Theses presented to a March 1973 meeting of Political Committee delegations from the European sections and sympathizing organizations of the Fourth International, and subsequently redrafted on the basis of the discussion which took place at the meeting.
Any study of present-day European social democracy must be genetic in nature, i.e. it must base itself on the historical method. This social phenomenon cannot be understood in a descriptive, purely static way at any one point in its development. On the contrary, one must begin from its origins and examine the transformations it has undergone, the direction in which these may lead in the future, the constraints on such a development and the general context of capitalism in decline, the social crisis in Europe and the new rise of mass struggles.
Social democracy has been the predominant political organization of the working class and the workers' movement in Europe for more than thirty years. Under pressure of a reformist day-to-day practice (elections plus economic strikes), of growing participation in the institutions of imperialist bourgeois democracy, and of a theoretical revision of Marxism (Bernstein) and a growing compromise with revisionism (Kautsky) which are the ideological reflections of its practice, it has become progressively transformed from a class-struggle force into a force for conciliation and class-collaboration. It thus became the main vehicle for petty-bourgeois and bourgeois ideology in the workers' movement, from 4 August 1914 onwards. But, in the period following the First World War, primarily because of the Stalinist degeneration of the Communist International, it was able to maintain, or re-establish, its political hegemony over the workers' movement (at one time challenged by the Communist International) in most of the countries of capitalist Europe: i.e. in all the first countries of Northern Europe (with the partial exception of Finland), Britain, the Benelux countries, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. And even in the countries where communist parties gained hegemony (France, Italy and since the fifties Spain), it has maintained a solid base in the working class.
So, we are dealing with reformist parties (influenced by petty-bourgeois and bourgeois ideology) of the workers' movement, of the working class — or, if you like, with bourgeois or petty-bourgeois workers' parties. No other definition reflects this socio-historical reality.
The main strength of traditional social democracy lay in its mass organizations: local party branches (electoral wards); trade-union branches; cooperative organizations; health insurance organizations, etc. The organizational integration of part of the working class into these overlapping structures was considerable. The bureaucracies of all these institutions formed a unified apparatus (even if this was sometimes split by individual ambitions or sectoral interests) which dominated the workers' movement as a whole. This structure continued to dominate the working-class movement until the fifties in most of the European countries where social democracy had hegemony. In some cases it still predominates today.
Besides this bureaucracy constituted by the officials of the working-class movement, there were three supplementary social bases for classical social-democratic reformism: 1. the working-class aristocracy, especially in the corporatist trade unions, 2. the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, attracted to social democracy for careerist reasons; 3. social-democratic representatives, occupying a growing number of full-time posts in the bourgeois state apparatus.
Before the Second World War, there was an interaction between these different elements of the social-democratic bureaucracy, inasmuch as the number of posts accorded to social-democratic representatives depended on social-democratic electoral strength which in turn depended on the strength of social democracy's organization and press, into which the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia had penetrated en masse. The links between these apparatuses and a considerable section of the working class were obvious, and represented the ultimate source of their strength. This was the reason for their identification with bourgeois democracy (and organic incapacity to 'come to terms' with fascist-type regimes) — as an indispensible precondition for the development of all these interlinking components.
Increasing willingness to accept the social status quo; abandonment of any revolutionary strategy; reduction of the 'conquest of power' to the 'conquest of an absolute majority in Parliament, within the framework of the bourgeois state'; acceptance of the myth of the class neutrality of bourgeois parliamentary democracy; progressive abandonment of even any reformist doctrine of class struggle, in favour of defending 'general interests' — i.e. the interests of maintaining bourgeois society; acceptance of imperialist 'national defence' and subsequently of defence of the colonial empires; the generalization of ministerial participation in coalition governments with the bourgeoisie; the inevitable acceptance of defence of the bourgeois order against workers in revolt, or even simply on strike to defend their immediate interests: all these ideological transformations in reality date back more than half a century (Noske!), and in no way contradict the sociological analyses outlined above. Social democracy can play a useful role in defending the bourgeois order, social-democratic representatives can gain more state posts and the social-democratic apparatus can increase its privileges only so long as the mass base — whether electoral or organizational — in the working class is not destroyed.
From the thirties on (following the great economic crisis of 1929-33), and above all after the Second World War, a certain number of modifications began to appear in the composition of the social-democratic apparatus and its relationship with the working class — closely linked to modifications in the functioning of capitalism in decline. The main modifications were the following:
1. A new social stratum became influential within the social-democratic apparatus, as a result of (i) a considerable extension of the state-controlled sector in the capitalist economy (especially in Austria, Britain, Italy and France), (ii) a wider and more systematic intervention in economic affairs on the part of the bourgeois state, and (iii) the increasing number of institutions set up for conciliation and class-collaboration (apart from the countries mentioned above, especially in Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, Germany and Switzerland). This stratum comprised officials and technocrats employed in the state apparatus, in para-state institutions and in the nationalized or 'mixed' industries. In addition, as a result of long periods in power, local councillors too became de facto state functionaries and can be included with this mass of technocrats, together with their whole retinue of client functionaries.
