Le congrès de Dresde, édition GASTON RAPHAEL

Foreword

G. Jacques, publisher, 1 rue Casimir-Delavigne, then 36 boulevard Saint-Michel, Paris, has recently discontinued, at least provisionally, the publication of the Études Socialistes which he had begun on the first of January 1903; he was kind enough to share with us the list of his subscribers; we will present our cahiers, beginning at the end of this fifth series, to those subscribers who do not yet know them; we will treat them as prospective subscribers; we will send them our summary analytical catalogue in October.

The Études Socialistes appeared every two months; the first issue was that of January-February 1903; it was exceptionally priced at fifty centimes; five further issues followed, every two months; these other issues were regularly priced at one franc; the subscription was four francs per year; the last issue was that of November-December 1903; thus with six issues, marked at a total of five francs fifty, the first year appeared complete, and publication was discontinued after the completion of the first year.

We have purchased a certain number of complete collections and are in a position to send our subscribers the Études Socialistes, first year complete, for four francs, which was the subscription price, instead of five francs fifty, which is the total of the marked prices; send a money order for four francs to M. André Bourgeois, administrator of the cahiers; we cannot too strongly urge those of our subscribers who wish to have a complete file of the contemporary socialist movement, and certain particularly interesting retrospective socialist texts, to request this first year of the Études Socialistes from us; we publish at the end of the present cahier, immediately after the table of contents, page 249, a summary analytical table; one will see everything that was published in these six fascicles; the six fascicles form an octavo volume of 384 very dense pages; it will be noted that our collaborator M. Sorel was one of the principal collaborators of the Études Socialistes.

We anticipate that the first cahier of the sixth series, appearing on Sunday, October 2 next, will be the summary analytical catalogue of our first five series; we ask our subscribers, just as we are already thinking today about preparing the establishment of this catalogue, to think, for their part, about preparing its useful distribution; that is to say, we ask them, during the completion of this fifth series, to look for and to indicate to us to whom we might usefully send this summary analytical catalogue, as we send our announcements of new publications; to learn what will have appeared in the first five series of the cahiers, it suffices to send today one’s name and address to M. André Bourgeois, administrator of the cahiers, 8 rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor, Paris, fifth arrondissement; one will receive in October our summary analytical catalogue; to let someone know what will have appeared in the first five series of the cahiers, it suffices to send today to M. André Bourgeois the name and address of the person in whom one takes an interest; notify that person at the same time; he or she will receive in October our summary analytical catalogue.

Foreword

I do not forget that I owe my old great-cousin, my friend Pierre Baudouin the philosopher, and my friend the historian Pierre Deloire, an account of the congresses I attended during the years of my apprenticeship; I have owed it to them for several years now; old subscribers are kind enough to remind me of these old debts from time to time; one would be surprised if I did not reply that I have begun to prepare this account; let no one be surprised; I have begun to prepare this account.

I do not know when I shall finish; the steady growth of these cahiers---this one itself is one of the most considerable we have put together---increasing my work, my responsibilities and my administrative burdens, reduces by as much my strength and my writing time; I am not one of those great geniuses who work without ever tiring; I am not one of those great writers who can write by the kilometer; and I sometimes allow myself to reflect, between meals, which wastes an enormous amount of time.

I do not know when I shall finish; let us not rush; to work is not always to write; and there are curves, of thought, of action, that are far from being completed.

I shall explain, continuing my management report, how our courier cahiers are organized, how they function; but I am certain that our subscribers have not waited for this continuation to notice that, as far as we can, our courier cahiers bring direct, immediate information; where the share of distortion is nil, as far as we can; where the share of interpretation is reduced to the inevitable minimum; in this sense my account of the congresses will make a courier cahier.

Above all one must know what is being said; one morning we read in the newspapers that the German legislative elections have produced three million socialists and hundreds of thousands more; the next morning we read in the newspapers that nothing has happened in Germany; the morning after that we read in the newspapers that the German socialists are squabbling over whether they will elect a parliamentary vice-president who goes to court in court dress; one must therefore conclude that these innumerable German socialist voters are like too many French socialists we know, and are not like certain French socialists, revolutionaries, whom we also know; thus for any conversation, and even before engaging the conversation, one must know in what idiom one speaks, what is the language; and before any counting one must know in what units one counts; more than three million may not be worth less than three hundred thousand.

