Do you see that tiny dot in the left hand of the screen? I am almost sure that it is clipperton. I dont know how these charts work but all the arrows are pointing that way so i feel like the struck were moving along those currents
ILA80 (International Labor Aid ‘80)
@broomflowrs.bsky.social
198 followers 168 following 5K posts
“There is no rational doctrine in opposition to communism but for the absence of one.” Remember Day of Heroism: El Fronton, Lurigancho, Callao..
![As already indicated, in the initial period of opportunism's development, the orthodox Marxists opposed it unanimously. The revisionists' demand that the party defend the interests of all democratic strata of the population, and not narrow its tasks to representing only the proletariat, was met with a united rebuff. The orthodox also unanimously proved the incorrectness of assertions about the victory of small-scale production over large-scale, about the mitigation of class contradictions, etc. The orthodox unanimously defended the basic tenets of revolutionary Marxism from the attacks of the revisionists. To the revisionists' gradual
"growing into the state of the future"*, the orthodox counterposed the catastrophic path of development.
*[Author's Note:] As one of the left Social-Democrats quite correctly noted, "growth" was indeed happening, but "into the modern class state"
But this was only in theory. In practice, the orthodox differed little from the revisionists. The thoughts and strivings of both were directed towards the interests of the given moment; for both, the struggle for partial improvements, for reforms, constituted their entire practice. The only difference was that the orthodox simultaneously propagandised the inevitability of a fundamental upheaval in the future. Without linking their day-to-day work with socialism, without adapting their entire tactics to the coming social revolution, the orthodox educated the masses in the spirit of passive radicalism.
tremely tense international situation was created,
changed. Financial capital is inherently anti-democratic. Having seized state power, subordinating it to itself in Germany (and not only in Germany), it could take the masses of the population even less into account. The significance of parliament, already not particularly great in Germany, declined. The working class was faced with the question of extra-parliamentan gressure on the ruling classes.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syla4pi3k2wbcqufelxtuoe3/bafkreicbufrmpn2c7lkyx7wiw6a5ujzacgczxxjhnfpbl5cdtwjf35emky)
![military adventures — all this was laid down long before the war in the party's practice.
Repeatedly, in response to accusations of unpatriotism from the bourgeoisie and Junkers, concrete representatives of Social-Democracy declared: "Wir sind gute Deutsche" ("We are good Germans"). And never was it declared that "wir sind gute Internationalisten" ("We are good internationalists"). August Winnig*, chairman of the Construction Workers' Union, quite correctly indicated the causes of nationalism when he wrote: "Every working class is very strongly interested in the prosperity of the national economy of its country... Here we have the ultimate reason for the phenomenon that workers decisively take the side of their state."**
*Winnig, August (b. 1878) - German right-wing Social-Democrat, defender of German imperialism, supporter of fascism.
**"Sozialistische Monatshefte", 1915, No. 1. Cited from Ensis's article in "Sovremenny Mir" (The Contemporary World), 1915, No. 6. [Author's Note]
The conduct of the opportunists, their tactics, were logically consistent throughout. If the working class is "interested in the prosperity of the national economy of its country," then it must support everything that contributes to such prosperity. The expansion of markets, a dominant position on the world market, is in the interests of the prosperity of German industry.
The German bourgeoisie is also interested in this. The proposition about the intensification of the opposition of interests between the working class and the ruling class seems absurd given the presence of such important common, "national" tasks shared by them.
Colonial Policy, Reformism and Yellow Unions
The prosperity of one's country's industry facilitates the implementation of workers' reforms.
urn, contribute to the success of trade union struggle. But it is merely an appendage to the national movement.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syla4pi3k2wbcqufelxtuoe3/bafkreid7e2zhqd6icjdzqqpnq4vovnydx74abtow2cb7uka7zsq3zx6svm)
![which can intervene everywhere in the world in order to turn the entire world into a sphere of investment for its finance capital. "*** Financial capital, representing the unity of previously fragmented capital, completely subjugates state power to itself. The old antagonism between the industrial bourgeoisie and the landowners disappears. They are brought together by their now normal participation in all the parts into which surplus value is divided. In Germany, they were also brought together by a common protectionist policy. Both financial capital and large landed property desire protective tariffs. The struggle for agricultural tariffs, in turn, united large, medium, and small landownership. Simultaneously, a process of economic, and subsequently ideological, subordination of medium and small production to financial capital took place. If economically this subordination was characterised by indirect dependence, ideologically it was complete. Medium and small production was also strongly interested in the further development of a successful imperialist policy. The expansion of the sphere for capital application helped prolong the era of prosperity and postponed the crisis.
***Hilferding, pp. 511-512. [Author's Note]
Thus, as financial capital achieved dominance, a unified bourgeois mass was created. And it often confronted the working class as a reactionary mass. The imperialist aspirations common to this bourgeois mass provoked opposition from certain strata of the proletariat. The expansion of colonial policy, the associated increase in the army and navy, and hence the increased tax burden and the strengthening of state power— all this was against the interests of the proletariat. But to certain strata it seemed that it was precisely thanks to the dominant position of German industry on the world market that they enjoyed relative prosperity. It seemed to them that their interests in foreign policy coincided with the interests of..](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syla4pi3k2wbcqufelxtuoe3/bafkreibokai5xgvsupx7dpgrukdf6vuaz35mfizlvqqavhcxjimdnssxta)
![genealogy included several generations of pure proletarians were growing. However significant the influence of petty-bourgeois elements may have been, it alone, in my opinion, cannot explain the triumph of opportunist practice. This is all the more true since it is necessary to explain the shift specifically towards *right-wing* opportunism. The petty bourgeoisie itself can provide fertile ground for the development of *left-wing* opportunism, expressed in anarchism in its various forms, as can be seen by looking at the workers movement in, for example, France or Italy.
