Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  There is a fine story about Malatesta which I must tell you. He was being prosecuted in a court of law in Italy. The government prosecutor argued that Malatesta’s influence among the workers of the area was very great and that it had entirely changed their character. It was putting an end to criminality and crimes were getting rare. If all crime stopped, what would the courts do? So Malatesta ought to be sent to gaol! And to gaol he was sent for six months.

  Unfortunately anarchism has been identified too much with violence, and people have forgotten that it is a philosophy and an ideal which has appealed to many fine men. As an ideal it is still very far off from our present imperfect world, and our modern civilization is much too complicated for its simple remedies.

  133

  Karl Marx and the Growth of Workers’ Organizations

  February 14, 1933

  About the middle of the nineteenth century there appeared in the world of European labour and socialism a new and arresting personality. This man was Karl Marx, whose name has already appeared in these letters. He was a German Jew, born in 1818, who became a student of law and history and philosophy. He came into conflict with the German authorities because of a newspaper he brought out. He went to Paris, where he came into touch with new people and read the new books on socialism and anarchism, and became a convert to the socialistic idea. Here he met another German, Friedrich Engels, who had settled in England and had become a rich factory-owner in the growing cotton industry. Engels was also unhappy and dissatisfied with existing social conditions, and his mind was seeking remedies for the poverty and exploitation he saw around him. Robert Owen’s ideas and attempts at reform appealed to him, and he became an Owenite, as Owen’s followers were called. The visit to Paris, which led to the first meeting with Karl Marx, changed him also. Marx and Engels henceforward became close friends and colleagues, holding the same views, and working whole-heartedly together for the same cause. They were about the same age. So close was their co-operation that most of the books that they issued were joint books.

  The French Government of the day—it was the time of Louis Philippe—expelled Marx from Paris. He went to London, and there he lived for many years, burying himself in the books of the British Museum. He worked hard and perfected his theories and wrote about them. And yet he was by no means a mere professor or philosopher spinning theories and cut off from ordinary affairs. Whilst he developed and clarified the rather vague ideology of the socialist movement, and placed definite and clear-cut ideas and objectives before it, he also took an active and leading part in the organization of the movement and of the workers. The events that took place in 1848, the year of revolution in Europe, naturally moved him greatly. In that very year he and Engels jointly issued a manifesto which has become very famous. This was the Communist Manifesto, in which they discussed the ideas which lay behind the great French Revolution as well as the subsequent revolts in 1830 and 1848, and pointed out how inadequate and inconsistent they were with actual conditions. They criticized the then prevailing democratic cries of liberty, equality and fraternity, and pointed out that they meant little to the people, and merely gave a pious covering to the bourgeois State. They then briefly developed their own theory of socialism, and ended the manifesto by an appeal to all workers: “Workers of the World, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains, and have a world to win!”

  This appeal was a call to action. Marx followed it up by ceaseless propaganda in newspapers and pamphlets and by efforts to bring the workers’ organizations together. He seems to have felt that a great crisis was coming in Europe, and he wanted the workers to be ready for it so that they might take full advantage of it. According to his socialistic theory, the crisis was indeed bound to occur under the capitalistic system. Writing in a New York newspaper in 1854 Marx said:

  Yet, we must not forget that a sixth power exists in Europe, maintaining at certain moments its domination over all five so-called ‘great powers’, and causing them all to tremble. This power is revolution. After having long dwelt in quiet retirement, it is now again summoned to the field of battle by crises and starvation . . . There is needed only a signal, and the sixth and greatest European power will step forth in shining armour, sword in hand, like Minerva from the brow of the Olympian. The impending European war will give the signal.

  Marx did not prove a correct prophet about the impending revolution in Europe. It took more than sixty years, after he wrote this, and a World War, to bring about the revolution in one part of Europe. An attempt in 1871, the Paris Commune, was, as we have seen, mercilessly crushed.

  In 1864 Marx succeeded in gathering a motley assembly in London. There were many groups calling themselves, rather vaguely, socialists. On the one side, there were democrats and patriots from several European countries under foreign rule whose belief in socialism was in something very distant and who were immediately more interested in national independence; on the other, there were the anarchists out for immediate battle. Besides Marx, the outstanding personality was that of Bakunin, the anarchist leader, who had managed to escape from Siberia three years before, after many years of imprisonment. Bakunin’s followers came chiefly from south Europe, the Latin countries like Italy and Spain, which were industrially backward and undeveloped. They were unemployed intellectuals and other odd revolutionary elements who found no place in the existing social order. Marx’s followers came from the industrial countries, especially Germany, where the workers’ conditions were better. Marx thus represented the growing and organized and relatively well-to-do working class, Bakunin the poorer, unorganized workers and intellectuals and malcontents. Marx was for patient organization and education of the workers in his socialistic theories till the hour came for action, which he expected soon enough. Bakunin and his followers were for immediate action. On the whole Marx won. An “International Working-Men’s Association” was established. This was the first of the Workers’ “Internationals”, as they were called.