In the absence of direct information and among indirect sources of information, official reports are particularly valuable; not that they are particularly accurate; on the contrary; but because the distortions in them belong to a known type; and thus interpretation can be regulated almost automatically; everyone today knows what official language is; for those who can read, this language is substantially the same in all countries of the world; the understanding of the text is facilitated accordingly.

The official German report of the Dresden Congress forms a thick octavo volume of 448 very dense, gray pages; the first page of the cover bears this title:

Protokoll ueber die Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands abgehalten zu Dresden vom 13. bis 20. September 1903 Preis 75 Pfennig Berlin 1903 Verlag: Expedition der Buchhandlung Vorwaerts (Th. Glocke in Berlin)

On the coming Sunday, August 14, the sixth international socialist congress is to open in Amsterdam; this sixth international socialist congress will be the second within our experience; the first, fifth by name, and which our subscribers have not forgotten, was that great Paris congress of 1900, one of those, the principal one of those of which I owe an account; while awaiting that direct account, we had the good fortune to publish of that fifth or first congress a report that had the double advantage of being stenographic and of not being official: sixteenth cahier of the second series, cleared for printing on Tuesday, August 13, 1901, unofficial stenographic report of the French version of the fifth international socialist congress, held in Paris from September 23 to 27, 1900; a substantial cahier of 216 pages and cover, three francs fifty; one recalls that the international or so eminently French organizers of the congress, wholly occupied with preparing the universal social revolution for the following morning, or perhaps with playing parliamentary political tricks on one another, for it was the time when unity reigned, had neglected to retain a stenographer; the cahier’s report, stenographic, was taken by our sworn stenographers, MM. Corcos brothers, then regular stenographers of the French Socialist Party; the text was revised by our collaborator Hubert Lagardelle; our collaborator M. Sorel was kind enough to review the proofs and annotate; this report not being official, I need not say that it offers every guarantee; thus established, this cahier remains the sole authentic monument we possess of a congress that was important, less for its official declarations than for its subterranean elaborations; I should add that apart from complete collections, we have only 108 copies remaining.

On all other texts and documents, information, notes and commentaries that we have published on the socialist movement in our first five series, I refer to the summary analytical catalogue that we are preparing as the first cahier of the sixth series; it will be the function of this summary analytical catalogue to present as a whole a statement of all our works, of all our previous publications.

At the moment when the Amsterdam congress is about to open, we wished to give our subscribers an example of a German national congress; our subscribers know only too well, through their own experience and through our cahiers, what French congresses are and what French socialism has become; it is good, at the moment when the second great international congress within our experience is about to open, that one should have an account of a great German national congress; we naturally chose the most recent congress, the Dresden Congress, held last September.

Not only do French socialism and German socialism form two capital parts of international socialism, but French socialism and German socialism form, in quality, in nature, perhaps the two types around which could theoretically be grouped the different species of socialism that we know in the world.

The German report on which we worked is an official report; but it is stenographic; moreover, if of all indirect reports an official report is the least venturesome, an official report is better than a semi-official one.

Our collaborator Gaston Raphaël, sworn translator of our cahiers for German, took the German Protocol; he translated stenographically the essential stenographic parts; he translated analytically the parts of the stenography that admitted analysis; he transported the annexes, which, in their austere and apparently thankless uniformity, are of capital importance, like every primary document, tedious and unprocessed.

We have set in seven-point, that is to say in smaller type, the stenographic parts translated stenographically; we have set in eight-point, that is to say in larger type, the stenographic parts translated analytically; I have, on Raphaël’s text, established a summary analytical table.

CHARLES PÉGUY

Preparatory Meeting

Held on Sunday, September 13, 1903, at seven o’clock in the evening.

“Since Halle [Congress of Halle in 1890] no congress has seen more delegates than the one that meets this evening. The great hall of the Trianon seems almost too small for the crowd of those who have come. The delegates have taken their places at six long tables and at numerous small tables. At the back and on the sides of the hall the mass of listeners presses in; hundreds of comrades who wished to enter must be turned away, for the hall is full. Before the platform the representatives of the press, of whom about sixty have been announced, including some representatives of the foreign press, are seated at two long tables.

