Lenin: 1916/ni-nu: ADLER, IMPERIALIST SOCIAL POLICY (original) (raw)
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
NOTEBOOK “ν”
(“NU”)
ADLER, IMPERIALIST SOCIAL POLICY
Georg Adler, Imperialist Social Policy.—Disraeli, Napoleon III, Bismarck. A survey. Tübingen, 1897 (44 pp.). (Preface dated March 1897.)
((A reprint of articles from the magazine Die Zukunft)).
| An instructive little book! After a short introductionon Chartism (phrases about “Chiliastic expectations”(2), about “illusions” (2) and their role in “mass move-ments”, etc.), Adler devotes a brief chapter to Carlyleand his “social-aristocratic doctrine” (criticism ofcapitalism, hatred of democracy, “appeal for feudal-isation of modern economic activity” (11), “theidea of a social aristocracy”). Then Chapter III:“Disraeli’s Social Policy.” A Jew, an adventurer,Disraeli began as a Radical, defected to the Tories,was heavily in debt, was laughed at on his maidenspeech in Parliament (1838), but became Tory leaderand Prime Minister in 1868. He propagated the ideasof the monarchy + a social aristocracy (in reality wasplaying on the struggle between the bourgeoisieand the proletariat). The electoral reform of 1867(Carlyle furiously attacked it in his pamphlet: Shooting Niagara: and After?), small concessions andadvances to the labour movement, which had lostits revolutionary character, brilliant foreign andcolonial policy in 1874-80. Overall result = “an impe-rial-socialist” (p. 22)—and passim “imperial-socialist policy”, etc. |
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| For example: “_Imperial - socialism_”and other things, p. 44, p. 43, p. 35. |
Chapter IV, on Napoleon III. He too was an adventurer, a dreamer. The author of “The Extinction of Pauperism” (1844). Brilliant economic development,—brilliant foreign policy,—a furious struggle against political workers’ organisations while encouraging economic organisations ((p. 32)),—mutual aid societies (flirting with all classes). Lexis in his book on “French trade unions” admits the undoubted improvement of the French workers’ position during 1850-70 and a measure of success of Napoleon III’s policy: “discipline and supervision of the workers, on the one hand, improvement of their material conditions, on the other—in his domestic policy Louis Napoleon never deviated from that idea” (Lexis quoted by Adler, p. 34).
Chapter V. “Bismarck’s Social Policy.”
Being a country of “schools and barracks”, Prussia naturally became a model of “imperialist social policy” (36): Bismarck’s campaign against free thought, his flirting with the workers, universal suffrage (to set the bourgeoisie and the proletariat at loggerheads), social legislation... social insurance (Adler extols it).
| In conclusion (p. 43), Adler says that this “must not”(!!ha-ha!!) be compared with the Caesarism of decliningRome, for support is given to people who work, notto good-for-nothing plebeians. Proudhon, he says,wrote (where?) (a quotation from Proudhon:“We do not receive a penny from abroad”, p. 43)that (Roman) Caesarism lived by plundering foreignnations, but this does not apply here. |
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| ...“Imperial-socialism ... in its endur-ing traits ... was, objectively, a greatstep forward towards integrating theproletariat in modern society and itspractical collaboration in the latter’scultural tasks” (44). ((The roots of social-chauvinism!!))—hence “imperial-social-ism” was “an illusion of world-historicalimportance”, for it was useful, althoughit did not reconcile the proletariat, theenemy of Disraeli, Napoleon III andBismarck. |
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| Cf. EngelsonNapoleon IIIversusBismarck |
| “Bonapartism” |
((End of Adler’s pamphlet)).
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