Socialism as it is : $b a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movementWalling, William English
History
Socialism as it is : $b a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movement
Walling, William English
Socialism
Here is a view of the State as far opposed as possible to that of
Kautsky, who says truly that it is "a monster economic establishment,
and its influence on the whole economic life of a nation to-day is
already beyond the power of measurement."[177] For Kautsky, the State is
primarily economic and constructive; for Louis it is purely political
and repressive. Yet Kautsky, like Louis, seems to feel that if the State
were capable of carrying out reforms of any importance to the wage
earners, or if it were admitted that it could do so, it would be
impossible to persuade the workers that a revolution is necessary and
feasible. And so both deny that "State Socialism," which they recognize
as an _intervening stage_ between the capitalism of to-day and
Socialism, is destined to give better material conditions, if less
liberty, than the present society. Both the economic and political
revolutionists are, on such grounds, often tempted to agree with the
reformists of the party and of the labor unions, in leveling their guns
exclusively against the private capitalism of to-day--I might almost say
the capitalism of the past--instead of concentrating their attack on the
evils that will remain undiminished under the State capitalism of the
future. The reformists do this consistently, for they see in the
constructive side of "State Socialism," not a mere continuation of
capitalism, but a large installment of Socialism itself, and have
nothing more to ask for beyond a continuation of such reforms.
Revolutionary Socialists are inconsistent, because they may admit that
the conditions of the working people under "State Socialism" may be far
better than they are to-day, without invalidating their central position
that the greater evils of to-day will remain, and that there will be no
progress towards Socialism, no matter what reforms are enacted, until
the Socialists are either actually or practically in power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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