PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN SOCIALISM 37 36 THE CLASS STRUGGLE contagious. It is admitted that if Germany becomes definitely Bolshevik, all Europe will become Bolshevik. And then?
Inevitably, this will develop revolutionary currents in the United States, will develop other revolutions, will accelerate and energize the proletarian struggle. The United States will then become the center of reaction: and imperative will become our own revolutionary struggle. Is American Socialism prepared for the struggle? It is not; and it is necessary that we prepare ideologically and theoretically for the final revolutionary struggle in our own country which may come in six months, or in six years, but which will come; prepare for that final struggle which alone can make the world safe for Socialism.
success is assured? That is hopelessly petty bourgeois and reactionary; that is the contemptible attitude of majority Socialism everywhere. When war was declared, majority Socialism justified its acceptance and justification of the war upon the miserable plea that, since the proletariat had not answered the declaration of war with an immediate revolution, the only other course was acceptance of the war. But the revolutionary Socialist declared: no one counted upon an immediate revolution; the war creates a revolutionary crisis, which compels us to carry on an uncompromising propaganda for the revolution; the proletariat may not immediately answer this call to revolutionary action, byt the Socialist must persist; sooner or later, the answer will come, and we must prepare by means of an intensive agitation for the revolution.
The moderate Socialist, who is corrupted by the mercantile ideals of the petite bourgeoisie, justifies a policy only if it is capable of immediate success. That is not the policy of Socialism. The question is: is particular agitation in accord with Socialism, with the prevailing situation and the tendency of the revolutionary proletariat? If it is, do not fear; success must come.
Our campaign against intervention, which is our immediate revolutionary task, must proceed together with the emphasizing of the revolutionary implications of the policy of intervention: that it is an expression of the international class struggle, a struggle between Imperialism and Socialism, and that the struggle against intervention is simultaneously a struggle for Socialism. Equally, the revolutionary implications of Bolshevism must be emphasized: that is a necessary part of our task, a necessary aspect of awakening the proletariat and preparing it for action.
The policy of revolutionary Socialism is a policy applicable to immediate and ultimate problems; the revolutionary struggle is not alone phase of the Revolution, it precedes and prepares the Revolution. Revolutionary agitation is itself an act of revolution.
The revolutionary crisis in Europe is spreading, becoming Revolutionary Socialism does not mean the abandonment of the immediate struggle; it engages aggressively in this struggle. But revolutionary Socialism accepts that struggle, or phase of the immediate struggle, which is fundamental; and pursues this struggle by means in accord with revolutionary Socialism, promoting the final struggle, and developing reserves for the revolutionary conquest of power.
While the moderate Socialist nobly wages the class struggle by conciliating the petite bourgeoisie, by introducing in legislative bodies bureaucratic reform measures, by ascribing to parliamentarism a creative and revolutionary significance which it does not possess, the revolutionary Socialist accepts a proletarian ideology, engages in the aggressive mass and industrial struggles of the proletariat, awakens in the proletariat a consciousness of its control of industry, out of the mass strikes of the proletariat the revolutionary Socialist tries to develop more effective forms of organization and means of struggle. Socialism is the class struggle this is decisive in our policy. The moderate Socialist depends upon the petty bourgeois parliamentary struggles, and degrades politics; the revolutionary Socialist depends upon the proletarian mass struggle, and makes politics one phase, and an auxiliary phase, of the proletarian struggle. Vary as the