“The upholsterers’ union, during the hours free from work, had adorned the hall with the richest and most tasteful decoration. On the platform where the presidential table stands, against the back wall: the statue of Liberty, flanked by the busts of the first fighters, Marx, Lassalle, Engels, and Liebknecht. A bouquet of laurels and palms surrounds these statues, above which the image of the rising sun announces universal peace. Branches and garlands of fir, along with flags, emblems, and escutcheons, adorn the walls and columns of the hall. Marx, Saint-Simon, and Hutten furnish the text of inscriptions intended to remind and encourage: ‘Proletarians of all countries, unite!---Remember that enthusiasm is needed to accomplish great things!---The spirits have awakened; it is a true joy to be alive!’”

At seven o’clock sharp the deliberations begin. Kaden, in the name of the local committee of Dresden, and Bebel, in the name of the party’s executive committee, welcome the congress members. Elections proceed. Singer and Kaden are unanimously elected presidents.

Singer takes the chair. Nine secretaries are appointed, as well as a commission charged with verifying the delegates’ mandates.

Motions relating to the fixing of the agenda are immediately discussed. Motions 2, 3, and 6 do not gather a sufficient number of signatures. Motion 1 is not adopted. Singer announces that a conference of Prussian delegates will take place at the close of the Congress. Motion 5 no longer has any reason for being.

The congress agenda is definitively fixed as follows:

Report of the executive committee: a) general matters; b) treasury; c) collaboration of comrades with bourgeois organs; d) dispute between Bebel and the editorial board of the Vorwaerts; e) the Polish question.
Report of the auditors.
Report on parliamentary activity.
Party tactics: a) Reichstag elections; b) the question of the vice-presidency; c) revisionist tendencies.
May Day celebration.
The international congress of Amsterdam, 1904.
Motions concerning the party program and organization.
Other motions.
Election of the executive committee, the auditors, and choice of the location for the next congress.

First Day

Monday, September 14 --- Morning Session

At a quarter past nine, President Singer opens the proceedings. He thanks the foreign delegates, several of whom take the floor, and reads the telegrams that have arrived from various regions. The agenda is taken up.

I. Report of the Executive Committee

a) General Matters

Pfannkuch, rapporteur. --- We have had to concern ourselves this past year above all with the struggle against customs tariffs and the Reichstag elections.

The fight against the tariffs was conducted mainly in Berlin. But throughout the country our comrades supported us valiantly.

The electoral campaign was prepared from March onward. It was not always easy for us to provide speakers to the comrades who demanded them---sometimes in not too polite terms. There is a serious difficulty here, and I think the motions calling for the establishment of a propaganda commission are not in a position to change the situation. We also supplied leaflets as many as the comrades requested. But there too we would have needed better support.

We have been asked to create workers’ secretariats for the party. We have done so only in places where socialism has not yet taken root. We believe that elsewhere the local organizations should take charge of this work. And I do not think the committee will change its view.

Our press has grown considerably. No new newspapers have been founded, but the old ones have seen their subscribers and editions increase. [See annexes.]

Certain motions concern our organizational statutes. It is demanded that the committee intervene within a fixed time limit in disputes that arise between comrades. It will certainly intervene as soon as possible. But it cannot be compelled to intervene within a fixed deadline.

The committee believes it has fulfilled its task as well as possible during the past year. (Approval)

b) Treasurer’s Report

Gerisch, rapporteur. --- I can only hope that the financial situation remains equal to that of last year. (Laughter and approval)

Unfortunately, many constituencies not having sent their accounts, I have been unable to give exact figures everywhere, particularly regarding the press. But in general the situation of our press is excellent. We have 550,000 subscribers (130,000 more than last year, thanks to the elections). In round figures, subscriptions brought in 3 million and advertisements 1,700,000 marks.

As for the party treasury, naturally the receipts are no longer equal to those that preceded the elections. But the decline must not continue. We still have numerous expenses to anticipate.

Report of the Auditors

Meister, rapporteur. --- The auditors had to verify the party’s books and treasury and those of the Vorwaerts. Nowhere did we have the slightest observation to make.

The auditors had to deal with a letter from Mehring demanding the exclusion of comrade Berthold, who had written in the Zukunft articles unworthy of a socialist. Opinion on this point was unanimous. However, the demand was rejected, the votes for and against being equal.

