ISR associate editor and Dietzgen scholar Marcus Hitch intervenes in the debate between Left and Right in the Socialist Party over questions of violence, ‘sabotage,’ and direct action raised by William D. Haywood and Frank Bohn’s ‘Industrial Socialism’ manifesto. Hitch particularly raises the role of the Supreme Court in the United States, invoking Lincoln’s inaugural addresses in this fine essay.

‘Violence in Class Struggles’ by Marcus Hitch from the International Socialist Review. Vol. 12 No. 8. February, 1912.

LOGIC, says Joseph Dietzgen, the proletarian logician, is the art of making proper distinctions and, of course, also proper combinations. There has been quite a teapot tempest lately in the Socialist press over a certain pamphlet containing these words:

“He [the Socialist worker] retains absolutely no respect for the property rights of the profit takers. He will use any weapon which will win his fight. He knows that the present laws of property are made by and for the capitalists. Therefore, he does not hesitate to break them. He knows that whatever action advances the interests of the working class is right, because it will save the workers from destruction and death.”

Critics of the pamphlet have claimed that this amounts to preaching violence and is contrary to accepted Socialist doctrine. Let us see if by applying the art of making proper distinctions and combinations, we can throw any light on the question. There are many different ways of carrying on the class war, but those which concern us just now are two only, viz: political action and what is commonly called violence, that is, direct injury to persons or property. Both of these methods are recognized by European Socialists, but not in all cases; they make certain distinctions. In constitutional states, where there is a free ballot, they discountenance violence; in despotic states where the ballot is denied, anything goes and no questions asked. As we took our Socialist theory from Europe, it was perfectly natural to accept this classification of states and apply it to America. We have a free ballot; ergo violence here is unjustified. Q.E.D. Except, of course, when the defeated party refuses to surrender the offices to the victorious candidate, then we are told to mount the barricades.

The fallacy in this chain of reasoning lies in the major premise, viz: the assumption that all free ballot states are alike and belong in the same class, which is not true. We must apply the art of making further distinctions, Here no less a personage than President Taft himself gives us valuable assistance. His message, vetoing the proposed Arizona Constitution, was considered of such fundamental importance as to justify an innovation. It was printed in pamphlet form, and under the special franking privilege of the White House, was mailed broadcast to lawyers throughout the country—we assume to all lawyers whose addresses. were obtainable. We do not recall that the presidential influence has ever been used in this manner before. This message, referring to the power of the Supreme Court to nullify acts of Congress, says: “This power conferred on the Judiciary in our form of government is UNIQUE in the history of governments, and its operation has attracted and deserved the admiration and commendation of the world. It gives to our Judiciary a position higher, stronger and more responsible than that of the Judiciary of any other country.” Taft is right. The United States stands unique in the world and forms a class by itself among the free ballot states. It is free ballot in name only, but is in fact a judicial despotism, as the American working class knows too well from bitter experience. But the European comrades know nothing of this kind of a state, and therefore, their doctrine as to the use or non-use of violence does not fit here. Remember now that this power of the Court is not expressly granted by the Constitution, is generally admitted to be a usurped power, has never lacked vigorous challengers, and is justified by its defenders and by the Court itself on the ground of alleged necessity and failure of the Constitutional Convention to reach any agreement on the subject.

If, therefore, violence is justified in a state where there is no ballot and also in a state where the result of the ballot is resisted by the defeated party, what shall be done in a state where the result of the ballot is systematically defeated by five out of nine Supreme Court judges? These judges are appointed for life, are accountable to no one and are practically beyond impeachment; they shield themselves behind a Constitution which is substantially unamendable except by civil war or by these same judges themselves. Wherein are five judicial despots under a fossilized constitution any better than a single autocratic Czar?

