The Crisis of Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy

ERAZIM V. KOHAK

A. THE CRISIS OF SOCIALISM

The idea of socialism has had a chequered history. To the men who first raised it as a battle cry for a better tomorrow, socialism stood for an ideal of freedom, social justice, and economic security. Their hopes contrast sharply with the actual practice of present-day socialist states, which have destroyed all vestiges of freedom, made justice a tool for a ruling minority, and, by their own admission, came close to an economic disaster. Yet in spite of this reversal of all early socialist hopes, the idea of socialism has retained its hold on the minds of millions, and once again it appears as a brave young hope to newly emerging nations the world over. Thus, the problem with which we must attempt to deal here has three aspects. First, we need to inquire what gives the socialist idea its durability, Why, we shall ask, do men return to it even after it has been, to all appearances, thoroughly discredited in the practice of states which call themselves socialist? This consideration leads to our second question: If the ideal is in principle so enduring, why does it fail in practice? - and why, we might add, has it failed in Eastern Europe, yet succeeded in Great Britain and Sweden? And, finally, we shall raise the specific question of what, if anything, there is in the experience of Czechoslovak Republic and Czechoslovak social democracy which might direct the persistent socialist idea in newly emerging nations and in the transformations beyond the Iron Curtain towards building a free and just society rather than an industrial police state after the model of the Soviet Union. For this, finally, is the crisis of socialism. On the one hand, its ideals persist in men's hopes and aspirations, yet the actual practice of socialist countries produces results diametrically opposed to the hopes which gave them their force. Thoughtful students of Marxism have been aware of this problem for 1504 Erazim V. Kohdk some time. Thus, in 1898, T. G. Masaryk pointed out that the rising theory of socialism bore the seeds of basic crisis within itself.1 Its fundamental ambiguity, as Masaryk saw it, was not restricted to any one aspect of Marxist thought. It underlay its theoretical conceptions - such as dialectical materialism and historical determinism, as well as its economic theories-and its tactical conceptions, such as class struggle, proletarian revolution, and dictatorship of the proletariat. Basically, socialism bore within itself a conflict between the individualism of its aspirations and the collectivism of its practice, between the free individual in a free society, set forth as its goal, and the collectivist state through which it thought it could reach this goal. As Masaryk saw it, socialism sought to free society from an oppressive state, yet depended on a far more comprehensive state machinery to do so.2 It struggled for humanity, yet its doctrine of that struggle was itself basically anti- humanitarian.3 It revolted against an aristocratic conception of society, yet its revolution was in itself aristocratic.4 It failed throughout to resolve the conflict between its individualistic, democratic view of a free and just society, and the claims of the totalitarian revolutionary movement and collectivistic state on which it depended to bring that society about.

B. SOCIALISM AND SOCIALIZATION

In the two-thirds of a century which have passed since the publication of Masaryk's articles on the "Crisis of Marxism", the world has changed almost beyond recognition. It has grown to include continents which in 1898 were still unexplored trading outposts. It has seen a series of wars of global magnitude, working out changes which were accumulating beneath the apparently calm surface of Europe since 1815. It has also seen socialism grow from an obscure doctrine argued in hypothetical

1 In a series of articles outlining the argument of his forthcoming Otdzka socialni, published as "Die wissenschaftliche und philosophische Krise innerhalb gegenwärtigen Marxismus", in Die Zeit (Vienna, 1897), issues 177-179. Pamphlet edition, same title (Vienna, 1898). 2 T. G. Masaryk, The Ideals of Humanity, tr. by W. P. Warren (London, 1938), hereinafter Ideals; p. 28. 3 Ibid., p. 70. 4 T. G. Masaryk, Grundlagen des Marxismus (Vienna, 1899), hereinafter Grund- lagen]; p. 547. The volume in question is the German edition of Otdzka socialni, published in Prague in 1898. I have been able to locate a copy of the 1936 revised Czech edition (hereafter cited as Otdzka socialni), but had to rely on the German edition for material from the second half. Translations from sources in languages other than English are mine throughout. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1505 terms at workers' meetings to a world-wide battle cry performing a function analogous to that of nationalism in Masaryk's Europe. Yet Masaryk's analysis is no less relevant today than in 1898.5 For in spite of its advances, socialism never overcame its internal contradictions. Its growth has served only to accentuate them. Thus, today, societies as different as the Soviet Union and Great Britain consider themselves "socialist". Similarly, in Czechoslovakia, the party which added the designation "socialist" to the name of the country carries on an intensive campaign against "social democratism", its polemic term for socialism as understood, for instance, in Sweden. Nor does the advance of socialism throughout the world today, especially in Africa and South America, come any closer to resolving this basic contradiction.6 Leaders of former colonial nations, although imbued with Western ideas of freedom and justice, still look for tutelage to Moscow and Peking. Thus, the threat of the hidden time bomb built into present socialist thought assumes global proportions, and there is no task more urgent than its resolution. With each passing year, the problem becomes more acute, because the advance of socialism - though not the resolution of its ambiguities - is rooted in the very nature of present social development. Perhaps the most characteristic aspect of this development is what John Dewey described as socialization, that is, the growing participation of increasingly broad social strata in the life of the community.7 This, even more than the emergence of the proletariat, is the major factor on the modern scene. The trend itself is old, yet its incredible acceleration during the last century gives it the force of radical change. Karl Marx and his followers were keenly aware of its economic aspect. Socialization of production, represented by large-scale industrial and commercial enterprise, is one of the basic motifs of socialist thought. But the phenomenon cannot be restricted or even reduced to its economic aspect. As R. H. Tawney pointed out in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, the material aspect of socialization depends on its intellectual, moral, religious, and philosophical counterparts. The process is one of growing democratization: increasingly broader strata of the world's