2. Within the social-democratic apparatus this group acquired a status equal to, or even more important than, that of the officials of the workers' organizations. The relative decline of certain social-democratic organizations (co-operatives, youth organizations, press) contributed to this trend. There was a real conflict of interests between the functionaries and technocrats of the bourgeois state on the one hand, and the trade-union bureaucracy on the other. The first group identifies with the bourgeois state apparatus, even when the latter resorts to confronting the reformist trade-union leaders directly. The second cannot make any such identification, when the bourgeois state and bourgeois governments come into open conflict with the trade-union movement as a whole.
3. The social-democratic state functionaries and technocrats hold their positions relatively independently of short-term electoral fluctuations. Under normal conditions, the European bourgeoisie accepts social democracy as a government party, as an integral part of its political system. Its members therefore take part normally in the highest functions of the state apparatus, the para-state institutions and the nationalized or 'mixed' concerns, irrespective of whether or not their party is in government. This fact reinforces the independence of this petty and medium bourgeois layer of the social-democratic apparatus from the trade-union apparatus and working-class base.
4. The reflection on the ideological plane of this sociological transformation is a break with traditional reformist ideology, couched in Marxist rhetoric, and the open acceptance of key ideas of bourgeois ideology in the new official programmes of many social-democratic parties: abandonment of the aim of collective appropriation of the means of production; acceptance of the principle of market economy; militant cold-war-type anti-communism in some cases; in others, acceptance of the suppression of democratic rights for working-class militants of the revolutionary left, etc.
However, although the sociological evolution of the social-democratic apparatus implies an increasing separation from the traditional mass base of social democracy, a total separation from this base completely changes the situation of these parties. In fact, a social-democratic party which has lost its working-class electoral base becomes a minor petty-bourgeois party, since social democracy is incapable of winning any broad mass base to substitute for its old working-class base. If this change does take place, the strength of the social-democratic bureaucracy, even within the state and para-state apparatus, will decline to the level of a minor political partner of the bourgeoisie.
The only concrete example of such a change in the class nature of social democracy is Saragat's Italian social-democratic Party, the result of a rightist split within social democracy. The tremendous loss of influence suffered by this party is striking enough to serve as a warning to all the other social-democratic parties, especially the old SFIO in France. To preserve or regain a mass electoral base and a mass trade-union base (even a minority one) is an essential precondition if the social-democratic apparatus is to preserve or increase its posts within the bourgeois state apparatus, and if it is to fulfil the role of class-conciliation which its leaders, both subjectively and objectively, have set themselves.
The objective basis for the rise of social-democratic reformism and revisionism in the European working-class movement was the period of imperialist 'prosperity' and of relative stability of the bourgeois order in the imperialist countries founded on that 'prosperity'. The First World War, the victory of the Russian revolution and the period of revolutionary and economic crises which followed this epoch of prosperity from 1914 on (with the exception of a brief interlude between 1923 and 1929), were unfavourable for social democracy, which was constantly the victim of a process of polarization between centrist or revolutionary tendencies developing towards the left, and rightist tendencies breaking with any practice of class struggle even of a reformist kind. The immediate post-war period, from 1944 to 1950, on the whole saw this situation continue, except in the most prosperous countries like Sweden and Switzerland.
The long period of expansion of the capitalist economy, which lasted from the 'Korean War boom' to the West German recession of 1966-7, allowed the working class to win further improvements in its standard of living, even if these were often obtained at the price of intensified exploitation (increased productivity) and remained far below the increase in the workers' basic needs. This relative stabilization of capitalism recreated a certain basis for reformist politics, but in a very different social and political context from the period before 1914, or the period between 1923 and 1929. Social democracy endeavoured to obtain these reforms solely through parliamentary channels, avoiding, stifling or even suppressing any attempt by the working class to improve its standard of living by direct strike action. In certain countries it had no hesitation in accepting legislation limiting the right to strike and imposing an incomes policy. It vigorously applied the policy of integrating social security into the overall economic policy of the bourgeois state and bourgeois governments, thereby establishing state control over part of the workers' income (deferred income). Thus even in the period of temporary resurgence of reformist programmes, the changed social composition of the social-democratic apparatus was reflected in the very type of reforms that social democracy tried to concede to the workers, within the context of defence and consolidation of bourgeois 'social peace'.
With the ending of the long period of [illegible] growth, and the simultaneous sharpening of inter-imperialist competition, the amount of concessions the bourgeoisie was able to grant the working class was reduced and thus the extent of new social reforms became negligible. In some countries in Europe, even reforms granted in the past have been challenged (especially in Britain and Sweden). The bourgeoisie finds itself periodically obliged to declare open war on the standard of living, working conditions and democratic freedoms of the working class. Under these conditions, the polarization between the technocratic wing of the social-democratic apparatus and that which represents the traditional bureaucracy of the workers' organizations has inevitably been increased, and in certain cases even exacerbated.
