Justice, Bax and Consistency

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Letters to Editor

Dear Comrade,

It is not my wish to trespass a second time upon the limited apace of Justice, but the paragraph, “save us from our friends” in your issue of November 14, mid some of Bax’s remarks in tide week’s Justice leave me no other choice.

First to the attack in “Save us from our friends.” It is said there that at the last general election I “condemned the opposition of Socialists to the Liberal Party.” This is absolutely contrary to what I really did. Far from criticising your electoral tactics I confined myself to an explanation of the conditions and the difficulties of your fight, where I expressed an opinion other than yours was, when the elections were over, in my appreciation of the result of the elections on the whole. I stated that I could not share the extreme joy over the crushing defeat of the Liberals, because I could not see that it was the result of a protest of the masses against capitalistic Manchesterism The most notable feature of the elections was, in my opinion, a kind of Cesaristic spirit. And besides this, the overwhelming victory of the Conservatives far from improving the electoral chances of Social-Democracy seemed to me to make them worse than before. From all points of view, it spelled retardation rather than acceleration of development. Subsequent events have so far, unfortunately, not contradicted me, but whether I have been right or wrong, it is, at any rate, contrary to fact to say that in my articles I condemned the opposition of Socialists to the Liberal Party.

Not less contrary to fact is it to say that I have championed “to all intents and purposes the infamous doings of the Chartered Company in Matabeleland.” Only personal bias can lead to such an interpretation of what I laid down as the general principle which have to determine the attitude of Socialists in cases where conquered races rise against their conquerors. Or is it really so difficult to see that from the point of view of these principles any infamy committed against savage races can be denounced as severely as from any point of view that may underly your writings on the subject? Do you champion the infamies committed, say, on the Stock Exchange if you oppose the policy of throwing bombs into the crowd of jobbing stockbrokers?

I say “that may underly” your writing, because I have been unable to detect in your treatment of the Matabele and similar questions any consistent and convincing general principle. Instead of a criticism based throughout upon such a principle I find mostly exclamations based upon – pardon the frankness – hysterical moods.

I know not much of the composition of the Chartered Company of South Africa, but if I am not wrongly informed, it is ruled by Tory and Unionist landlords and financiers, not by Liberal Nonconformists who, on the contrary, are in their great majority hostile to it. But whilst on other occasions you call these latter your worst enemies it is now, in this instance, suddenly their political opponents, to whom you ascribe that distinguished position. And if it were worth the while I could adduce any number of similar contradictions. Now, I am not a pharisaical fault-finder, but if you complain of my writing in Germany as rendering your task in this country more difficult, I may be permitted to ask whether such vagaries as described are not a barrier against Social Democracy obtaining in this country the position to which the “number, the seal, and the devotion of its adherents would entitle it?” You say that my writings make it easy for your opponents to maintain that Social-Democracy is, after all, merely an advanced Radical Party. If this shall mean that my writings move only in the direction of political Radicalism the faultiness of the assertion is too obvious to justify any serious refutation. But on the other hand, I strongly maintain that in its political aspect Social-Democracy is advanced Radicalism, and the sooner this is realised and acted upon, the better. The eternal warrings between an impossibilistic revolutionarism and a not lees impossibilistic utopianism must be overcome one day.

There is neither use nor need to deny that the strength of Social Democracy in Germany is to some extent the result of its leading, and leading effectively, the struggle for political reform, for it is still to be proved that democratic reform is contradictory to Socialism, or that it excludes fighting for industrial emancipation. Fer the rest I can only refer to the fact that it is not my article on the Turkish question which gave occasion to the remark that German Social-Democracy is only Radicalism, but the deductions Bax drew from it.

What Bax now brings forward is partly already answered in the above. He mentions the Aborigines’ Protection Society. If I am rightly informed about it, I sympathise very much with its endeavours. I do not want the natives of Africa or any other continent cheated and slaughtered, nor do I advocate forcing upon them modes of life for which their climate makes them unfit. If I maintained and maintain the right of the higher civilisation over the lower – and it is inconceivable to me how a Socialist can deny it – this does not mean that the latter has no rights at all, and that the rights of the former do not impose also duties. Put from my standpoint is a thoroughly humane handling of the native question indicated, whilst with Bax is all is dependent upon fancies and supposed momentary interests.

Have I, indeed, to take seriously an argumentation such as Bax on his retreat now puts forward in regard of the Armenian question? No Armenian nationality because thereby “the successful Armenian money-lender might disport himself as a ministerial big-wig.” What reform cannot be opposed by such objections? And why denounce the Anarchists if we use their arguments? The Armenians, by the way, want no national autonomy to become big-wigs. There have been plenty of such in Russia and Turkey.

Bax imagines he strikes a terrible blow if he asks me what Italy has gained by her national freedom and unity. He could as well have asked me what the British workmen have gained by their freedom of combination or their electoral franchise. For many foolish strikes have been entered and l0st since 182S, and few working-class representatives have been elected since 1867 or 1887. Further, is Bax really unable to distinguish between primitive slavery and the slave trade? Does he still believe in the fairy tale of the well-fed and well-treated chattel slave? And is he quite ignorant of the fact that in the south of the United States negroes have today all kinds of schools, from elementary schools to universities, that they have trade unions, a great variety of benefit, educational, and entertaining societies, and that thousands of them practise skilled trades and higher professions? All this may be very little in the eyes of one who has only sneers for the conception of the “höhere Kultur.” But if it is not a higher state of civilisation, Bax, we want to help into existence what are wo striving for? Is Socialism only a feeding question? Is it only a whim of surfeit?

So far, from all Bax has said, I cannot for the world detect where my having ceased to be a Social-Democrat comes in. If he wants, like me, the Armenians freed from Turkish misrule, wherefore the alarm? If it is my review of Hyndman’s Economics why not at once take up the cudgels? I agree that Justice is not the right place for the discussion, but if Bax will strike me down at the place where the sin was committed, he is most heartily invited. As he likes quotations, he will allow me to invite him with Figaro’s song:

,

“Will einst das Gräflein ein Tänzchenwagen, Mag er’s nur sagen, ich spiel’ ihm auf.”em>

London, November 28.

Eduard Bernstein

* * *

[It is impossible in the limits of a note to deal with all the points raised in the curious misrepresentation of our position contained in the above. But a reference to Bernstein’s letters to the Daily Chronicle after the General Election, and to his article in reply to Bax, will show ample justification for the note to which he here refers. We said that our difficulties were increased by men like Bernstein taking sides with our enemies against us. We were assailed for attacking the Liberal party at the General Election. Bernstein, in a letter to a Liberal newspaper, says ditto to that paper by strongly condemning our action. We have denounced as hypocritical the Armenian agitation; Bernstein says we are wrong. We have consistently condemned the massacres of the Matabele. If there is any meaning in words Bernstein’s article was a condonation of those massacres. The charge of inconsistency we leave to our readers, only pointing out that we have never lost an opportunity of condemning British filibustering against any race, or in any form. We do not recognise the distinction between the Chartered Company and the Liberal Party which Bernstein seeks to draw. The Chartered Company has about as many apologists on one side as the other. Politics do not interfere with business. Our friend Bernstein is entirely and absolutely mistaken in suggesting personal bias. The only feeling which prompted our note was regret that one for whom we have so much regard, if only for his past work, as we have for Bernstein, should have given our enemies so many stones to throw at us. – Ed.]