5 E. V. Kohak, "T. G. Masaryk's Revision of Marxism", in The Journal for the History of Ideas, XXV .4 (Oct.-Dec. 1964) pp. 519-542). An English edition of Otazka socialni is currently being prepared for publication. 6 Perhaps the most interesting attempt to resolve it is the work of Leopold S. Senghor, who states his basic view as "Le socialisme est un humanisme", very much along Masaryk's lines. Nation et voix africaine de socialisme, (Paris, 1961), p. 42. 7 John Dewey, Individualism: Old and New (New York, 1930), pp. 48-49. 1506 Erazim V. Kohak population demand and, in effect, assume an active role in the life of their community. Thus, socialism persists in one form or another, because it is an articulation of the ongoing process of increasing socialization of the human community. Unfortunately, not only socialism itself, but also the ambiguity of socialism is rooted in social reality. The process of socialization is itself ambiguous and self-contradictory. On the one hand, it offers an opportunity for individual self-realization and full participation in the life of the community to numbers of broad social strata which for centuries could hope, at best, for a marginal subsistance. Not only surviving, but being human in the fullest sense becomes a distinct possibility for all men. Earning a livelihood, until recently a dawn-to- dusk, all-week occupation for an entire family in all but the most privi- leged social strata, has become a part-time occupation for one of its members. At the same time, improved communications place the cultur- al, educational, and political resources of the entire community at each individual's disposal. In this respect, socialization represents distinct progress in man's struggle to rise. Yet on the other hand, the possibilities for individual self-realization become possibilities in the context of a highly organized state. Individualism may not be impossible, but it is now inevitably individualism in a social context, depending on the good graces of a collectivistic state for the very possibility of its existence. The individual needs the state, yet must reject its absolute claim. The in- escapable and unresolved problem of all socialization is the problem of individualism and collectivism, of the individual and society. Both the process and the basic ambiguity of socialization become clearer when we see them in a historical perspective. While the process is continuous, its focus shifts with the changing conception of what constitutes the key to individual self-realization and the full, good, human life. Thus, we can see a foreshadowing of the process and the problem in the religious articulation of socialization during the period of the reformation culminating in the religious wars of the 17th century. Here, broad masses sought to seize control of what they deemed the key to self-fulfilment - the "means of grace and hope of glory" - from the chosen few. Not an ecclesiastical hierarchy, but lay masses were to be given direct access to the saving truth. It was a bright new hope, symbolized in the fall of the rood screen and the offering of the cup to the laity. And yet, while the symbols remained, the hope failed, because of the contradictions it never resolved. Hie reformation never solved the problem of the individual in society. Having given man the individual Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1507 freedom of access to an almighty God and a saving truth, it did not know how to preserve the society without which even this freedom became impossible. Ironically, it was Luther, with his great and genuine appeal to the liberty of Christian man, who found it necessary to appeal to the princes to maintain order in the church. The same fatal pattern has repeated itself in subsequent articulations of the socializing process. By the time the wars of religion had spent their fervour in 1648, the prize was a hollow one. Ecclesiastical power, which had seemed crucial a hundred years earlier, no longer appeared worth fighting for. The new prize and new hope, the new key to a good, full life, seemed now to lie in political power. Thus, while socialization in the previous period took the form of laicization of religion, in the period between the Peace of Westfall and the Napoleonic era, it took, first of all, the form of democratization of political structures. Socializa- tion became articulated in terms of the advance of democracy, popular participation in political life, and the structure of the community. We have grown used to regarding this process, the heirs of which we admittedly are, as a forward step in the history of man. In fact, much had been accomplished. But even here, the process of democratization reflected the ambiguity of all socialization, opening new possibilities for evil, as well as good. The idea of popular sovereignty provided a foundation not only for democracy, but also for popular tyranny. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Reign of Terror were both fruits of the Great Revolution. Similarly, not only modern democracies, but also modern tyrannies are popular tyrannies, tyrannies of the slight majority or strong minority over the rest of the community. De Toque- ville to the contrary, notwithstanding men have identified fare more in- tensely with Nazi Germany than with the Weimar Republic. The full horror of Germany under Hitler was precisely the popular nature of the tyranny - the number of individuals who identified with the régime and took the initiative in imposing its will upon their unfortunate neighbours, not as the unwilling tools of a tyrant, but as partners in the tyranny. Traces of what is euphemistically called the "cult of personality" on all levels of Communist society show that the Nazis had no monopoly, in this respect. Even today, tyranny is popular, socialized tyranny. Democratization constitutes the second great focus of socialization in modern society. It, too, made its contribution to the humanization of society. The ideas of man's inalienable rights and of popular sovereignty are today honoured - often, to be sure, in the breach - by even the least democratic governments. But the same democratization of political life 1508 Erazim V. Kohdk also left us a dark heritage. The moi-commun, riding roughshod over the individual, the lynch law and the mob roaring death, in the name of the will of the "people", to all who would differ, even the final blasphemy, "vox populi, vox deC' - these, too, are a result of the popularization of politics. Normally, we tend to think of the popularization of government as progress, of nationalism as, at best, a dubious detour from rationality. Yet nationalism, the other great expression of increasing socialization, shares the ambiguity of all socialization. It awakens entire nations and provides broad strata of population with the means of participation in community life for the minimal price of speaking the national language. Without appeal to national sentiment, it would be impossible to mobilize society to its very margins for the awesome task of building a modern community. Nationalism served to bring Eastern Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia into the 20th century. In Czechoslovakia, Masaryk, in spite of his emphasis on the ideal of humanity, had words of high praise for nationalism, and for good reason.