  Three years later, in 1807, Marx’s great book, Das Kapital or “Capital”, was published in German. This was the product of his long years of labour in London, and in this he analysed and criticized existing theories of economics and explained at length his own socialistic theory. It was a purely scientific work. He dealt with the development of history and economics dispassionately and scientifically, avoiding all vagueness and idealism. He discussed especially the growth of the industrial civilization of the big machine, and he drew certain far-reaching conclusions about evolution and history and the conflict of classes in human society. This new clear-cut and cogently argued socialism of Marx was therefore called “scientific socialism”, as opposed to the vague “Utopian” or “idealistic” socialism which had so far prevailed. Marx’s Capital is not an easy book to read; indeed, it is about as far removed from light reading as one can imagine. But nonetheless it is of the select company of those few books which have affected the way of thinking of large numbers of people, changed their whole ideology, and thus influenced human development.

  In 1871 came the tragedy of the Paris Commune, perhaps the first conscious socialistic revolt. This frightened European governments and made them harsher to the workers’ movement. The next year there was a meeting of the Workers’ “International”, founded by Marx, and he succeeded in transferring the headquarters of this to New York. Marx did this apparently to get rid of the anarchist followers of Bakunin, and also perhaps because he thought that it would have a safer lodging there than under the European governments, which were angry because of the Paris Commune. But it was not possible for the International to exist so far away from its nerve centres. All its strength lay in Europe, and even in Europe the workers’ movement was having a hard time. So the First International gradually expired.

  Marxism or Marxian socialism spread among European socialists, especially in Germany and Austria, where it was generally known as “social democracy”. England, however, did not take to it kindly. It was too prosperous at the time for any a
dvanced social creed. The British brand of socialism was represented by the Fabian Society with a very mild programme of distant change. The Fabians had nothing to do with the workers. They were advanced liberal intellectuals. George Bernard Shaw was one of the early Fabians. Their policy may be gathered from the famous phrase of another noted Fabian, Sidney Webb: “the inevitability of gradualness”.

  In France it took a dozen years’ slow recovery after the Commune for socialism to become an active force again. But it took a new form there, a cross between anarchism and socialism. This was called “syndicalism” from the French syndicat, a working-men’s organization or trade union. The socialistic theory was that the State, representing society as a whole, should own and control the means of production— that is, land and factories, etc. There was some difference of opinion as to how far this socialization should go. There are obviously many personal things like tools and domestic machines which it might be absurd to socialize. But socialists were agreed that anything which could be used for making private profit out of other people’s work should be socialized, that is, made the property of the State. Syndicalists, like anarchists, did not like the State, and tried to limit its power. They wanted each industry to be controlled by the workers in that industry, by its syndicat. The idea was that the various syndicates would elect representatives to a general council. This council would look after the affairs of the whole country, and act as a kind of parliament for general affairs, without the power to interfere with the inner arrangements of the industry. To bring about this state of affairs syndicalists advocated the general strike, to bring the life of the country to a standstill, and thus gain their objective. The Marxists did not approve of syndicalism at all, but, curiously enough, the syndicalists considered Marx (this was after his death) as one of themselves.

  Karl Marx died in 1883, just fifty years ago. By that time powerful trade unions had grown up in England and Germany and other industrial countries. British industry had seen its best days and was declining in face of the growing competition of Germany and America. America of course had great natural advantages, which helped in rapid industrial growth. Germany was a curious mixture of political autocracy (tempered by a weak and powerless parliament) and industrial advance. The German Government under Bismarck, and even later, helped industry in many ways and tried to win over the working class by social reform which bettered their conditions. In the same way the English Liberals also passed some measures of social reform, lessening hours of work and improving the workers’ lot to some extent. So long as prosperity lasted this method worked, and the English workers remained moderate and subdued and faithfully voted for the Liberals. But in the ’eighties the competition of other countries brought about an end to the long prosperous period, and a trade depression set in England, and the wages of workers fell. So again there was an awakening of the working class, and a revolutionary spirit was in the air. Many people in England began to look to Marxism.

