No one longs for the time when the party was under the ‘law of shame’ [the Anti-Socialist Law, 1878-1890]. But let us not forget that ‘German Social Democracy overthrew the Socialist Law not by licking the hand that cracked the whip over it, but through stubborn resistance. This law was dropped not because Social Democracy had reconciled itself to the capitalist state, but because it had become a fearsome power under it. And this fear of Social Democracy is also the main motivating force behind the worker protection legislation. For this, we have Bismarck’s classic testimony, which serves our agitators so well: “If it were not for the fear of social democracy, we would not have the little bit of social reform that we do.” That is why social revolutionary agitation and social reforms go hand-in-hand. When the proletariat is prepared to overthrow the whole capitalist social order, the bourgeoisie gives it labour protection laws to calm it down. When the proletariat leaves the economic foundations alone and modestly demands the ten-hour working day, it is not granted this in order to stop it becoming too demanding, but is given the empty promise of the eleven-hour working day instead. The hostile indifference of the capitalist class, let alone its exploiter interests against all things beneficial to the workers, can only be broken through the pressure of the masses.
The opportunist may prove to the capitalist, in a learned or eloquent fashion, that reducing working hours would not reduce the daily output of the workers, but the business owner will stick to the old working hours unless he is forced to do otherwise. But precisely by tailoring his proposals for worker protection to the bourgeois parliamentary majority, the opportunist reduces their appeal to the working class. He demands, for example, not the eight-hour day but the ten- or eleven-hour day, because he hopes to push this through parliament more easily; in this way, he casts aside the most advanced strata of the industrial workers, who already have the nine-hour working day, and for whom the ten-hour day is no longer of any practical interest. The reduced interest of the working masses is naturally also expressed in public; parliament considers itself to be under less pressure from outside and as a result does not even grant the eleven-hour working day. The argumentation that the opportunist uses to defend the short normal working day, this most significant demand of worker protection that is on the agenda, is also quite remarkable. Above all, he wants to prove to business that the reduction of working hours would not harm it, but rather benefit it. Now it is certainly important to reject the capitalists’ exaggerations of the disturbing effects of worker-protection legislation, but we are not of the view that we only support those factory laws under which capitalist interests do not suffer any losses. Otherwise, we would have never achieved the prohibition of child labour, night work, and so on. This consideration for the interests of the capitalists also reduces the agitational impact on the workers, whose interests can never be consistently realised without infringing upon those of the exploiters.
So when it comes to worker-protection legislation too, opportunism’s attempts to reach an understanding that cuts across class antagonisms only leads to a paralysis of the political action of the proletariat. Capital, which is the ruling class and therefore only has to defend existing state relations, can only benefit from dampening the intensity of the class struggle since, in other words, the opposition to its ruling status diminishes. This explains capital’s desire for ‘social peace’.
And the trade unions! While the bourgeois press, even deep among the ranks of the high bourgeoisie, sees in the trade unions workers’ organisations that make themselves at home on the soil of the capitalist social order and that represent certain interests without questioning the foundations of capitalism, opportunism maintains that the development of the trade unions leads to the strangulation of the capitalist class, to the gradual elimination of capitalist private property and so on. This idea is nothing new; it is the old phrase that the capitalist likes to throw at strikes in order to stir up public opinion against the workers: the trade union wants to be the ‘master of the house’ instead of him! Both views are exaggerations. The trade unions are by no means harmless, they are proletarian organisations of struggle that turn their swords against capitalist exploitation.
Although they are organisations of struggle, they are not in themselves capable of overturning the economic structure of capitalist society: their activity merely proves the necessity of those political and economic changes that will be introduced by the dictatorship of the proletariat. Now, nobody disputes the connection between trade-union activity and worker-protection legislation, but we have just shown how opportunist points of view impede the development of worker-protection legislation. But the opportunist point of view turns out to be an obstacle to trade-union practice in general. In their struggles, they say, the trade unions must take into account the industrial situation, competition and other capitalist conditions, because these factors have a large influence on the outcome of the struggle; but when the situation is favourable, the trade unions dare to attack capital even if industrial development or competition itself suffers. With the exception of those strikes provoked by the employers, the greater and longer a strike is, the greater damage it does to industry, the more difficult it is to repair this damage. But to all such charges by the entrepreneurs, the trade unions reply: ‘We want conditions under which we can lead a decent existence (this is, for example, the principle behind the living wage)!’ In other words: ‘If we wanted to base ourselves fundamentally on capitalist interests then we would never get out of misery; we therefore oppose our human interest to the interest of capital accumulation, competition, etc.; if capitalist society cannot satisfy our demands, then away with this form of society.’ From the commodity of labour power, a human voice rises up protesting against this economic pupation of human beings and thereby against the entire economic structure, in which the human being, this indispensable component, is a commodity. But here, too, opportunism goes out of its way to take account of capitalism’s inadequacies. It is apprehensive about the interests of industry and is therefore most readily at hand to prevent a strike or to condemn trade-union action in the interests of industrial development. Here we need only recall Bernstein’s attitude towards the great machine builders’ strike in England. That is why here too the opportunist seeks to reconcile, to unite, and places so much emphasis on the collective bargaining associations and mediation panels. By holding back and blunting the trade-union struggle more than is necessary, he imagines that he can thereby bring capitalism to an end.
In everything that opportunism initiates, we always find the same outcome: since it practically no longer reckons with the possibility of the dictatorship of the proletariat or of social revolution, it assumes that the capitalist mode of production will last for an unforeseeable amount of time. As a result, he is helpless. He does not seek a way out when he encounters obstacles that stand in the way of the realisation of workers’ interests that arise from the exploitative character of capitalist production, i.e., obstacles that are to be found in the system’s very essence. That is why opportunism’s ‘Realpolitik’ is nothing other than continuously applying the brakes to the proletarian class struggle, of holding back all of its manifestations.
But those who place themselves on the soil of the capitalist mode of production must also accept the capitalist state. Just as opportunism marks its capitulation to the capitalist mode of production by a theoretical blurring of the boundaries between capitalism and socialism, so it seeks to cover its submission to the capitalist state by pointing to its supposed continuing democratisation. But the democratic form does not eliminate the class character of the state. This is the experience of opportunism at every turn. As it increasingly limits its workers’ policies, the more it finds itself obliged to pursue capitalist state policies too.