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Reformist Social Democrats, the Mass Strike and the Prussian Suffrage 1913

At the turn of the twentieth century, the close identification of the general strike with anarcho-syndicalists and later the mass strike with radical Marxists, both of whom were hostile to parliamentary methods and institutions, has encouraged the view that extraparliamentary action is also anti-parliamentary. Certainly, this is the view of both these groups. But neither had exclusive claim. Extra-parliamentary action also appealed to some reformist socialists, as a means to strengthen parliament. Committed to the realization of socialism through piecemeal reform, reformism was dependent upon viable parliamentary institutions. If these did not exist, the general strike could be a means to effect the necessary change. These reformists were in fact less hostile to direct action than orthodox Marxists such as Karl Kautsky in Germany or Jules Guesde in France precisely because, like the anarchists, they were unhampered by Marxism. Marx had opposed Bakunin’s notion of social revolution because it was based on ’will’ rather than ’economic conditions’.’ His followers denounced anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, detecting a voluntarist, even apocalyptic element in the notion that profound change could be ushered in overnight by the sudden laying down of tools. Reformists, like anarchists, though not anti-parliamentary were impatient with the ineluctable laws of history and felt able to exercise their will and intervene in the historical process. The Swedish, Belgian and Austrian socialist parties, all three of which could be designated reformist, called for general strikes to reform the franchise and increase working class representation. In France, the reformist Jean Jaur6s, generally unsympathetic to both Marxism and anarchosyndicalism, made it clear from time to time that he could support a general strike if it was used for a ’precise object’, a limited goal.2 This third group has attracted far less attention from contemporary observers and from later historians than have Marxism and anarchism.