The idea of humanity in our own day appears as the idea of nationality. .. . Nationality, like the individual man, ought to be and can be human, humanitarian.8 But while national revival offered to each individual an opportunity to take active part in the life of the community, it did so, again, at the cost of subordinating him to the collective. While serving as a tool of progress, nationalism also created the tools of mass tyranny. Hitler, too, was a nationalist, and the guiding conceptions of the wars of 1914 and 1939 were nationalistic. The idea of the nation as the ultimate social norm and the key to Utopia spent its force in the orgy of nationalistic wars during the first part of this century. While nationalism is still very much with us, it is, in Europe, at least, a chastened nationalism. The hopes which men pinned to the ideal of the sovereign nation-state have failed. More and more, the key to the good life appears to be economic, rather than political or national. Not the socialization of political forms or national aspirations, but the socialization of economic activity appears to be the most important means to the full human life. Thus, it is not surprising that socialism, in the broadest sense of social control of production and distribution for the sake of equitable participation in national economic well-being, represents the clearest and most persistent articulation of the

» Ideals, p. 17. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1509 pressure of socialization today. It articulates the revolt of the masses in an age when economic well-being, rather than god's grace, political self-government, or national independence appears the key to a full, satisfying existence. It represents the drive toward participation in an age increasingly oriented towards material well-being.

C. SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND COMMUNISM

Once we place socialism in this perspective, it is not surprising that in spite of its chequered history, it grows in importance, especially in those areas of the world where economic security is a goal for the few and, at best, a distant hope for the many. Nor should it surprise us that peoples of former European colonies can no longer be satisfied with internal democratic institutions or with national independence, but look toward socialism for the fulfillment of their aspirations. The cry may have lost its urgency in the prosperous nations of North America and North- western Europe, but its appeal will inevitably increase in the less fortu- nate parts of the world. Nor is it surprising that we should discover in socialism, as in other forms of socialization, the basic ambiguity of all socialization. The conflict of individualism and collectivism emerges again within socialism, this time, as a conflict between communism and social democracy. In the earliest days of the socialist movement, such a distinction would have seemed superfluous. When Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto, the problem could still be seen in terms of the simple question of whether economic security should be the privilege of the few or the birthright of the many. The question of how the new order should be conceived did not arise until much later. In Russia, it was not even raised until the possibility of genuine choice had been effectively lost. Even in Europe, the question was obscured by lingering remnants of feudal and aristocratic privilege, but here it was at least raised. The occasion was, in the first place, the question of tactics, of revolution as against democratic evolution. In retrospect, it may appear that that question had been effectively decided by the context within which the socialist movement operated: where the possibility of democratic change existed, socialism followed an evolutionary path; where such change was impossible, it was forced to adopt revolutionary means. Yet the issue was argued heatedly for two generations, because it has far more at stake than the simple question of how a socialist party comes into power. It is, 1510 Erazim V. Kohâk more than anything, the question of how a socialist party should wield such power, once it has seized it. Karl Marx sidestepped the problem with a sophistry about a majority revolution: the revolution, he hoped, would be carried out by such an overwhelming majority of the people that, although effected by force, it would be a democratic revolution, laying the foundations for a just and democratic state.® The naïveté with which Marx equates lynch law and crude mob rule by masses of armed workers with social justice can be understood in terms of his romantic vision of the working class as a collective noble savage, but it does not resolve the problem. It soon became obvious that a revolution is inevitably an aristocratic minority movement, autocratic rather than democratic in nature, and a most unreliable tool of social change.10 A revolution destroys the machinery of opposition and places the ruling minority in position of authority, unchecked by even such tradition and custom as may have bound an earlier régime. When socialism turns to revolution as its programme, its goal shifts from social democracy to dictatorship of the party, hopefully, for the benefit of the proletariat, but always as the party sees it. The second occasion which called attention to the basic ambiguity of the socialist movement arose with regard to the question of nationalization. From the beginning, the socialists stressed the contradiction between socialized modes of production and individual control and ownership of the means of production. Socialism, from the start included nationalization of the means of production as one of the key points in its programme. The issue, however, was more complex than that of individual or social ownership. Rather, it was also a question of which forms of social ownership would accomplish the task. The question came to a head in 1881, when Bismarck sought social democratic support for his scheme for nationalization of the tobacco industry. The pattern proposed has since been followed under Communist leadership in the Soviet Union and the satellite countries of Eastern Europe, as well as Cuba. Yet in 1881, the leaders of social democracy vehemently rejected the proposal, arguing that ... a police state cannot create socialism by nationalization. It can create only a regimented economy and fiscalism.11 • Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York, 1948), p. 20 et passim. 10 Cf. an excellent analysis of the problem by Milos Vanëk, "Ceskoslovenskâ sociâlni demokracie a marxisticky revolutionism", in Adolf Mokry, ed., 80 let ceskoslovenské sociâlni demokracie (London, 1958), pp. 217-228. 11 Mokry, op. cit., p. 224. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1511

When the topic came up for full-fledged debate at the Party Congress in 1891, and again in 1892, the party supported its leaders. Wilhelm Liebknecht summed up the social democratic evaluation of Bismarck's proposals when he concluded his speech with the exclamation,

The last battle for social democracy will have to be fought out between social democracy on the one side, state socialism on the other!12

The clear dichotomy with which Liebknecht confronted his fellow socialists reflects the basic ambiguity of socialization and of socialism, the perennial conflict of individualistic and collectivistic conceptions of man and society. The common faith in social control of production and distribution, which both of these conceptions share, serves only to intensify the difference. G. H. D. Cole defines this common core of socialism as "the substitution of some form of social for individual and private control over the powers of production and distribution",13 and adds,

