Translated by: Juan R. Fajardo,
2016.
Source of the text: Translated from Historia de la
crisis mundial, in Obras Completas, volume 8, https://www.marxists.org/espanol/mariateg/oc/historia_de_la_crisis_mundial/index.htm
Editorial Note: This text is available in print as
part of: José Carlos Mariátegui,
History of the World Crisis and Other
Writings, Marxists Internet Archive Publications (2017); ISBN
978-0-692-88676-2.
Author’s Notes:
Proletarian agitation in Europe. Italy on the verge of revolution. The elections of 1919. The factory occupations. The III International. The centrist International, or International Two-and-One-Half. The socialist schism.
Let’s see how this period of proletarian agitation was hatched. During the war, the capitalist order found itself forced to make numerous concessions to the working class and to the socialist idea. The proletariat’s collaboration was indispensable. The proletariat, and its economic doctrine, achieved some gains, some advances, which increased its strength and strengthened its faith. Later, there came another cause for proletarian affirmation: the Russian Revolution. The European states worked, on the one hand, to choking the revolution in Russia and, on the other, on preventing its spread to the rest of Europe. It was a moment of advance for the revolutionary idea. A moment of offensive by the proletariat. An instant of apogee for the revolution. What characterized the social struggle was the proletariat’s initiative in attack. In Germany, Bavaria, Austria, Hungary. In the face of this offensive, the regime was forced to retreat, to pull back. The most attentive and perspicacious statesmen understood then that it was not possible to save it without great sacrifices. An advanced reformist current dominated. The bourgeoisie adopted an attitude of renewal. It affirmed its democratic and evolutionist leanings. It condemned dictatorship. It praised peace. It exalted universal suffrage and parliamentarianism. It enrobed the Versailles Peace with the League of Nations. It created the International Labour Office. It convened the First Labor Congress in Washington. This policy tended to divide the proletariat, drawing its largest masses to the path of collaboration and reform. This division did take place. Part of the socialist parties and the unions spoke out for revolutionary politics. Another spoke in favor of a prudent and transactional policy which avoided all decisive and violent action. The former created the III International. The latter organized the II International. Some centrist, in-between elements kept their independence. Later on they gathered in the International Two-and-One-Half.
The II International. Berne, February 1919. Lucerne, August 1919. Geneva, July 30th, 1920. The Reformist Syndicalist International. November 1920.
The III International. 1st Congress 2-6 March 1919. 2nd Congress, July 1920. Here were established the 21 conditions which split the parties of France, Germany, etc. In Germany, Halle 12-17 October 1919. In France, Tours, December 1920. In England, August of 1920.
The International 2½. Berne, December 1920; some months later, Vienna.
Also, mass actions. In England, in 1920, the coalminers’ strike. In France, the rail workers’ strike in May 1920, which brought about the decree dissolving the C.G.T. and the imprisonment of Souvarine, Loriot, and Dunois. In Germany, the agitation in the Ruhr after Kapp’s coup, in April 1920. Spain and Japan. The strikes in solidarity with proletarian Hungary against Horthy’s reaction. But in Italy the agitation reached even greater proportions.
The July 1919 strikes. The November 1919 elections. The general strike in protest of the attack on several socialist deputies. The 1920 railway and postal workers’ strikes. The low price of bread and Nitti’s. Giolitti’s government.
The factory occupations. Their antecedents. On June 18th the metalworkers demanded economic improvements tied to the rise in the cost of living. Negotiations, proposals, and counterproposals. On August 13th, break-down of the negotiations. On August 21st obstructionism begins. On August 30th the Romeo Factory of Milan, with close to 2,000, declared a lock-out. Immediately, 300 factories were taken over in Milan. Immediately, the movement spread to all of Italy.
Aspects of the occupation’s internal order. The carrying out of work. The discipline. The financing of the works. Vigilance. The governmental attitude. The owners demanded the eviction of the workers by force. The debate between the General Confederation of Labor and the Socialist Party. The Confederation’s ideas prevail. The control of the factories. The government’s intervention. Meeting of workers and bosses, presided over by Giolitti, on September 15th in Turin. The industrialists’ subjugation. Negotiations with the industrialists about pay for days of work. Pay of the agreed-upon increases from July 25th to August. The government’s decree. The Metalworkers’ Congress approved the agreement. It was ratified with a referendum. 148,000 votes against 42,000. September 24th.
Later on, the Livorno Congress.
Thus ended the revolutionary period and the reactionary period began.
Fascism is the reaction. However, it speeds up the revolutionary process because it destroys the democratic institutions. Fascism has devalued parliament and suffrage. Fascism has taught the path of dictatorship and violence. Earlier, in opposition to bolshevism, democracy raised its characteristic institutions: parliament and universal suffrage. Now, the bourgeoisie discredits both institutions. We have just seen a similarly anti-parliamentarian military movement in Spain.
Is the united front of the bourgeoisie possible? Yes, but only provisionally; only while a decisive assault by the revolution is forestalled. Later, each of the bourgeoisie’s groups seeks to regain its autonomy. Woe to the proletariat if the bourgeoisie were to be inspired by a single ideology and a single interest. Within the bourgeoisie there are contrasts of ideology and interests, contrasts that nothing can suppress. The radical, democratic, liberal, elements of the bourgeoisie – which are such due to psychology and position in society – can consent temporarily to a conservative reaction absorbing them, but tend, immediately, toward re-establishing the old balance. Why? Because a united front is built on the basis of the surrender of the democratic and reformist ideals to the conservative ideals. It is not made on the basis of a social contract, but on the basis of a renunciation. There are capitalist elements, men of the bourgeoisie, who believe that a social transformation is necessary and that a dictatorially reactionary regime cannot last without it agitating the revolution and increasing its destructive impetus. Nitti, Caillaux, Walter Rathenau. Thus, the united front cannot be long-lasting; it would, furthermore, provoke a united front of the proletariat.
In this chaos, in this conflict, the Western world hangs in the balance. Its political institutions do not correspond to new economic reality. A part of its conservative forces speak out for a program of audacious reforms which would gradually transform society. Another fears that concessions to the revolution, once started, would be impossible to stop. And, therefore, they attempt to resist. The proletariat needs to pay attention to this conflict’s progress.