Title | The collapse of the Second International |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Contributor (Local) |
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Publisher | The Socialist Labour Press |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1920? |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 72 pages: portrait; 20 cm. |
Original Item Location | HX11.I5L383 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8320090~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 59 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_4975147_058.jpg |
Transcript | 57 This is perfectly true. The following assertion il the same document is also true : the'r^vohitinnoi116 S:D" ^ction voted on August 4th meant that routed t Z y and antl-,militant view, even had it been deeply S t ^lh?TST !l C°uld °nl*v have forced itfl way trough Eshin T11 °f th* ^^ Centres> and nofc under the trifd have Wp// Part?" The internationalist view could only Kvl?8^? tiir°Ugh ^ overcoming the opposition of the paity and the trade unions." (Ibid.) This again is perfectly true. PTfl^i V16 S-^\,faction had done its duty on August 4th the exteinal form of the party would probably have been destroyed, but its spirit would have remained, that spirit which animated the party during the period of the Exceptional Law and helped it to overcome all difficulties. (Ibid.) In Legien's pamphlet we find it noted that the gathering of " leaders "—whom he had brought together to hear his paper and who styled themselves trade union leaders and officials—burst out laughing when they heard this. The idea struck them as ridiculous that one can, and must, create illegal revolutionary organisations at a time of crisis, as was done at the time of the Exceptional [Anti-Socialist] Law. And Legien, a most devoted watchdog of the bourgeoisie, beat his breast and exclaimed: "To disrupt organisations in order that questions may be decided by the masses is a purely anarchist thought. I hav. not^ the least doubt that this is an anarchist idea." "True," exclaimed the chorus (Ibid., p. 37) of flunkeys of the bourgeoisie, who styled / themselves leaders of the S.D. organisations and of the working class. Here we have an instructive object lesson. Leaders have been so depraved and stupified by activity under bourgeois legality that they are incapable of even grasping the thought of the necessity for any other form of organisation; they cannot see the need for illegal organisations for directing the revolutionary struggle. Men have come to such a pitch that they imagine that legal unions sanctioned by the police arc organisations which cannot be surpassed; they imagine that during a time of crisis these unions can be preserved to supply the [revolutionary] directing force ! Here you have a concrete instance of the manner in which opportunist dialectics work out in practice. Thus, the ordinary growth of legal unions and the simple |