[the] only possible primary standard of value for a society organized upon this basis will be one of collective estimation of human needs. .. . Society will have constantly to make such collective judgements about value.14

The society thus acquires a crucial and extensive role in the lives of men, and the decision to conceive it along individualistic and democratic, or collectivistic, totalitarian lines will inevitably have far-reaching consequences. Where socialist theory grew out of the daily concerns and practical democracy of the labour movement, or at least in close contact with it, a democratic, individualistic interpretation grew quite naturally with it. The labour leader does not deal with abstract classes, with "the proletariat" or "the capitalist". Rather, he deals with actual individuals, with definite needs, minds, and wills very much their own. The "collective judgement" of which Cole speaks has here a very concrete meaning, as well: it is what most members of the community - be that the union, the town, or the society at large — actually want, as they express it in their behaviour and vote it at a meeting or in an election. Thus, society, to the social democrat, means, first of all, the concrete, varied, undisci- plined, and inevitably pluralistic structure of relationships among which

12 Protokoll iiber die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der SPD, Berlin, 14.-21. November 1892 (Berlin, 1892), p. 173. 13 Meaning of Marxism (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1964; first ed. 19481), p. 248. 14 Ibid., p. 250; my italics. 1512 Erazim V. Kohak he lives and works. It cannot be reduced to a scheme, to a neat power apparatus or a party or a state. Unfortunately, the theorists of socialism had, by and large, litde practical contact with social work. The outstanding examples, Marx and Lenin, not only never worked in a labour union, but did not even live in the countries for which they confidently prescribed radical remedies. The foundations of their thought lay not in the workers' movement, but in German idealistic philosophy. Masaryk had already traced out the intellectual ancestry of Marxism in the nationalism of Herder and Fichte, transmitted through Hegel and Feuerbach to Marx.15 The conception of society which characterized this philosophical tradition is rather different from the rough-and-tumble world of the labour union. The individual loses his importance. (Marx spoke of the "miserable single individual".16) The building blocks of the system are essences, classes, necessities, and pseudo-scientific "laws".17 Thus, in his sixth thesis concerning Feuer- bach, Marx writes that "the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each individual: in its reality it is the ensemble of social relations".18 Cole sums up the frame of mind which characterizes Marx's thought when he writes,

Marx often wrote as if classes could act, and even in some sense more real as active agents than individuals composing them. . .. This had the disastrous result of making him think of individuals - of capitalists and workers alike - as abstractions, and of the capitalist class and the proletariat as realities.19 This, finally, is the basis of the collectivistic reinterpretation of socialism. From such a perspective, its concern is clearly no longer with actual men, but with abstract, metaphysical entities, or classes. It need no longer concern itself with all the complex concrete problems and relations; instead, it can become "exact", "scientific". The will of the people, the "collective estimation", need no longer take into account the actual wishes of actual men. Instead, the "will of the people" becomes an objective need of a class which can be determined by the Marxist theoretician from the position of that class in the unfolding of the historical dialectic. It is, then, the will of the people whether anyone

15 Otazka socialni, p. 29-60. 16 Ibid., p. 245. 17 Cf. Masaryk's analysis of the relation between Marxism and natural science in ibid., p. 269. 18 Marx & Engels, Basic Writings, ed. by L. S. Feuer (New York 1959), p. 224. 19 Cole, op. cit., p. 12. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1513 actually wants it or not, and as such can be imposed on individual members of that class by whatever means may be necessary. Democracy, in the broad sense of actual persuading, bargaining, debating, or voting, now seems like a handicap which would permit deluded masses to interfere with the realization of their "true" will. Both social democracy and Communism are attempts to articulate a socialist viewpoint, from an individualistic and a collectivistic starting point, respectively. Yet one sees its goal in terms of political, social, and economic democracy, while the other lays a foundation for the most complete tyranny over the minds and bodies of men that the world has even known. Thus, the conflict between the two views is basic, and not merely a superficial disagreement over method. While social democrats have tended to give their opponents the benefit of the doubt, the Communists have been quite clear about the nature of the opposition from the start. Zinoviev, addressing the Third International in 1919, stated clearly that ". . . our duty is to break up, uproot, and destroy social democracy".20 In fact, at the end of 1918, of the 840 political prisoners in Petrograd jails, there were 137 bourgeois and monarchists, 703 socialists.21 Convinced that advancing socialization will inevitably result in advancing socialism, the Communists are not particularly concerned about traditional views which do not take this into account. Such views might have a nuisance value, but hardly a future. Social democracy, however, presents a different case. It is a socialist movement, aware of socialization as the basic social fact of our time. It offers a programme for dealing with it, without demanding the high price of resignation of freedom. Thus, is could be dangerous to Communism not only at a given moment, but over the coming decades.22 Communist propaganda, aided by unwitting enthusiasts in the West, has therefore concentrated on convincing the world that its particular brand of totalitarian state socialism has a monopoly on socialism, and that its shortcomings must be accepted as the price of socialism. It is unfortunate, but hardly surprising, when leaders of newly emerging nations, whose populations are not ready to make use of the tools of democracy, tend to regard those tools as expensive luxuries, and

