{"id":3381,"date":"2018-09-01T02:57:33","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T02:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/?page_id=3381"},"modified":"2018-09-01T06:33:17","modified_gmt":"2018-09-01T06:33:17","slug":"social-democracy-serves-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/volume-9-number-11\/social-democracy-serves-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Democracy Serves Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Must Mobilize Directly for a Communist World<\/span><\/h3>\n

Capitalism\u2019s crises are deepening. Many are seeking alternatives. Ruling-class elements, fearing the alienated masses, are promoting \u201cdemocratic socialism\u201d (or Social Democracy).<\/p>\n

Not for the first time! We must learn important lessons from our history. One is Social Democracy\u2019s betrayal of the international working class. Another is the failure of the Communist International\u2019s \u201cUnited Front Against Fascism\u201d strategy. This two-part article argues that we must rely on the working class to fight for a communist society: \u201cFrom each according to ability and commitment, to each according to need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Europe, 1912<\/strong>: War in the Balkans was about to explode into world war. The division of the world among the imperialist powers made that inevitable. The Second International was a coalition of social-democratic parties from nations on five continents. How would it respond? There had been Second International conventions at Stuttgart and Copenhagen in 1907 and 1910. They had agreed (after heated debate) that war was caused by capitalist competition. It was bolstered by \u201cnational prejudices systematically cultivated in the interests of the ruling classes.\u201d Workers should do everything possible to prevent the outbreak of war. If this failed, they should try to end it quickly. They should use the crises created by war \u201cto hasten the breakdown of the predominance of the capitalist class.\u201d The International took a sharper position in the Basel Manifesto of 1912. \u201cCapitalist imperialism\u201d was causing the conflicts breaking out everywhere. War \u201ccannot be justified on the slightest pretext of being in the least in the interests of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers must \u201cconsider it a crime to shoot each other down in the interest and for the profit of capitalism.\u201d The ruling classes were afraid of workers\u2019 revolution. And they should be.<\/p>\n

World War I broke out in 1914<\/strong>. Most of these socialist parties treacherously abandoned proletarian internationalism. They rushed to \u201cdefend the fatherland.\u201d They lied that socialists \u201chad not decided\u201d the question of war. World socialism split in two at the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference.<\/p>\n

On one side: Socialists whose parliamentary parties voted for war credits \u201cfor the purpose of plunder, carving up the world, acquiring markets, and enslaving nations.\u201d (Lenin)<\/p>\n

On the other side: Russian Bolsheviks and others \u2014 like Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany \u2014 who upheld the call for revolutionary civil war. This \u201cZimmerwald Left\u201d would become, in 1919, the core of the Third (Communist) International. Just two years later they led masses to take power in Russia.<\/p>\n

This split between social democrats and communists exactly paralleled the long-simmering split between opportunism (trade-union reformism) and revolutionary politics. In both cases, social-democracy exposed itself as the junior partner of capitalism.<\/p>\n

Social-democrats were happy to put forward radical-sounding slogans that helped the rulers distract the masses from revolution. And when the rulers needed to mobilize the masses for world war, the social-democrats openly substituted patriotism for class struggle.<\/p>\n

Remember this as the reformist program of the new US social-democratic superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says: \u201cWe [the USA] can become stronger by \u2026saving our armed forces only for when they\u2019re truly needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defeat of the German empire in 1919<\/strong> opened the door to revolution. The German Naval Command ordered a desperate final battle with the British Navy. German sailors led revolts in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel. Civil unrest spread and the emperor abdicated.<\/p>\n

Leaders of the powerful Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) prevented the establishment of workers\u2019 power. They opposed the creation of councils (Soviets) of workers and soldiers like the ones that the Bolsheviks had created in Russia.<\/p>\n

Instead, they continued their tradition of class collaboration and reformism. They created a parliamentary system that included German capitalists and their army.<\/p>\n

The new Communist Party of Germany (KPD), inspired by the Bolshevik October Revolution, led a general strike and armed uprising in January 1919. Their newspaper was Die Rote Fahne (\u201cThe Red Flag\u201d).<\/p>\n

Workers rose in Berlin, Hamburg, the Ruhr, Bavaria and many other parts of Germany. They were suppressed by anti-communist Freikorps (militia) thugs, in bloody street battles, on orders from the SPD leadership. Key KPD leaders were assassinated.<\/p>\n

The KPD regrouped and grew as part of the Communist International. It became the largest communist party in Europe. In Germany, as elsewhere, the democratic socialists of the 2nd International fought bitterly against the communists of the 3rd International.<\/p>\n

The second part of this article will discuss the deadly errors of the KPD and the Communist International. They retreated from revolution, opting instead for electoral and trade-union politics. They too sought coalitions with \u201clesser-evil\u201d capitalist-imperialists in a \u201cunited front against fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have learned from their mistakes to mobilize masses for communism, now and always.<\/p>\n

Front page of this issue<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Must Mobilize Directly for a Communist World Capitalism\u2019s crises are deepening. Many are seeking alternatives. Ruling-class elements, fearing the alienated masses, are promoting \u201cdemocratic socialism\u201d (or Social Democracy). Not for the first time! We must learn important lessons from our history. One is Social Democracy\u2019s betrayal of the international working class. Another is the … Continue reading Social Democracy Serves Capitalism<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2286,"parent":3359,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3381","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3381"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3386,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3381\/revisions\/3386"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icwpredflag.org\/wp\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}