Comrade Jacob’s recent letter proposes and interesting schema of how the left is divided:
“The five tendencies are, from right to left:
1) Right syndicalism – Friedrich Ebert, “tred-iunionizm,” going all the way down union bureaucracies after WWII
2) Pacifist socialism – Eduard Bernstein and especially Jean Jaures (while they all endorsed the reform coalitionist strategy, they all opposed war when the chips fell down)
3) Orthodox Marxist center – Bebel, Kautsky, and Old Bolshevism
4) “Hegelian Marxist” left – Luxemburg
5) Left syndicalism – Bakunin and Sorel”
While the Comrade’s overall point is correct, I would like to propose a more accurate terminology that substitutes ‘populism’ for ‘right syndicalism’ and ‘progressivism’ for ‘pacifist socialism’. This is important for several reasons:
Firstly, I feel that the terms are somewhat limited. ‘Right syndicalism’ implies a complete focus on trade unions. While an emphasis on trade unions can certainly be a party of left-wing populism, historical groups in this category either treat trade unionism as only one (albeit vital) tactic amongst many, like the cited Ebert, or they have ignored it altogether, such as the Right SRs. Using ‘populism’ as a substitute recognizes the working class base of this tendency without the decentralized and union-based implications of ‘syndicalism’.
Likewise, ‘pacifist socialism’ refers very specifically to those historical politicians mentioned (Jaurés & Bernstein) with examples since the early 20th century being few and far between. Progressivism gets at the moralistic aspects of the ‘pacifism’ part of the equation while removing the limiting ‘socialism’ part.
And this is my final point: the left/right political division ultimately distorts the class point of view. Though progressives and populists might be on the ‘left’, and they might be based in the proletariat or the democratic petty bourgeoisie, they do not have a vision for a classless society like socialists, communists, and even syndicalists do. We can only unify behind a program for a break with capitalism and an ultimate goal of a stateless, classless society.
Comradely,
Wylie
