STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (First drafted by Engels) September 17-18 1879 A Private Circulation Letter from Marx and Engels to Germany‘s Social-Democratic leadership -- Bebel, Liebknecht, Fritzsche, Geiser, Hasenclever, Bracke This was largely in response to an August 1879 article written by Karl Hochberg, Eduard Bernstein, and Carl August Schramm, entitled "Retrospects on the Socialist Movement in Germany". The magazine piece advocated transforming the German Social-Democratic party from a revolutionary to a reformist platform. It is an unavoidable phenomenon, well established in the course ofdevelopment, that people from the ruling class also join the proletariatand supply it with educated elements. This we have already clearlystated in the Manifesto. Here, however, two remarks are to be made:FIRST, such people, in order to be useful to the proletarian movement,must bring with them really educated elements. This, however, is notthe case with the great majority of German bourgeois converts. Neitherthe _Zukunft_ [fortnightly Berlin magazine] nor the _Neue Gesellschaft_[monthly Zurich periodical] has provided anything to advance themovement one step. They are completely deficient in real, factual, ortheoretical material. Instead, there are efforts to bring superficialsocialist ideas into harmony with the various theoretical viewpointswhich the gentlemen from the universities, or from wherever, bring withthem, and among whom one is more confused than the other, thanks to theprocess of decomposition in which German philosophy finds itself today. Instead of first studying the new science [scientific socialism]thoroughly, everyone relies rather on the viewpoint he brought with him,makes a short cut toward it with his own private science, andimmediately steps forth with pretensions of wanting to teach it. Hence,there are among those gentlemen as many viewpoints as there are heads;instead of clarifying anything, they only produce arrant confusion --fortunately, almost always only among themselves. Such educatedelements, whose guiding principle is to teach what they have notlearned, the party can well dispense with. SECOND, when such people from other classes join the proletarianmovement, the first demand upon them must be that they do not bring withthem any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices, butthat they irreversibly assimilate the proletarian viewpoint. But thosegentlemen, as has been shown, adhere overwhelmingly to petty-bourgeoisconceptions. In so petty-bourgeois a country as Germany, suchconceptions certainly have their justification, but only _outside_ theSocial-Democratic Labor party. If the gentlemen want to build asocial-democratic petty-bourgeois party, they have a full right to doso; one could then negotiate with them, conclude agreements, etc.,according to circumstances. But in a labor party, they are a falsifyingelement. If there are grounds which necessitates tolerating them, it isa duty _only_ to tolerate them, to allow them no influence in partyleadership, and to keep in mind that a break with them is only a matterof time. In any case, the time seems to have come. It is inconceivable to us how the party can any longer tolerate in itsmidst the authors of that [Hochberg, Bernstein, Schramm] article. Ifthe party leadership more or less falls into the hands of such people,the party will simply be emasculated and, with it, an end to theproletarian order. So far as we are concerned, after our whole past only one way is open tous. For nearly 40 years we have raised to prominence the idea of theclass struggle as the immediate driving force of history, andparticularly the class struggle between bourgeois and the proletariat asthe great lever of the modern social revolution; hence, we can hardly goalong with people who want to strike this class struggle from themovement. At the founding of the International, we expressly formulatedthe battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. We cannot, therefore, go along with people are openly claim that theworkers are too ignorant to emancipate themselves but must first beemancipated from the top down, by the philanthropic big and pettybourgeois. Should the new party organ take a position that correspondswith the ideas of those gentlemen, become bourgeois and not proletarian,then there is nothing left for us, sorry as we should be to do so, thanto speak out against it publicly and dissolve the solidarity withinwhich we have hitherto represented the German party abroad. But we hopeit will not come to that. This letter is to be communicated to all the five members of theCommittee in Germany, as well as Bracke.... On our part, we have no objection to this being communicated to thegentlemen in Zurich. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ transcribed by zodiac@io.org report errors to that address