CURRENT AFFAIRS 131 130 THE CLASS STRUGGLE of war.
a spirit of pessimism that manifested itself in a policy of narrow, middle class opportunism. The small incidental work of reform became, under his leadership, the centre of gravity of the whole Socialist movement; compromises were made the B of politics. He and with him the Party gave in order to take, and thus inevitably lost all largeness of will and of action.
Friedrich Adler, Fritz as he was called, is a natural scientist, and has made a name for himself in this capacity. And as a scientist it was natural that he should oppose this small minded point of view, the shopkeepers policy of his Party. He recognized the dangers that threatened the whole movement from the pursuit of such tactics, and feared that they would ultimately estrange the working class from Socialism to deliver it in the hands of a social reformist bourgeois party.
On the other hand, his quiet studious nature revolted against the idea of loud propaganda, and made it impossible for him 10 place himself, as Karl Liebknecht had done in Germany, at the head of an energetic and determined opposition. He remained the secretary of the Party even after he realized that he was in opposition to every step taken by its leaders. He voiced his criticism in the Kampf, the splendid organ of the Austrian Social Democracy of which he was the editor, calling to his comrades again and again in spite of their complete mental alienation, to reconsider their actions.
He there characterized this political conflict as follows. It is not a scholastic conflict that has brought forth this deep diversity. real political conflict has grown up within the Socialist movement. On the one side are the social imperialists who, consciously or unconsciously, have capitulated to the ruling classes, sacrificing their own policies in order to lend unquestioning support to the policies of the government. On the other side are the minorities who, at the present time, conceive it to be their highest duty to direct the proletariat to a realization of the necessity of using its independent political power, of the necessity of following out the only policy conformable with the policy of the International.
These sentences show that Friedrich Adler did not, like Liebknecht, look upon the differences between the two socialist groups in terms of revolutionary possibilities created by the war. For him it was sufficient that the working class should refuse to bear the responsibility for the great world catastrophe and throw it back upon the shoulders of imperialist capitalism. Like Renner, whom he holds chiefly responsible for the pitiful condition of the Party, he opposed revolutionary illusions. In this respect, he was in full accord with his father. He did not believe in the possibility of large uprisings of the laboring masses in times It was inconceivable to him that labor should possess the power to put an end to the terrible slaughter.
His fatalistic point of view was shared by his friends Dr.
Dannenberg and Dr. Hilferding, the leading spirits of the Austrian opposition, making any real organization of the active Socialist opposition in Austria impossible.
As time went by, however, Friedrich Adler realized the futility of his efforts to reach the leaders of the movement through the Kampf or in their executive meetings. He, therefore, founded a weekly propaganda paper called Das Volk in July, 1916, in order to appeal to the rank and file of the movement, Meanwhile conditions in Austria were going from bad to worse.
Every attempt to speak freely and openly was brutally suppressed. The prisons were crowded. There was no parliament through which one might have spoken indirectly to the masses, meetings could not be held. In short, it had become impossible to reach the party membership by means of any of the regular channels, while the leaders were quietly living their bureaucratic, social patriotic life in calm placidity.
The hopelessness of the existing affairs seems to have worked a change in Fritz Adler. On the day preceding his attack upon Stuergkh he called upon the Executive Committee to arrange mass demonstrations urging that the Party must act or bear the responsibility for the whole Austrian misery in the eyes of the people. But the gentlemen who for two years had supported the government, if not directly and actively at least indirectly by their silence, could not at this late hour, become its accusers.
The Executive voted down Friedrich Adler motions and contented itself with a mild remonstration to the Prime Minister.