In his first inaugural address in 1861 President Lincoln, referring to the Dred Scott case, said: “The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

The contempt of the working class by the Courts has evoked a growing contempt of the Courts by the working class. The Socialist Party has done good work in bringing this about and has no more important duty than to disillusionize the working class as to the alleged impartiality of the Courts in matters relating to class interests. Pure and simple Jeffersonian democracy is as impotent as pure and simple trades unionism. Socialism can come by the ballot only if the ethics and organization of the working class are strong enough to shame the Courts out of countenance. If we pledge ourselves in advance to acquiesce passively in every indignity that is heaped upon us, rest assured that the Courts will not hesitate to nullify all victories at the polls, no matter how overwhelming they appear to be. Nothing will stop them short of the conviction of impending social disaster, made palpably real by the organized solidarity of the working class, with moral views independent and beyond the reach of capitalist influence.

The misuse of the President’s office and authority in an attempt to prejudice and stampede, as it were, the legal profession of the whole nation by such sophistry as is contained in this message in support of a usurped judicial power, cannot be too severely condemned. But it shows how vital the point is recognized to be. It is indeed the final citadel of capitalism in the United States. We have recently seen the power of the British Lords broken by a seriously meant threat to double their number; this expedient, though legal in form, is in reality a sort of violence. But this quasi-legal expedient cannot be used in the United States for the simple reason that a law doubling the number of the Supreme Court judges could be declared unconstitutional by the Court itself.

When the Republican party was fighting slavery, its motto was, “Anything for human rights is constitutional” (Charles Sumner). Human rights at that time meant wage labor instead of slave labor, and the motto has now come to mean, to the Republican party, anything for capital is constitutional. But the working class may also accept this same motto in a truer meaning. As the only representative of all humanity, it may justly say, Anything for the working class is constitutional.

“Our claim that the end sanctifies the means can have absolute validity only in regard to some absolute end. But all concrete ends are relative and finite. The one and sole absolute end is human welfare, and it is an end which sanctifies all rules and actions, all means, so long as they are subservient to it, but which rejects them as soon as they go their own way without serving it. Human weal is literally and historically the origin of the holy” (Dietzgen, Nature of Human Brain Work, p. 158).

To sum up: Legally, violence is never justified; tactically it is justified or not, according to circumstances; morally it is always justified on the part of an exploited class. What Socialist does not justify the English suffragettes in using violence to get the ballot? How often are Socialists in American cities today compelled to use force to maintain their right of free speech, while the indignities heaped upon them are dished up in the capitalist press as a pleasant joke? Witness Spokane and many other places. Who, knowing all the facts, does not morally justify the Paris Commune and also the Chicago Anarchists of 1886? But they suffered the penalty of a tactical mistake in giving up politics and taking to the barricades after being repeatedly cheated out of elections,

To justify violence is not to advocate it. The fact that justifiers of violence do not habitually put their views into practice is no reproach; Socialist employers do not pay their employes the full product of their labor, neither do they, refuse to accept rent and interest. A system of ethics or economics cannot be practiced by a single individual alone.

As to what is tactically wise or unwise, opinions will always differ; but as to what is morally justified there should be no disagreement, and a comrade should not be reproached morally for what is only a difference in judgment as to tactics. The Socialist ethic has nothing to conceal and nothing which cannot be discussed, It is the capitalist ethic which will not stand the light of investigation. Nothing will stop a capitalist so quick as to ask him to sit down and go over deliberately the field of capitalist morality. He will plead that he has no time and is not interested in academic questions. He knows that murder is murder and that is the end of his Latin. Let us then not be terrorized by capitalist moralists into a denunciation of every act of violence as morally unjustified, however unwise it may have been. Capitalistic labor leaders may vie with each other in expressing their moral indignation at such acts; but the rank and file will keep still and take such talk with a grain of salt. The still, small voice within whispers that murder is not always murder; it is sometimes war; but most generally it is profit for the capitalist class, and it will not wholly disappear until profit itself disappears. This month we celebrate Lincoln’s birthday. Extracts from his speeches will be repeated with applause in thousands of gatherings. Yet what Socialist ever did or ever could exceed the terrible threat contained in his second inaugural address in 1865. “If it be God’s will that this war continue until the wealth piled up by bondsmen by two hundred and fifty years’ unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash [we say drawn for profit] shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v12n08-feb-1912-ISR.riaz-ocr.pdf