  In 1889 another attempt was made to form a Workers’ International. Many trade unions and labour parties were strong and wealthy now, with large numbers of paid officials. This International formed in 1889 (I think it was called the “Labour and Socialist International”) is called the “Second International”, It lasted for a quarter of a century, till the Great War came to test it and found it wanting. This International had many people in its ranks who later took high office in their countries. Some used the labour movement for their own advancement and then deserted it. They became prime ministers and presidents and the like; they had succeeded in life; but the millions who had helped them on and had faith in them were deserted and left where they were. These leaders, even those who swore by the name of Marx or were fiery syndicalists, went into parliaments, or became well-paid trade-union chiefs, and it became more and more difficult for them to risk their comfortable positions in rash undertakings. So they quietened down, and even when the masses of the workers, forced by desperation, became revolutionary and demanded action, they tried to keep them down. Social democrats of Germany became (after the War) president and chancellor of the Republic; in France Briand, fiery syndicalist preaching the General Strike, became prime minister eleven times and crushed a strike of his old comrades; in England, Ramsay MacDonald became prime minister, and deserted his own Labour Party which had made him; so also in Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Austria. Western Europe today is full of dictators and people in authority who were socialists in their earlier days, but, as they aged, they mellowed down and forgot their old enthusiasm for the cause, and sometimes even turned against their old-time colleagues. Mussolini, the Duce of Italy, is an old socialist; so also is Pilsudski, the Dictator of Poland.

  The labour movement and almost every national movement for independence has often suffered by such defections of its leaders and prominent workers. They grow tired after a while, weary of non-success, and the empty crown of a martyr does not appeal for long. They quieten down and the fire of their enthusiasm takes a duller hue. Some, who are more ambitious or more unscrupulous, walk across to the other side and make individual truce with those they had so far opposed and combated. It is easy enough to reconcile one’s conscience to any step that one desires to take. The movement suffers and has a little setback by this defection, and because those who fight labour and suppress nationalities know this well, they try to win over individuals to their side by all manner of inducements and fair words. But individual preferment or fair words bring no relief to the mass of the workers or to a suppressed nation striving to be free. So despite desertions and setbacks the struggle inevitably goes on to its appointed end.

  The Second International, started in 1889, grew in numbers and respectability. A few years later they turned out the anarchists under Malatesta on the ground that they refused to take advantage of the vote for parliaments. The socialists of the International showed that they preferred parliaments to association with their old comrades in a common struggle. Brave declarations were made by them as to the duty of socialists in the event of war in Europe. Socialists recognized no national boundaries so far as their work was concerned. They were not nationalists in the ordinary sense of the word. They said they would oppose war. But when war did come in 1914 the whole structure of the Second International broke up, and socialists and labour parties in each country, and even anarchists like Kropatkin, became rabid nationalists and haters of the other country, as much as any one else. Only a minority resisted, and as a consequence were made to suffer greatly in many ways, including long terms of imprisonment.

  After the war was over, Lenin started a new Workers’ International in Moscow in 1919. This was a purely communist organization, and only declared communists could join it. This exists now, and is called the Third International. The relics of the old Second International also gradually collected themselves together after the war. A few allied themselves to the new Moscow Third International, but most of them disliked Moscow and its creed intensely and refused to come anywhere near it. They revived the Second International. This also exists now. So that at present there are two International Workers’ organizations, briefly known as the Second and Third Internationals. Strangely enough, they both swear by Marxism, but each has its own interpretation, and yet they hate each other even more than they do their common enemy, capitalism.

  These Internationals do not include all the trade unions and working men’s organizations in the world. Many of them do not belong to either. The American trade unions stand apart because most of them are very conservative. The Indian trade unions also do not belong to either International.

  Perhaps you know the song Internationale. This is the accepted workers’ and socialists’ song all the world over.

  134

  Marxism

  February 16, 1933

  I had intended telling you something in my last letter of the ideas of Marx which created so much commotion in the world of European socialism. But that letter had grown long enough, and I had to hold this over. It is not an easy
subject for me to write about, as I am no expert in it, and, as it happens, even the experts and the pandits differ. I shall only give you some leading characteristics of Marxism, and avoid the difficult parts of it. This will give you rather a patchy picture, but, then, it is not my aim in these letters to provide full and detailed pictures of anything.

  Socialism, I have told you, is of many kinds. There is general agreement, however, that it aims at the control by the State of the means of production—that is, land and mines and factories and the like—and the means of distribution, like railways, etc., and also banks and similar institutions. The idea is that individuals should not be allowed to exploit any of these methods or institutions, or the labour of others, to their own personal advantage. Today most of these are privately owned and exploited, with the result that some people prosper and grow rich, while society as a whole suffers greatly and the masses remain poor. Also a great deal of the energy of even the owners and controllers of these means of production goes at present in fighting each other in cut-throat competition. If instead of this private war there was a sensible arranging of production and a well thought-out distribution, waste and useless competition would be avoided, and the present great inequalities in wealth between different classes and peoples would disappear. Therefore production, and distribution and other important activities should be largely socialized or controlled by the State—that is, by the people as a whole. That is the basic idea of socialism.