S.J. Rutgers offers his insights on the formation of the Independent Socialist Party, and most import for him, the responses of the Left Wing to the new ‘Center’ group led by Karl Kautsky.

‘The New Party in Germany’ by S.J. Rutgers from New International. Vol. 1 No. 7. July 21, 1917.

THE April Conference in Gotha resulted in a new party: The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany.

Does this mean that the Left Wing forces in Germany have united on the basis of a common program, declaring war against the traitors within the old party and an uncompromising fight against the new forces of Imperialism and against all Capitalist wars? On the contrary, it means that the radical Left Wing forces have split into two groups. It is not true that only the rather insignificant group of the International Socialists of Germany (I.S.D.) did not join the new party. The Left Wing groups in Bremen, Hanover and Hamburg, which find their expression in the Arbeiterpolitik, strongly opposed unity with the Center group or “swamp” into one party, and they decided to remain independent. Other groups, i.e., in Duisburg and Berlin VI, also opposed, but finally submitted to the majority of the “International Group.” Our Dutch Left Wing Paper, The Tribune, states, moreover, that Franz Mehring and Karl Liebknecht did not join or approve of the new party.

And those who remember the letter of Liebknecht printed in issue No. 7 of the Internationalist will understand this position. Liebknecht specifically warns against combining with the eighteen of the “neither flesh nor fish” policy: “The formal combination of all kinds of indefinite oppositional feelings and motives is always a great danger, especially so in a time of world changes. This means confusion and dragging along on old lines, it sterilizes and kills the militant elements, which get into this mixed company.”

We should not overlook the fact that the group “Labor Community” tried its best to stay in one party with the Scheidemanns and that they only decided to initiate a new party after they were thrown out of the old Socialist Party. The opinion of the members of the “International group” towards the Center generally is one of contempt, and even the Kampf, the weekly published in Duisburg by members of the International group and in favor of joining the new party, considers this only a temporary measure. The feelings of good will of these Left Wingers towards the Ledebour-Haase-Kautsky group with whom they now unite into one party may be learned from the way the Kampf writes about the “political impotence, helplessness and hopelessness of the so-called opposition, of which the latest peace manifesto of Kautsky is a classical example.” The Kampf goes so far as to call this the refutation of Socialism.

Although joining into one party together with the Center, the members of the “International Group” will continue to carry on their own propaganda and claim full liberty to criticise the “swamp” policy of the “Labor Community.”

One may wonder what arguments could be used to defend the getting together into one party of such heterogeneous elements, especially in view of the fact that the new party did not accept any program of principles or action, which might appeal to the radical Left Wing. In fact, the old by-laws and the program of the old Socialist Party were endorsed and readjustment postponed until after the war. International disarmament and compulsory international arbitration, considered both utopian and reactionary by the followers of Liebknecht and Mehring, were picked up from the dumpheap of bourgeois phraseology, and no definite stand was taken in favor of uncompromisingly rejecting defensive wars. A general statement of relentless opposition against the Majority Party does not make a big impression after you have tried hard to stay in that party as long as possible, and have been thrown out against your will. A relentless opposition against the government lacks force as long as you do not explain by what means this fight has to be carried on. Even the Majority Party now votes against war credits and the Center group did absolutely nothing to encourage the strike movement and develop it into a more general class action.

The two main arguments given for a united party at this moment are as follows: The revolutionary Left Wing puts its hope in mass action and expects to reach greater masses of workers through the new party, because a great part even of those workers who are in opposition to the old methods still look upon the Center as their spiritual leader. This argument may as well be used for any affiliation with even the most reactionary groups of labor, and overlooks the fact that under the present conditions of readjustment clarity of purpose and sharpness of demarcation are most needed.

The second argument is, that mass action will develop only under certain historical conditions. As long as these conditions do not arise, the radical Left Wing is bound to remain a rather small group, criticising and educating without a fair chance for action. As soon, however, as mass actions develop, the Left Wing will become the natural leader anyway, no matter what the form of organization. The form of organization, therefore, is considered of minor importance and we might as well join the “swamp” to get a broader hearing. This argument seems not very strong, because if the organization of our present forces is not considered very important, we might as well form a clear-cut revolutionary group; unhampered by the poisonous gas emanating from every “swamp.” But the whole reasoning is utterly false, because you cannot make this sharp distinction between periods in which mass-movements develop and periods of relative calmness. It may be perfectly relevant that more revolutionary periods sometimes break out with elemental force; this does not do away with the fact that such periods to a certain extent are the outbreak of accumulated influences gathered during a period seemingly barren in developments. In certain revolutionary periods the leadership may fall automatically to the Left Wing, but the results of this leadership greatly depend upon the achievements during the previous period. Results will be influenced by the self-consciousness of the Left Wingers and by whether they are considered reliable, and both of these elements are greatly injured by opportunist coalitions with middle-group Socialists.

The majority of the “International Group” evidently thinks that it can have this freedom within the new “Independent Party.” Another part and probably the most active part is convinced that under present conditions affiliation with the Center in a regular party without any half-way acceptable program is bound to become a failure, even when accepted only as a temporary measure.

This means a regretful split in the Left Wing, and developments in Germany since do not show an increase in revolutionary spirit or action. It is a specific feature of any “swamp” to swallow whoever struggles to keep his head above the general level, and it is to be feared that the hope for the future now rests with a reduced number of fighters outside of the new party. Arbeiterpolitik holds the banner of this group and there may be a ray of light in the decision of the group in Hamburg, which not only refused to join the new combination, but decided that the time was ripe to constitute a new Socialist organization in which the economic and political struggles will have to be fought as one and inseparable. Here is the dawn of the new hope, of new forms for the new struggle.

The “Independent Social Democratic Party” does not constitute a unit, neither of thought and principle nor of action, and it leaves outside of its organization groups of the most active elements for the reorganization of the Socialist forces of the future.

New International was the paper of the Socialist Propaganda League of America begun in Boston as ‘The Internationalist’ at the start of January 1917 and first edited by John D. Williams. The SPLA was founded by Left Wing SPer C.W. Fitzgerald , who had contacted Lenin in the fall of 1915 over their shared opposition to the war and positions around the Zimmerwald Conference. Lenin and continued their correspondence. With publisher and editor John D Williams and Dutch revolutionary SJ Rutgers, Fitzgerald officially began the SPLA in November, 1916, the first po-Bolshevik organization in the US. In early 1917 Williams went to New York to tour for the SPLA. On January 16, 1917 a meeting in Brooklyn attended by Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexandra Kollontay, V. Volodarsky, and Grigory Chudnovsky representing the Russian revolutionary movement with Louis B. Boudin, Ludwig Lore, Louis Fraina, and John D Williams of the SPLA. Both the New International(ist) and Class Struggle journals were born at this meeting. In the spring of 1917 SPLA headquarters moved to New York where Louis Fraina took over as editor. The paper lasted only about a year before Fraina began publishing Revolutionary Age

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-international/v1n07-jul-21-1917-ni.pdf