Germany's industrial development over the last two to three decades proceeded with tremendous speed. No other country could compare with it in this regard. The following figures give some idea of this development:
**Coal Production (million tons)**
| Country | 1887 | 1912 | Increase (%) |
:---------|:--- | :---|:-----------|
Germany England
176 |226 |+193.3%
1162 | 264 | +62.9%
France
21 | 41 | +95.2%
**Pig Iron Production (million tons)**
Country
| 1887 | 1912 | Increase (%) |
Germany
4
| 18 | +350.0%
England
8
10%
France
12 |5 |+150.0%
Simultaneously, there was rapid growth in the textile industry.
**Cotton Processing (million English pounds)**
Country
| 1887 | 1912 | Increase (%) |
Germany England
France
281
1578 | +461.5%
|1339 | 2171 | +61.5%
|233 | 614 | +163.5%
*(Author's Note:]* Figures taken from Mukoseev's article "The Economic Causes of the War" in the collection "Questions of the World War", "Pravo", Petrograd, 1915.
Capitalism in Germany](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syla4pi3k2wbcqufelxtuoe3/bafkreibpdtb4mk4fo7lkyizljlzph34rsj3kz7wngut6fcd7qrjwgrtxgq)
![genealogy included several generations of pure proletarians were growing. However significant the influence of petty-bourgeois elements may have been, it alone, in my opinion, cannot explain the triumph of opportunist practice. This is all the more true since it is necessary to explain the shift specifically towards *right-wing* opportunism. The petty bourgeoisie itself can provide fertile ground for the development of *left-wing* opportunism, expressed in anarchism in its various forms, as can be seen by looking at the workers movement in, for example, France or Italy.
Germany's industrial development over the last two to three decades proceeded with tremendous speed. No other country could compare with it in this regard. The following figures give some idea of this development:
**Coal Production (million tons)**
| Country | 1887 | 1912 | Increase (%) |
:---------|:--- | :---|:-----------|
Germany England
176 |226 |+193.3%
1162 | 264 | +62.9%
France
21 | 41 | +95.2%
**Pig Iron Production (million tons)**
Country
| 1887 | 1912 | Increase (%) |
Germany
4
| 18 | +350.0%
England
8
10%
France
12 |5 |+150.0%
Simultaneously, there was rapid growth in the textile industry.
**Cotton Processing (million English pounds)**
Country
| 1887 | 1912 | Increase (%) |
Germany England
France
281
1578 | +461.5%
|1339 | 2171 | +61.5%
|233 | 614 | +163.5%
*(Author's Note:]* Figures taken from Mukoseev's article "The Economic Causes of the War" in the collection "Questions of the World War", "Pravo", Petrograd, 1915.
Capitalism in Germany
It is especially important to note the *forms* in which this powerful growth of the entire industry took place. The capitalist mode of production began to develop in Germany during a period when capitalism in some other countries, especially England, had already reached a high leve f maturity. To compete more rapidly and successfully on the world market, to act as an equa capitalist power,](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syla4pi3k2wbcqufelxtuoe3/bafkreihjonmwptzkjpdyfdvmbczlvdhi5efxs2or4gvbgysxdnt5wq65mm)
![The Period of Struggle
During the period of struggle against revisionism (1898-1905), German Social-Democracy was divided into two parts: the orthodox Marxists and the Bernsteinian revisionists. Starting in 1905, a process of separation of the so-called Lefts from the orthodox camp began. Thus, the following grouping emerged: the Right (revisionists), the Centre (a section of the former orthodox), and the Left (the remaining orthodox).
From the moment the Lefts appeared, their recent comrades in the struggle against revisionism began to oppose them more zealously than they had their former opponents, the revisionists.
From 1910 onwards, they directed almost all their blows against the Lefts. To crush the latter, the Centre usually united with the Right.
Disagreements among the orthodox first manifested themselves at the Jena Party Congress
(1905) during the discussion on the mass strike. Here we already have, in embryo, the future three tendencies. While the revisionists considered the very discussion of the issue to be untimely, the Centre found it necessary to place it on the agenda, to outline possible cases for
Lefts, unsatisfied with this, proposed conducting widespread propaganda among the masses for the idea of the strike.
Similar disagreements emerged at the subsequent Mannheim Party Congress (1906) on the same issue*. But these were merely, so to speak, outpost skirmishes. A lively polemic between the Centre and the Lefts began in 1910-1911, gradually taking on increasingly acute forms until it led to a complete demarcation.
*[Author's Note:] For characterising the conciliatory policy towards the revisionists, the following fact is interesting. Almost simultaneously with the Jena Party Congress, a congress of social-democratic trade unions was held in Cologne. There, the question of the mass strike was also discussed, and a resolution was passed ..](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syla4pi3k2wbcqufelxtuoe3/bafkreihpd7qipi3azohx7vwhnsohououvxpk57wki7n3rt7ireard6xjqq)