We also had to reject a complaint from a miner and from another comrade. We have not yet been able to rule on a complaint from the comrades of Mulhouse and Strasbourg.

For the rest, we ask that discharge be granted for their administration to the persons in charge and to the party leadership.

After some detailed observations presented by certain delegates and a reply from Pfannkuch and Gerisch, the requested discharge is granted.

c) Collaboration of Comrades with the Bourgeois Press

Motions 7 to 16, which have gathered a sufficient number of signatures.

Pfannkuch, rapporteur. --- I need not remind you of the complaint of comrades Heinrich Braun, Lily Braun, Heine, Goehre, and Berthold, nor of the committee’s reply to it.

These comrades wrote in the Zukunft, a review edited by Maximilian Harden. This review claims to be an open forum for all opinions. Franz Mehring, then Kautsky, criticized in the Neue Zeit, a socialist review, the socialists who continued to collaborate with the Zukunft, in which violent articles against socialism were being published. The former addressed a complaint to the executive committee. Here are the essential passages (cited in the committee’s report): “The Neue Zeit has seen fit to attack once again members of the socialist party and to impugn their honor because they collaborate with non-socialist organs. The Neue Zeit particularly attacks comrades who set forth, signing with their own names, their opinions in an organ that is open to representatives of the most diverse opinions; and it presents matters in such a way as to suggest that these comrades thereby serve adverse aims and forces and make common cause with attacks that have come from elsewhere and appeared in this same organ.”

The committee’s reply, addressed on February 27 to the complainants, said: “We do not see that by accepting the article entitled Concessionaires [by Franz Mehring] in issue 16, the editorial board of the Neue Zeit deserves a reprimand or a warning. We would only have wished that the author in question had named the person or persons he intended to target, in order to avoid misunderstandings.”

At the same time the committee informed the complainants that it would make known its views on collaboration with bourgeois periodicals in the party’s central organ. In issue 52 of March 3, 1903, the Vorwaerts published:

PARTY NEWS

The undersigned has been led to make known his opinion on certain questions that have long occupied a great number of socialists and demand that one take a position.

Can the participation of comrades as editors or collaborators in bourgeois press enterprises, in which hateful and perfidious criticism of the socialist party is made, be considered compatible with the interests of the party?

Answer: No.

May a socialist be an editor of or collaborate with a bourgeois organ when the condition above is not met?

The answer is affirmative, insofar as it concerns situations where the comrade is not compelled to write against the socialist party or to accept attacks directed against it.

However, in the interest of the party as well as in the interest of the comrades finding themselves in these situations, it is advisable not to give them positions of trust that would sooner or later put them in conflict with themselves or with the party.

Berlin, March 2, 1903. The Party Executive Committee.

I shall complete the case file by reading you the following two letters:

To the Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Germany

Dear Comrades!

The letter from the executive committee of February 28, 1903, reminds us of the practices of bourgeois ministries. It explains itself on points about which we had not questioned it, and leaves unanswered the complaint we had actually lodged.

We complained solely of this: in Kautsky’s article appearing in issue 19, it is claimed of comrades who, signing their own names, write in non-socialist organs, that they thereby serve adverse aims and forces, and matters are presented in such a way as to suggest that they make common cause with attacks against the party, coming from elsewhere and appearing in that organ.

We did not speak of the offensive insinuations contained in Franz Mehring’s article Concessionaires in issue 16, because we attach no importance to insults coming from that quarter, at least so long as they do not threaten the interests of the party as such.

We wrote to the executive committee that we saw in the indicated passages of Kautsky’s article an offensive and contrary-to-truth supposition, against which we lodged a complaint. The executive committee, in the manner of ministers, passes over in silence the sole question we had submitted to it.

As for the declaration of the executive committee, which was announced to us and then published, on the question of whether and when a socialist might write in non-socialist organs, we, for our part, had no reason to solicit it. We had already had our opinion on the matter beforehand, which we take the liberty of keeping.

Berlin, March 3, 1903.

Doctor HEINRICH BRAUN, LILY BRAUN, WOLFGANG HEINE, PAUL GOEHRE, A. BERTHOLD.

(Laughter)

To this letter, the committee made the following reply:

To Doctor Heinrich Braun and companions.

Dear Comrades!

In your letter of March 3 of this month, you complain that the committee, in its reply of February 28, passed over in silence the sole question submitted to it.