20 Protokol XIII. sjezdu cs. socidlne demokraticke strany delnicke (Prague, 1921; hereafter Protokol XIII), p. 80. 21 FrantiSek Modraiek, Nauka a politicke zasady pokrokoveho socialismu (Pra- gue, 1919), p. 26. 22 Cf. a Czechoslovak Communist publication, J. S. Hajek, Zhoubna uloha pravicovych socialistu [The Destructive Role of Rightwing Socialists] (Prague, 1954). 1514 Erazim V. Kohak are not prepared to differentiate between collectivistic and democratic interpretations of socialism. The democratic way is slow, laborious, and open to setbacks. The masses often are not ready for it, and making them ready requires patience and effort. Thus, it is tempting to bypass it, and identify socialism with the institutions of a state rather than the way of life of a society. Such confusion, however, represents a tragic crisis, when, even after the revelations of the post-Stalin era, there are socialist parties in the West whose supporters and, sometimes, even leaders still see a common ground between Soviet state socialism and social democracy. In one sense or another, the future of the world for quite a few generations to come belongs to socialism. This is an inevitable consequence of the increasing socialization of modern society, and one which need not concern us overly. The critical problem, however, is whether socialism will develop into social democracy, or whether it will assume the dictatorial forms of state capitalism. This, finally, is the crisis of modern socialism, doubly acute because of the tendency to assume that socialism remains socialism regardless of the forms in which it is realized. The point that needs to be made today is, first, that socialism without democracy destroys the very values which most socialist movements seek, and, second, that social democracy is a viable alternative. Socialist parties of Western Europe have been slow in coming to this realization. German SPD did not adopt a non-Marxist program until 1960, the Austrian SPOe, until its Salzburg Congress in 1957. By contrast, Czechoslovak social democracy has been clearly aware of the basic opposition between social democracy and Communism, not merely as a difference in tactics in the struggle for power, but as a difference in ultimate goals as basic as the difference between democracy and the one-party dictatorship. Its basically democratic position has its roots in Czech socialist thought in the 19th century, especially in Masaryk's analysis of Marxism. It was reaffirmed emphatically in the face of a Communist revolt by the 1920 Party Congress, formulated as a definite programme in 1930, and reaffirmed again in the face of extreme Communist pressure at the post-war Party Congress in 1947. The socialist movement in Czechoslovakia did not begin with theoreticians, nor did it produce great Marxist theorists of the German kind. Rather, it was, from the beginning, a workers' movement. Its earliest efforts came in the form of agitation for independent trade unions.23 Its first congress was a three-hour meeting in the tavern "U Kastanu" near Prague on

Mokry, op. cit., p. 31. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1515 April 7, 1877. In addition to two representatives of the Austrian central committee, there were present three tailors, two locksmiths, two apprentices, a miner, a metalworker, a machinist, and three university students. Thus, unlike many other socialist movements, Czechoslovak social democracy started out with a strong majority among its members of workers concerned with specific problems confronting not a "working class", but actual workers.-4

D. MASARYKS ANALYSIS OF SOCIALISM

These tangible roots in the working class marked Czechoslovak social democracy's attempt to resolve the ambiguity of socialization and socialism. Throughout its history, it was a democratic, humanitarian attempt, concerned with the freedom and well-being of each individual worker, with industrial democracy, economic security, and political freedom. This is also the viewpoint from which T. G. Masaryk viewed and attempted to resolve the crisis of socialism. Masaryk was not himself a member of the social democratic party, but he did consider himself a socialist and took a strong interest in the workers' movement. His interest in the organization and operation of Workers' Academy in Prague in 1896 was both practical and theoretical. In Ceska otazka (1895) Masaryk was already defending a social democratic viewpoint, while criticizing Marxism, and four years later, in Otazka socialni, presented a detailed and distinctly social democratic refutation of the Marxist position. Masaryk recognized clearly that socialism represents more than class agitation. Socialism, as he understood it, was inseparable from the humanitarian ideal. Thus, he wrote,

Generally, socialism is an expression of the ideal of humanity. The socialist movement, so far as its final aim is concerned, is but one of many humanitarian movements. ... It is upon the ground of the idea of humanity which should be economically put into practice and not remained abstract that economic equality is demanded.25 But Masaryk also recognised the basic ambiguity of all forms of socialization of which we spoke earlier. "One of the most burning questions of our time", he wrote, "is just this conflict between individualism and collectivism, formulated nationally, ecclesiastically, or

54 Ibid., p. 37. " Ideals, pp. 18, 20-21. 1516 Erazim V. Kohak socially." 26 Masaryk also saw quite clearly the implications of this dilemma for socialism. In Otazka socialni, he wrote,

Socialism is first of all concerned with a reform of distribution of goods. ... Who shall carry it out, and on what measure? Who undertakes to set the norm? 27 It was this clear awareness of the need for collective judgement and for social structures sensitive to the needs and desires of the members of the society which led Masaryk to criticise Marxist revolutionism. Both as a means of seizing power and as a tool for social action generally, revolutionism makes social structures unresponsive to human needs: it must, to make a revolution possible. But in this, precisely, lies the fallacy of revolutionism, as Masaryk clearly outlined it in Otazka socialni:

A revolution is, as a rule, quite Utopian. ... It is characterised by secret organization, and the secret police is its official counterpart. .. . Engels is right: revolution is the will of a minority. It is aristocratic: as war, it is a type of sport.28 The difficulty, as Masaryk analysed it, goes deeper than a choice of means. Marxist socialism is not revolutionist by chance. The radicalism of method and authoritarianism which have characterised Marxist socialism in all its manifestations are rooted in its very foundations, its materialism, and its concomitant rejection of ethical considerations. Thus, its stance is that of a science in the peculiar 19th-century sense in which the Marxists understand the term:

For Marx, materialism is identical with modern natural science, and natural science is for Marx the basic science of socialism. Natural science appears to Marx to be radical, especially anti-theological and anti-metaphysical and so especially democratic.29 The trouble, as Masaryk points out in further detail in section 19 of Otazka socialni, is that natural science is not of itself democratic. Especially in its 19th-century form, it is authoritarian and rather inclined to dogmatism. Democracy - and, for that matter, freedom, human rights, human dignity - are not a "natural", but a human ideal, and a humanitarian one. To quote Masaryk once more,

