.

Let us also try to arrive at a clear position, first of all on parliamentarism. It is true that for the radical left the approval of the budget is not the shibboth [shibboleth?] It was not the approval of the war credits that was the fall from grace, it was the culmination of a policy that had already begun 15 years earlier, and that was the reason for the great flight of the government socialists. All socialist principles were thrown overboard as ballast, just as a soldier on the run throws off all useless fatigues, all medals and insignia, all ornaments.

The historical development and the historical necessity of the parliamentary struggle of the past epoch is essentially correct. Soon after the outbreak of the war, the party press wrote: “A proletarian party that is strong enough to fight for reforms that improve the present situation of the proletarians must fight for them. A party that can gain a stronger influence on the politics of the state knows how to win it.” - And further: “To the extent that the strengthening of national capitalism caused conflicts of interest to open up within the bourgeois classes themselves, to the extent that the economically weaker and weakest section of the bourgeois classes, in its opposition to big capital, saw itself dependent on the support of the strengthening proletarian organizations, a union of social democracy with petty-bourgeois groups became possible and thus necessary.”

So far, then, it is admitted that parliamentarism, although it is nothing but a means of rule by the bourgeoisie, could at a certain epoch also be made useful to the proletarian class struggle. But it is not true when, as Otto Bauer is quoted as saying, “Parliamentarism was once the tool of the bourgeoisie to smash the old feudal society. Parliamentarianism will one day be the tool to unhinge capitalist society.” This is not true: after a new power had been born within the old feudal society, the power of money, it was the revolutionary acts of the peasants and workers of Paris that smashed the old state.

In parliamentarism, the bourgeoisie established its rule and clipped its revolutionary claws. Just as, according to Hilferding, the act of exchange on the market unites society, which has been broken up by the division of labor and private property, into a whole, so parliament is the place where the administration, which has been divided into individual enterprises, comes together again. There the common administrative business is done. Everyone appears there in the same strength as outside on the market. We see this every day in the house of universal suffrage. And the gentlemen who presented real power outside have always been in favor of “direct action”, even if it was not always as conspicuous as in the most recent period.

No, the parliamentary fencer's stage never becomes the real proletarian battlefield. The real power of the proletariat lies outside in its natural strength. It will fight its real battles as a mass and as the commodity of labor power. Parliament may be used as a tribune from which to shout a hot appeal to the masses. But it will never be in a position to approve the budget. A real class struggle party will always be a hopeless minority in the bourgeois parliament. The ruling class sees to that through its rules of procedure, election mode, etc. A workers' party that represents a real power outside parliament, that fights real battles there, can deny itself the right to always be present at every commission. In the class parliament, class interests and class instincts decide; you can't talk the rulers down like a sick horse.

Even right-wing politicians like August Winnig in number 98 of the “Hamburger Echo” have understood what is going on and give Dickmann the answer to his consideration for the “charitable associations”, even if Winnig, true to his position, clings to the legal form, to parliamentary expression.

After pointing out the strengthening of the organizational system of entrepreneurs, Winnig writes: “The new, forthcoming social law will essentially mean increased participation of public authority in the formation of the employment relationship.” To then continue one paragraph later:

“The development indicated here makes the significance of the political struggle of wage laborers and employees appear in a much brighter light. The character of state power will henceforth determine not only taxes and electoral questions, armaments and trade policy, but also the position of the masses in the labor relationship. If the political struggle thus becomes an outstanding necessity, it will also rouse the masses to their utmost depths and draw them under its spell. It is not convictions and ideals, but the miserably felt interests in the employment relationship that will lead the masses into the political gears.”

After calling on wage laborers to unity of action, he writes: “This disunity was able to develop and maintain itself because the questions of labor relations are decided within a locally and professionally limited framework. This time is over. Certainly, conflicts will arise again and again in individual professions, in individual places and in individual companies. But the foundations of the future labor constitution and working conditions will be decided in a few broad strokes.”

With this we leave August Winnig, perhaps time will teach him too how the working class can victoriously wage political power struggles. Thus the foundations of the labor constitution and working conditions have been decided in a few broad strokes. Nothing better proves the necessity of a unitary organization, the necessity of a radical left party. But it cannot be created out of thin air. Let us found organizations wherever we can. Where the working masses consciously come together to form a unitary organization, the radical left party will grow organically. Let us take advantage of the coming struggles. Let us found independent organizations wherever conditions permit. Even if we appear to be no more than a propaganda group today, let us rely on the most energetic section of the workers and consciously show them the path they must take if they do not want to condemn themselves to powerlessness in the face of the employers.