It is not because we imitate “the practices of bourgeois ministries”---we really did not expect such an insinuation---but because every kind of foundation was lacking in what you now consider the essence of your complaint, that we did not touch upon it.

You now declare: our complaint concerned Kautsky’s accusation against socialists who, signing their own names, write in non-socialist organs and “thereby serve adverse aims and forces,” and, secondly, his way of presenting matters that would suggest they make common cause with attacks directed in these organs against the party.

Kautsky neither claimed the first thing nor presented the other in that way.

To begin with the second, Kautsky simply declared in the passage, which alone can come into consideration, that a socialist still writing for Harden, after attacks like those Harden has launched against our party, draws upon himself the suspicion that, etc. And as for your principal complaint, Kautsky did not claim, as you write, that they “serve adverse aims and forces,” but said: “But it is different for comrades who appear openly as representatives and spokesmen of our party. If they work in the bourgeois press, they do so there too as representatives of our party, and it cannot in any way be a matter of indifference to us to know what aims and forces they serve there.” This statement contains things that are so self-evident that every socialist must absolutely approve them from first to last word. (Lively approval) Consequently, your complaint is devoid of all foundation. As for our declaration on this matter, it is quite immaterial whether you wished for it or not. The only decisive question was whether, in the face of certain facts and phenomena, this declaration was necessary in the interest of the party. (Quite right! Lively approval)

There you have all the documents. We were well understood, and numerous socialist newspapers approved of us. Several comrades approached us to ask whether they should continue their collaboration with bourgeois organs.

That the declaration of the committee did not please the complainants is understandable. Braun claims that it infringes upon freedom of thought and that it would have been preferable to leave to each person’s tact the right to decide.

On this point, opinions may differ. But even if the committee’s declaration restricted in some way the freedom to express one’s opinion, it may be in certain circumstances in the interest of the party---as is the case in the state---to accept once and for democratic reasons such a restriction of this freedom, when vital interests of the party are at stake. (Quite right!) And we are told that one must rely on each person’s tact. But if according to the committee individual tact is at fault, it is indeed the right and in certain circumstances the duty of the committee to express this opinion.

After all that has happened and what I have just read, I think that the party leadership would have failed in its duty (Quite right!) if it had not officially expressed its opinion (Lively approval), especially since the majority of comrades had long awaited such a declaration and had in part solicited it. (Quite right!) I therefore ask you to vote on motion 7 and to consider the fate of the others as settled by this vote. (Lively approval)

Segitz proposes to allow speakers to speak for more than ten minutes. --- Adopted.

The session is adjourned at one o’clock.

Afternoon Session

The session is opened at a quarter past three under the presidency of Singer.

Heinrich Braun, of Berlin. --- I am a man of letters. That is why disputes among men of letters---and this business of collaboration is nothing else---are odious to me. We had expressly asked the executive committee to settle this question itself without making it public.

For it is very complicated. In fact, there has been no socialist in sixty years who has not collaborated with bourgeois organs. Marx as well as Engels, Liebknecht as well as Vollmar, Bernstein as well as Kautsky have done so. (Sensation) I know very well that I was told: In the organs in question, the thing was possible.

Likewise the committee, and in agreement with it, Herr Doktor Franz Mehring… (Bebel: Herr Doktor Franz Mehring!) Quite so, Comrade Bebel, Herr Doktor Franz Mehring! (Bebel: Herr Doktor Heinrich Braun! --- Great tumult)

Singer. --- We must call each other comrades here. You do not have the right to make exceptions. But you may use the name without title.

Heinrich Braun, continuing. --- Comrade Kautsky claims that the organs in question did not exercise hateful and perfidious criticism against socialism. But other comrades have contested this assessment. That shows how vague and elastic these words are. To which newspapers do they apply?

Is the committee going to establish a congregation of the index, drawing up each year a list of organs to which it will be forbidden to contribute or that one must not read?

Moreover, this collaboration may be useful to the party. Just as a socialist speaks in a bourgeois assembly…

[The translation continues with the full proceedings of the Dresden Congress, including debates on party tactics, revisionism, the May Day celebration, preparations for the Amsterdam International Congress, and organizational motions. The text is a translation of the official stenographic protocol of the congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, held at Dresden from September 13 to 20, 1903.]