The Marxists reach an impasse through this exaggeration. Their foremost goal is economic equality. The demand for this, however, rests on humani- 2° Ibid., p. 26. 27 Grundlagen, p. 232; cf. also ibid., section 110. 28 Ibid., p. 547. *' Ibid., p. 321. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1517 tarian ideals. And if men do not acknowledge these ideals, who then shall effect this equality? and how? Marxists reply, "The state - we do not rely on ethics; the state is to execute the demand for equality". What, though, is the state? To Marxists, it is an ideology and therefore unreal and in- effective. The exaggerate statements of economic materialism involve quite as evident contradiction.30 And so the problem moves full circle. Materialism leads to a rejection of ethics, which in turn leads to state socialism as the sole basis for the new society. As Masaryk sees it, state totalitarianism is not an unfortunate accident, but a direct consequence of a materialism which has nothing but the power of the state to substitute for the ethical foundations of society. Masaryk brings this difficulty to light in all aspects of Marxism. Having deprived the individual of all ethical foundation, he argues, Marxism throughout makes him a creature of some collective, whether class or state. "Marx and Engels", he writes, "are positivistic dogmatics of revolution, as Hegel became a positivistic dogmatic of reaction." 31 The individual, for the Marxist, has become Marx's "miserable solitary individual",32 the "healthy instinct" of the "people" 33 replacing democratic decision. Against this Hegelian, collectivistic interpretation of socialism - and articulation of socialization - Masaryk seeks to place a humanitarian articulation of social democracy, responsive to the needs of the individual and dedicated to "being a man oneself and recognising one's neighbour's equal rights as a man".34 Giving meaning to such a social democratic alternative then became the task and the achievement of Czechoslovak social democracy.

E. SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN THE CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC

Masaryk's clear and precise analysis of Marxism set the tone for Czechoslovak social democratic thought. Adolf Mokry reflects it when he writes, in a volume summing up eighty years of Czechoslovak social democracy, that "no one can be a social democrat without accepting the principle of democracy as an inevitable part of the party's program".33

30 Ideals, p. 28. 31 Otdzka socialni, p. 90. 32 Ibid., p. 245. 33 Ibid., p. 256. 34 Ideals, p. 20. 35 Mokry, op. cit., p. 98. 1518 Erazim V. Kohäk At the end of the last century, the Czech socialist movement became divided over the question of historical or natural right as justification for Czech national aspirations. Masaryk's tradition of ethically founded democratic socialism, however, remained equally strong in both socialist parties. Thus, the views of the social nationalist party, as presented in a pamphlet by Igor Hrusovsky, derive directly from Masaryk's analysis: The question of socialism is first of all a problem of morality, justice, right and humanity.36 As against Marxism, which they regarded as moral nihilism, the social nationalists sought their philosophical ancestry in the moral ideals of French philosophy and French revolution.37 While their party was a nationalistic one, it sought to limit the role of the state to that of a tool in the service of those ideals, rather than that of their source. It is interesting to see how Hrusovsky's pamphlet contrasts this view with the Marxist position: The Marxists dislike the state in theory, yet in practice have made it all powerful. . . . He who is insensitive to duties dictated by conscience can see the source of right only in state pressure.38 Such an analysis is directly related to Masaryk's analysis, as well as to the central problem of social democracy and state socialism. Hrusovsky contrasts the Marxist analysis with the social nationalist view that it is the responsibility of the state "to remember, in the very form of the state, the interest of 'the others' . . .". And if such is, in fact, its role, the state must necessarily be democratic, responsive to the needs and demands of the entire population. So the social nationalist party concludes its statement with a democratic credo: Such policy can fulfil its function only when it is carried out by a democratic government. .. . Czech socialism recognises democracy as the only acceptable regime.40 To be sure, the social nationalist party represented primarily white- collar socialism rather than a workers' movement as such. Yet while the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia created a greater stir, and even a split, in the other wing of the old socialist movement, i.e., the social

36 Igor HruSovsky, Socialistickd politika a ethika (Prague, n.d. [Internal evidence suggests approximately 1925-1927]), p. 12. « Ibid., p. 7. 38 Ibid., p. 23. 39 Ibid., p. 55. Ibid., p. 56. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1519 democratic workers' party, this party, too, recognised democracy as an inalienable part of socialism, even at the cost of losing some of its support among the radically oriented segments of the working class. The reasons for this basic choice were different, less ideological and more practical than those which led the social nationalists to a similar decision. Yet the final conclusion was no less emphatic. In the Protocol of the XIHth Party Congress in 1920, it is summed up without equivocation:

Neither the theory nor the practice of Russian communism approach our ideal. ... If we were to acknowledge them as communism, neither socialism nor communism would represent progress or democracy in the development of mankind.41 The man who made this statement was not a theoretician, but an unskilled worker, one of two sent on a ten-week trip to Soviet Union. The two, textile worker Polach and unskilled labourer Pitak, made contact with workers, trade unionists, and Czech settlers in Moscow. The tenor of their report is characteristic. Both note, first of all, the destruction of free trade unions in Soviet Union:

Trade unions in Russia . . . are organs of state power, suited at best to capitalism. And the longed-for step of social revolution? No, they are steps of fear and terror, not for the bourgeoisie, but for the proletariat itself. Look at the Putil works: ... no freedom of speech, assembly, no right to strike, no unions. . . ,42 The standard by which these two observers judged Soviet Communism was not metaphysical, but practical. Thus, they ask,

Is mere nationalization of mines, cattle, and factories and restriction of the cooperative movement to impotence communism? 43 It may have seemed so to theoreticians of the left in the West, but it most emphatically did not seem so to social democratic workers who lived on Russia's doorstep and observed it firsthand. Their credo represented a different socialism:

Socialism is the heir to morality and culture, to lead to the higher educational level, wellbeing and contentment of working men.44 The workers who had seen Communist practice recognised clearly that

41 Protokol XIII, p. 182. « Ibid., pp. 178, 180. 43 Ibid., p. 181. 44 Ibid., p. 180. 1520 Erazim V. Kohak state socialism of the Communist variety did not correspond to this ideal of socialism, and the theorists of the party followed their lead. Their reports were clear in the conviction that socialism cannot be realised by force and dictatorship. Tusar, who had served in the new Czechoslovak cabinet, states,

All social institutions, as well as the well-being of the individual, flow only from free striving, free decision, free will of the people, and never from the autocratic will of any individual.45

By brute force, we can destroy; we can create only by force of spirit, nobility, education.46 With this impression of Russian state socialism, the Congress made it a point to reject methods of "undemocratic dictatorship" and stress that it was "not the goal of social democracy to break up and discredit parliamentarism. Quite the contrary, we must strive to raise the ideal of parliamentarism to a new high." 47 Thus, while many social democratic parties in Europe, as again after the Second World War, and as today in newly emerging countries, wavered between social democratic ideals and the attractive fact of actual power wielded in the name of socialism, Czechoslovak social democracy came out in support of democratic ideas and made the improvement of democratic practice its task.48 Frantisek Modracek summed up its views:

I am definitely opposed to making the nation into a society of state employees. ... Socialism is not just nationalization ... it means being equal partners in all economic life. Democracy is a necessary condition of all socialist activity. Democracy is the basis and peak of socialism. What is not achieved by the will of the majority of the nation is worthless for socialism.49 Modracek, who left the party in 1919 in protest over compromises with the Communists and returned to it in 1923, provides an interesting example of social democratic alternative to state socialism. Its most characteristic note is the emphasis on the individual. "There is no doubt", he writes, that not only the Bolshevik method for the realization of socialism is in error, but also the very organization with which they sought to replace the bourgeois economic order.50

45 Ibid., p. 64. 46 Ibid., p. 67. 47 Ibid., p. 108. 48 Ibid., pp. 114-115. 48 Mokif, op. cit., pp. 102-103. r'° Modracek, op. cit., p. 27. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1521

Nationalization of industry, for instance, down to such petty enterprise as cobbling or souvenir stands, which Soviet state socialism considers one of its chief goals, appears to Modracek a tool, at best, but generally a mixed blessing. As he points out, the worker in a state factory, as in those of Czechoslovak tobacco or match monopolies, does not feel like the owner of the factory, and, in fact, has little to say about the running of the factory, even though he has full suffrage in the state.51 Modracek's emphasis throughout is on worker control through cooperative ownership or works councils, both of which he considers far more important than the rather theoretical demand for state ownership. The task he proposes for socialism is not simply nationalization, but socialization of the means of production; not simply expropriation of private capitalist by state capitalism, but, rather, thoroughgoing democratization of capitalist enterprise, and creation of "new, democratic forms of enterprise".52 The democratic emphasis of Czechoslovak social democracy culmi- nated in the non-Marxist party program of 1930, which unambiguously included the demand for democracy as its "basic, inseparable and inalienable part".53 In that programme, Czechoslovak social democracy outgrew limited local or class significance and became the first modern socialist party in Central Europe, setting a pattern for a social democratic alternative to communist state socialism.54

F. SOCIAL DEMOCRACY TODAY

Far-reaching social and political transformations separate us today from the hopes and aspirations of the 1930's. Czechoslovakia is firmly in the grip of Soviet state socialism. Leading social democrats are in jail, in exile, or dead. A handful of social democrats who survived wholesale Nazi slaughter and later escaped the Communist dragnet represent the movement in exile, but in Czechoslovakia, the party was purged and swallowed up by the Communists less than two months after the coup d'état in 1948. Thus, it may well seem that the stand of Czechoslovak social democracy belongs at best among the great failures of history. Yet this is a misjudgement of its significance, for at least two reasons. First,

51 Ibid., p. 29. 52 Ibid., pp. 33-34. 53 Mokry, op. cit., p. 109. 54 Ibid., p. 112. 1522 Erazim V. Kohak the strength of social democratic ideas was never in their organization, but in their ability to voice the demands of the masses brought to the surface of political life by increasing socialization of society. While the organization disappeared, the intensity of Communist polemic against "social democratism" testifies to the relevance of social democratic ideas behind the Iron Curtain. The second reason is the development outside the Iron Curtain: here, as we have noted above, socialization is forcing the question of socialism to the forefront, and the future of the free world may well depend on whether such socialism will take the form of social democracy or totalitarian state socialism. We need to reexamine the question of the viability of the social democratic alternative and consider the Czechoslovak experience. The social democratic movement in Czechoslovakia reached a low ebb in the years immediately following the Second World War. In- filtrated and led by Communist sympathisers, social democracy was in danger of losing sight of its unique mission as an alternative to totalitarian socialism. Yet, even under the most difficult conditions, it succeeded in reversing the trend. At the Party Congress in Brno two years after the the War, the consensus of the party clearly turned against the commu- nizing tendencies of party leadership, and two weeks before the Communist coup, we read in the social democratic periodical Cil that ... without freedom there can be no progress, not even socialist progress, and without general civil rights there cannot be even workers' rights.55 Two weeks later, the Communist coup bore out those words, which clearly represent a mature social democratic tradition. The party was absorbed by the Communist party, trade unions "completely stripped of their function of putting forward social and wage claims of the workers and transformed into organs of state administration".56 The Communist party rapidly imposed its own industrial, social, and political programme on the nation. Yet the result is far from being a workers' paradise. Both industrial and agricultural production have, by the Communists' own admission, been unable to supply even the most basic needs of the population. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that all vestiges of industrial democracy have disappeared, workers' rights have been destroyed, along with civil rights, and labourers placed completely at the mercy of an all-powerful employer, the state. The failure of Communist schemes for the country evoked interesting reactions in the thinking of

