Leon Trotsky: The Consequences of Parliamentary Reformism

From Whither France?

November 9, 1934

[The Spanish Revolution (1931-39). New York 1973, p. 202-205]

12. But the Defeats in Austria and Spain …

The impotence of parliamentarianism under the conditions of crisis of the whole capitalist system is so obvious that the vulgar democrats in the camp of the workers (Renaudel, Frossard, and their imitators) do not find a single argument to defend their petrified prejudices. All the more readily do they seize upon every defeat and every failure suffered along the revolutionary road. The development of their thought is this: if pure parliamentarianism offers no way out, armed struggle does no better. The defeats of the proletarian insurrections in Austria and in Spain are now, of course, their choice argument. In fact, in their criticism of the revolutionary method the theoretical and political bankruptcy of the vulgar democrats appears still more clearly than in their defense of the methods of decaying bourgeois democracy.

No one has said that the revolutionary method automatically assures victory. What is decisive is not the method in itself but its correct application, the Marxist orientation in events, powerful organization, the confidence of the masses won through long experience, a perspicacious and bold leadership. The issue of every struggle depends upon the moment and conditions of the conflict and the relation of forces. Marxism is quite far from the thought that armed conflict is the only revolutionary method, or a panacea good under all conditions. Marxism in general knows no fetishes, neither parliamentary nor insurrectional. There is a time and place for everything. There is one thing that one can say at the beginning:

On the parliamentary road the socialist proletariat has nowhere and never conquered power nor ever, as yet, even drawn close to it.

The governments of Scheidemann, Hermann Muller, MacDonald had nothing in common with socialism. The bourgeoisie permitted the Social Democrats and Labourites to come to power only on condition that they defend capitalism against its enemies. They scrupulously fulfilled this condition. Purely parliamentary, antirevolutionary socialism nowhere and never resulted in a socialist ministry. It did succeed in producing loathsome renegades who exploited the workers' party to carve out cabinet careers — Millerand, Briand, Viviani, Laval, Paul-Boncour, Marquet.

On the other hand, historical experience shows that the revolutionary method can lead to the conquest of power by the proletariat — in Russia in 1917, in Germany and Austria in 1918, in Spain in 1930. In Russia there was a powerful Bolshevik Party, which prepared for the revolution over a long period of years and knew solidly how to take over power.

The reformist parties of Germany, Austria, and Spain did not prepare the revolution, did not lead it, but suffered it.

Frightened by the power that had come into their hands against their own will, they benevolently handed it over to the bourgeoisie. In this way they undermined the confidence of the proletariat in itself, and further, the confidence of the petty bourgeoisie in the proletariat. They prepared the conditions for the growth of fascist reaction and fell victims to it.

Civil war, we have said, following Clausewitz, is a continuation of politics but by other means. This means that the result of the civil war depends for one-fourth, not to say one-tenth, upon the development of the civil war itself, its technical means, its purely military leadership, and for three-fourths, if not for nine-tenths, on the political preparation.

Of what does this political preparation consist? Of the revolutionary cohesion of the masses, of their liberation from servile hopes in the clemency, generosity, and loyalty of "democratic slave owners," of the education of revolutionary cadres who know how to defy official public opinion and who know how to display towards the bourgeoisie one-tenth the implacability that the bourgeoisie displays towards the toilers. Without this temper, civil war when conditions force it — and they always end by forcing it — will take place under conditions most unfavorable for the proletariat, will depend upon many hazards, and even then, in case of military victory, power can escape the hands of the proletariat. Whoever does not foresee that the class struggle leads inevitably to armed conflict is blind. But he is no less blind who fails to see behind this armed conflict and its outcome the whole previous policy of the classes in struggle.

What was defeated in Austria was not the method of insurrection but Austro-Marxism and in Spain unprincipled parliamentary reformism. …

In Spain events took a different course but the causes of the defeat were basically the same. The Socialist Party, like the Russian Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, shared power with the republican bourgeoisie to prevent the workers and peasants from carrying the revolution to its conclusion. For two years the Socialists in power helped the bourgeoisie disembarrass itself of the masses by crumbs of national, social, and agrarian reforms. Against the most revolutionary strata of the people, the Socialists used repression.

The result was twofold. Anarcho-syndicalism, which would have melted like wax in the heat of revolution had the workers' party pursued a correct course, was strengthened and drew around it the militant layers of the proletariat. At the other pole, social catholic demagogy succeeded in skilfully exploiting the discontent of the masses with the bourgeois-socialist government.

When the Socialist Party was sufficiently compromised, the bourgeoisie drove it from power and took over the offensive on the whole front. The Socialist Party had to defend itself under the most unfavorable conditions, which had been prepared for it by its own previous policy. The bourgeoisie already had a mass support at the right. The anarcho-syndicalist leaders, who during the course of the revolution committed all the mistakes typical of these professional confusionists, refused to support the insurrection led by the traitor "politicians." The movement did not take on a general character but remained sporadic. The government directed its blows at the scattered sections of the workers. The civil war forced by the reaction ended in the defeat of the proletariat.

From the Spanish experience it is not difficult to draw conclusions against socialist participation in a bourgeois government. The conclusion itself is indisputable but utterly insufficient. The alleged "radicalism" of Austro-Marxism is in no sense any better than Spanish ministerial ism The difference between them is technical, not political. Both waited for the bourgeoisie to give them 'loyalty" for 'loyalty." Both led the proletariat to catastrophe.

In Spain as in Austria it was not revolutionary methods that were defeated but opportunist methods in a revolutionary situation. It is not the same thing!

We shall not stop here on the policy of the Communist International in Austria and in Spain. We refer the reader to the files of La Vérité and a series of pamphlets of recent years. In an exceptionally favorable situation the Austrian and Spanish Communist Parties, fettered by the theory of the "third period" and "social fascism," etc., found themselves doomed to complete isolation. Compromising the methods of revolution by the authority of "Moscow" they barred, thereby, the road to a truly Marxist, truly Bolshevik policy. The fundamental faculty of revolution is to submit to a rapid and pitiless examination all doctrines and all methods. The punishment almost immediately follows the crime.

The responsibility of the Communist International for the defeats of the proletariat in Germany, Austria, and Spain is incommensurable. It is not sufficient to carry out a "revolutionary” policy (in words). A correct policy is needed. No one has yet found any other secret of victory.