78 79 THE CLASS STRUGGLE SOCIALISTS AND WAR very justly attacks. And in an article in The New Review, July, 1914, in discussing a certain school of Socialists, said: They neglected individual psychology, assuming that for all practical purposes it was sufficient to know that the social milieu conditions psychology. But that it not sufficient. While socially conditioned, individual psychology nevertheless becomes an indefendent factor in the social process as a whole, obedient to laws and motives of its own; laws and motives which men engaged in organizing human forces must comprehend if they desire success.
Nor is it true that romanticism was the curse of the Socialist movement. It may have been in the case of La Monte, but not of the movement in which he was a factor. The curse of the Socialist movement has been its readiness to discard its ideals, to look upon these ideals as pious aspirations, and to meekly accept the facts of life. It was the greatest American opportunist of all, Victor Berger, who, whenever he argued for an abandonment of revolutionary Socialism, hurled the classic phrase, It is a condition, not a theory, that confronts us. That has been the obstacle in our path not our romanticism. The revolutionist was accused of neglecting the facts of life. It was upon this basis that German Socialism abandoned its revolutionary traditions. Surely, La Monte will not accuse Scheidemann, Wolfgang Heine and the whole pack of German Social Patriots of romanticism! They are facing the temporary facts of life, they are making their compromise with these facts. The whole international Socialist movement made this compromise, accepting the immediate at the sacrifice of the ultimate. And it is against this compromise that we protest. Not because we are romantic, but because we face reality, because we are not afraid of reality, because we know that the compromise is a temporary one, made with temporary facts, and that through struggle we shall succeed.
Reality is a varying thing. There are all sorts and conditions of reality. The reality of the conservative is different from the reality of the revolutionist. great deal depends upon your interpretation of reality. In a world dominated by a complexity of factors, we can all find the particular reality we desire. Among the contemporary facts of life is the war against Germany, and its idealism, and the collapse of the International; but equally among these facts is the Russian Revolution and the against thewar minority in the European Socialist movement. Which reality shall we cleave to. The one may to day be stronger than the other: but since when did the revolutionist count the odds against him?
It is precisely because we revolutionary Marxists believe that the proletariat is composed of men and women of flesh and blood that we do not despair. The men and women in Russia who a year ago apparently enthusiastically accepted the war, to day are a revolutionary factor and against the war. But they are the same men and women, with the same flesh and blood. And tomorrow their comrades in the other belligerent nations may equally become a revolutionary factor. Our ideals are planted upon the reality of economic facts plus the reality of human needs and aspirations. Nor do we idealize the proletariat, or conceive them as being supermen. We who have been fighting the proletariat organized in the of for its misdeeds cannot be accused of that error. We dare to go against the proletariat, to condemn the proletariat, when it takes the road to wrong and infamy.
The culture of the bourgeois, as culture is measured to day, is superior to that of the proletariat. The culture of the barbarian hordes that overthrew the Roman Empire was inferior to that of the Romans, but the invasion gave a new impetus to progress.
The culture of the Northmen that overran France was an inferior product, but their virility gave a new impetus to poetry, art and culture generally. The culture of the people that made the French Revolution wasn much to boast of, but they created a new society out of which developed a finer culture. The culture of the Czar and his bureaucrats was infinitely superior to the soldiers and workmen that made the revolution, but mark the contrast in aspirations! The things worth while in this war have not come from the cultured gentlemen of the Wilhelmstrasse, nor of Paris and Downing Street, nor from the marvellously cultured scholar who occupies the White House. No!
The things worth while have come from the Russian Revolution made by the peasants and the proletariat. The culture of to day