Proud Tower - Barbara W. Tuchman [275]
In the French Socialist world, at the same time, the quarrels let loose by le cas Millerand were even more ferocious and divisive than those in Germany. Distressed though he had been at Millerand’s acceptance of office, Jaurès, when forced to take a stand, supported collaboration as against no collaboration at all. At the French party’s Congress in Paris in December, 1899, he denied that it would lead to personal corruption, as charged by the Marxists. Since, he argued, it was impossible to predict when the capitalist collapse would come, it was necessary to work for reforms while preparing the way. “We must not fight from a futile distance,” he said, “but from the heart of the citadel.” Enraged orations by his opponents filled the hall. “Tall, thin, desiccated, his eyes ablaze like black fire,” Guesde preached the purity of Marxism and was citing Liebknecht when one excited Ministerialist, as the supporters of Millerand were called, shouted, “Down with Liebknecht!” The shock that passed over the faces of the Guesdists, a delegate said later, was as if someone had shouted “Down with God!” in Notre Dame. After three days of intense fracas the proposition was put, “Yes or no, does the class struggle permit a Socialist to enter a bourgeois government?” The vote was for No but was immediately followed by another vote permitting Ministerialism under exceptional circumstances. With Jaurès pleading for unity the Congress managed to close under a patched-up formula in which underlying antagonisms were unresolved. Two parties thereafter emerged: Guesde, Vaillant and Marx’s son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, formed the Socialist Party of France committed to “no compromise with any fraction of the bourgeoisie” and to the destruction of capitalism. Jaurès, Millerand, Briand and Viviani formed the French Socialist Party committed to a reform program for “immediate realization.”
Throughout the world in every Socialist party headquarters and meeting hall where the red flag stood dustily in a corner, Revision and le cas Millerand widened old schisms. While doctrinaire Socialists clung to original principles, the Revisionists were discovering that Socialism, like politics, was the art of the possible. More divided than ever, the Second International assembled for its fifth Congress in Paris in September, 1900, in the midst of the Exposition. With the city full of visitors and the center of world attention, Socialist leaders were anxious to prevent an open rupture. Kautsky contrived a resolution which, while refusing to approve Millerand’s action, did not condemn it. Delegates called it the Kaoutchouc (india-rubber) Resolution because it was so elastic. Pounded in debate, slashed by the furious swordplay of De Leon, it occupied almost the entire time of the Congress. At one point a German delegate, Erhard Auer, let slip a regret that the opportunity for a cas Millerand was not likely to offer itself to German Socialists. Exposing a basic fact of life in his country, the remark caused an outburst of applause, hisses and outraged discussion in the corridors. Eventually, under the expert piloting of Jaurès, bent as ever on unity, the Kautsky Resolution was passed over the heads of an intransigent minority. Jaurès’ theme, as at his own Congress, was: “We are all good revolutionaries; let us make that clear and let us unite!” But the fact was something less than the wish.
With the Boer War, the war in the Philippines and the Boxer Rebellion in progress, delegates found it easy to unite on a resolution put forward by Rosa Luxemburg stating that capitalism would collapse as a consequence, not of economic conditions, but of imperialist rivalries. Recommending Socialist parties to work against war by organizing and educating youth to carry on the class struggle, by voting against military and naval estimates and by anti-militarist protest meetings, the resolution was passed unanimously along with another denouncing the recent Hague Conference as a fraud.
The only concrete accomplishment of the Congress was a decision to establish a permanent organization