55 Cil, 6 February 1948; quoted by Mokry, op. cit., p. 153. 5« Mokry, op. cit., p. 163. Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1523 those segments of the working class which at first tended to view the Communist experiment favourably. Pavel Barton, analysing the re- current labour unrest in Czechoslovakia, points out that the central recognition among the workers seems to be that the state is something quite other than society, and, in fact, in many respects there exists a basic opposition between the two. .. . Nationalization of means of production is not their socialization: new forms are needed.57 This, after all, is nothing new in the social democratic program. As against the Communists, who were confident that the state was an adequate tool for social reorganization, the social democrats have always insisted on the need for social and, therefore, essentially democratic means of control. What is new is that all indications suggest that the working class now realizes it, as well. Barton tells us of the social democratic idea that not only do the workers once again represent a clear majority among its supporters, but, in fact, there is once again an identity of social democratic demands and the demands of the working class. . . . The old slogan of workers' control or industrial democracy has thus acquired a new significance. . ,58 This recognition is significant also for socialism outside Europe, even if there is little that the workers can do about it in present-day Czecho- slovakia. Perhaps the most tempting aspect of Marxism was, after all, its quite unsupported, dogmatic assertion that all that is needed to end all workers' troubles is a revolutionary seizure of the state. The Commu- nists' contempt for all real attempts to improve the lot of the working class, dating back to the writings of Marx, frees the already over- burdened leaders of rising nations from all responsibility for actual constructive work and provides a great emotional safety-valve. All problematic issues can be postponed until the day of the great revolution: Utopia is around the corner. Marx and his followers are the most Utopian of all socialists. But while Utopias can produce disasters when their ideas are put into practice, they also attract followers while they are still merely visions on the horizon. The potential convert does not have to struggle with complex problems, does not have to seek to resolve the ambiguities which inevitably bedevil a theory when it is confronted with the need for practical solutions. He needs only to believe and hope. But this is also Marxism's most damaging illusion. For, as Czechoslovak workers

« Ibid., p. 216. 58 Ibid., pp. 210-211. 1524 Erazim V. Kohak saw, a revolution can come and go, but social problems, rooted in the very structure of modern industrial society, remain unsolved. Nor is the state an adequate tool for resolving them: whether the owner of a factory is an individual capitalist, an anonymous group of shareholders, or an equally anonymous state, the problems of wages, workers' rights, and production, as well as economic intricacies of modern industry, remain. They are not solved by the transfer of ownership. They are problems which must be dealt with from below, as well, by free trade unions and industrial democracy. Barton sums up this recognition when he writes,

The workers are once again aware of the need for solidarity because they have been definitely disappointed in their hopes for the state as a means of resolving social and economic problems. They have reached the conclusion that the emancipation of man from oppression and exploitation can only be the work of independent, indigenous social forces.5® This means, in practice, that "economic activity cannot be controlled by the state, but by society itself".60 The solution of the ambiguities of socialization will not and cannot come from any one-stroke revolution or administrative decree, but has to evolve through the fostering of social institutions. It means, first of all, free, independent trade unions, the possibility of free cooperative action, and free, democratic social institutions, responsive to the demands of their members, on all levels of society.61 With this, the task becomes much more difficult and much more complex than the task of fostering a Utopian revolution on the Communist model. But Czechoslovak experience shows clearly that the Communist alternative is, in fact, no alternative. State socialism leaves the problems of modern industrial society unresolved. As with private capitalism, state capitalism can develop industry, but it cannot create a free society. If the rising nations of the world are concerned not only with developing heavy industry, but also with developing free men, they will do well to pay close attention to the ideals of social democracy. This is true especially in countries where the low educational level, the total lack of industrial development, and the staggering disproportion between available food supplies and increasing population make actual democratic practice on a national level impossible. It is a commonplace that power,

59 Ibid., p.2\\. M Ibid., p. 212. 61 Ibid., p. 213 Socialism and Czechoslovak Social Democracy 1525 even when it is exercised with the best of intentions, corrupts those who wield it. As another Czechoslovak socialist put it,

Democracy without controls and checks is a dictatorship, and a government without an opposition is oligarchic. . . . There must always be a power which can watch the fingers of those who rule, and touch their conscience.62 Thus, it is the most urgent task of those who must exercise absolute power, if their ultimate aim is a free and just society, to build the channels of democratic control and to make sure that they are available when a mature opposition is ready to use them. This is not simply a question of parliaments, but the democratization of all social life. The Czechoslovak prescription is useful here: democracy needs to be built from below, by fostering rural and industrial democracy, opportunities for responsibility, and participation in cooperative enterprises and in self-government in free trade unions. The moral of the Czechoslovak experience is precisely that there can be no socialism without democracy. State socialism can be, at best, an unsatisfactory and unfortunate inter- mediate step. Any attempt to build socialism which neglects the task of building democracy is inevitably self-defeating. Just as the task of mature democratic régimes today is ta build socialism, so the task of socialist regimes in new and (inevitably) not yet democratic societies is to build democracy. With increasing socialization of economic activity, socialism, in one sense or another, is inevitable. For our sake, as well as for the sake of those to come, let us hope that the form it takes will be that of social democracy, and that the lessons of Czechoslovakia will not be lost.

« FrantiSek Klâtil, Pohledy v zitfek (London, 1945), p. 13.