Читать книгу The Complete Works of Malatesta Vol. III - Errico Malatesta - Страница 18

Translated from “Gl’insuccessi dei socialisti,”

L’Agitazione (Ancona) 1, no. 2 (March 21, 1897).

Having learned from the past and from events that play out day after day before our very eyes, we are more convinced now than ever, that it is not parliaments but the proletariat alone that has the wherewithal and the requisite capabilities to resolve the social problems that have the close of this century in turmoil.

When Liebknecht said that “the socialists’ speeches could have no influence on legislation” and that “words cannot convert Parliament,” he encapsulated our whole thinking in a few words.

English labor history—the manly history of an entire class extracting labor laws one at a time by means of violent street demonstrations—shows in fact that only deeds can convert capitalists and rulers.

There is no shortage of examples of this powerlessness on the part of socialist deputies.

Not many days ago, the socialists tabled three motions before the French parliament, asking, in the first of these, that work be found for the unemployed; in the second, for a few laws in favor of the working classes; and, in the last, the concession whereby workers might be included among those charged with looking into the blight of unemployment.

The socialist deputies spoke eloquently and the Chamber voted… that chatter is just chatter.

Now, on to the second example.

According to a motion from the Belgian socialist deputies, inspectors assigned to monitor the mines should be directly elected by the workers through universal suffrage. Obviously, the proposal could hardly have been any more logical and fair.

But the industrialists and factory owners who sit in the Chamber or have their representatives there, do not like others sticking their noses into their business.

So the Chamber rejected the motion that Vandervelde had backed with a splendid address.

Now, on to the third, and, for now, last example.

We are now in Germany, this time. Small wonder, therefore, that the representatives of the social democracy thought that they were strong enough to ask outright for the eight-hour work day.

Needless to say, the Chamber rejected the request by a huge majority.

In the wake of these setbacks, which depended, as the Avanti correspondent gloomily stated, on the fact that “all the parties—bourgeois, conservative, Catholic, nationalist, liberal, and even extreme radicals came together, setting their internecine feuds aside for the time being, to vote against the socialists’ motion,” it would be logical if the incorrigible worshippers of parliamentary action were to conclude once and for all that their efforts are in vain, and that their time, ingenuity, influence, activity, and money need to be spent exclusively among the proletariat, to which the ruling classes would cave in and grant that which they withhold in parliament.

But that is merely wishful thinking on our part. We will hear the response that if only there were a hundred, two hundred, three hundred deputies, instead of a negligible minority, they would be within reach of…

Of what?

“Let’s imagine,” writes Wilhelm Liebknecht in Situazione Politica, pages 11 and 12, “that the dream of some socialist visionary were to be realized: that there was a social democratic majority in parliament. What would happen? Behold the Rubicon: crossed. At long last the yearned for moment to reform Society and the State has arrived! Already the majority is contemplating doing something grand, something that may leave an indelible imprint on history in that solemn hour: a new era is about to dawn!

“Oh, fear not, none of this, none of it will come to pass!…

“Instead, a company of soldiers will turn up to shoo the majority away, and should those gentlemen not comply immediately, it would require only a few policemen to show them the quickest route to prison, where they would have all the time they might need to meditate on their bragging.

“Revolutions are not made with government permission: the socialist ideal cannot be achieved within the compass of the present state, which will have to be done away with before a new-born future sees the light of day!

“Down with the worshippers of universal suffrage!…”

After these words from the socialist pontiff, enough said!