The new rise in workers' struggles throughout capitalist Europe has underlined and reinforced this tendency. The more active and politicized the working class becomes, the more critical it inevitably becomes of the extensive compromises of the social-democratic apparatus with the bourgeoisie. Moreover, the more social contradictions are heightened, the more the development of the bourgeoisie towards the 'strong State' becomes marked, the more the position of even moderate social democrats is threatened, and the more they begin once again to look with favour on mass pressure in the opposite directions. This is why, almost everywhere in Europe (sometimes, as in Britain, after a serious electoral defeat), one can see attempts by social democracy to re-establish its privileged relationship with sections of the trade-union apparatus — or with the latter as a whole. The 'Mitterand operation' in France symbolized dramatically the significance and possibilities for success of such attempts. The fact it was carried out on the initiative of a traditional bourgeois politician only serves to make the social significance even clearer. A similar operation had been carried out before in Holland and Luxemburg, each time at the cost of a split on the right whose extent was successfully limited in electoral terms — or even completely compensated for. If in some countries, such as Austria, this phenomenon of rapprochement with the unions has been slow to appear, it is because there is a certain lag in the overall evolution of these countries, with respect to the rest of capitalist Europe. Moreover, the socialist parties of these countries will be penalized for this delay by a decline on the electoral front, which in turn will be one of the factors which will lead them to readjust their political orientation.
One can therefore draw the conclusion that, as a general rule, social-democratic parties are still parties with a working-class electoral base, are objectively considered as such by important sections of the working class and the bourgeoisie, and are an organic part of the working-class movement. But their relationship with the working class is undergoing two important changes, by comparison with the period preceding the Second World War.
1. Their control over the trade-union organizations is weakening, or has disappeared. The autonomy of the trade-union bureaucracy from these parties is growing. In the absence of mass communist parties, and given the still pronounced weakness of the centrist and revolutionary formations, the trade-union apparatus sometimes tends to fill the gap which the disappearance of classical mass reformist formations has left and to act as spokesman for the majority of the working class, not only on the trade-union front, but also with regard to many political questions (except in the electoral arena).
2. Irrespective of the fluctuations to left or right of social-democracy's phraseology and of its electoral relations with the communist parties, the credibility of social-democracy as an instrument for carrying out the socialist transformation of society, even by Parliamentary or electoral means, has undergone a qualitative decline, not only in the eyes of the working class, but even in the eyes of social-democratic voters themselves. This does not mean that the electoral influence of social-democracy has declined; it can even out-do its own historical record, as in West Germany. But it does mean that the masses who vote for social democracy do so more to vote against the bourgeois conservative parties, than to vote for a party which they consciously identify with socialism. That is why formulas like 'labour to power on a socialist programme' are in sharp conflict with the scepticism of a large section of the working class.
This phenomenon is not only due to the growing discredit attached to the social-democratic apparatus, because of its innumerable betrayals and compromises with the bourgeoisie. It also represents the beginnings of disillusionment and scepticism among increasing working-class layers as regards reformist, electoral and parliamentary illusions.
In such circumstances, revolutionary Marxists have nothing to gain by lending these illusions fresh credibility. While adopting the most appropriate electoral tactics in each concrete situation (including, in cases of confrontation between social-democratic and bourgeois parties which clearly take on the objective character of a class confrontation, the possibility of calling for a vote for these parties), they must orientate their governmental slogans more towards workers' governments arising out of extra-parliamentary struggles of the masses and the real mass organizations of the working class.
Practically all the important splits which have occurred in European social democracy during the last few years have been splits on the right (Italy; Holland; Luxemburg; French social-democratic groups joining forces with the 'reformers' of the centre rather than accept the electoral pact with the Communist Party). Are splits on the left ruled out at the moment, given the changed social composition of the social-democratic apparatus? Could social-democratic youth movements, which at the moment are stagnating, declining or unable to establish themselves, develop once again?
To answer this question, one has to take into account two inter-related factors: on the one hand, the reorientation of many social-democratic parties in an attempt to forge a new alliance with the trade-union apparatus and to win back a working-class electoral base; on the other hand, the appearance of a mass vanguard which is independent of the traditional parties.
Given the mass nature of youth radicalization in most of the countries of Europe, the possibility of a broad penetration of 'dissident' tendencies into social-democracy cannot be ruled out. The spectacular influx of youth into German social democracy in the last few years is a typical example of this. But, on the other hand, the breadth and level of consciousness of the most radicalized layers of youth make it impossible for social democracy and the communist parties to absorb this phenomenon as a whole. This is one of the most striking differences between this present phase of radicalization and that of the thirties or forties. In such circumstances, the emergence of left-centrist currents within social-democratic parties is less likely, except in countries where the new vanguard is far from reaching the same [illegible] rest of Europe. The [illegible] likely [illegible] that there will be relatively little movement to the left within the social-democratic parties, which will remain at a lower ideological level than in the past, with the more radical elements being constantly drawn towards revolutionary formations and currents outside social democracy.
One must not, however, draw the conclusion that in countries in which the working-class movement is still hegemonized by social democracy, this phenomenon of new left-wing tendencies can be ignored by revolutionary Marxists. They must follow them closely and try to influence them politically and ideologically once they attain a certain strength — without, however, forgetting that their main task is to build independent revolutionary organizations, which is the only appropriate orientation in the present period.