6.

Amsterdam Congress, August 14–20, 1904

Introductory Note

By 1904 world capitalism had undergone a significant transformation. A handful of imperialist powers were in the process of carving up the world, with sharpening conflicts among themselves over how to divide the booty. The phenomenon of imperialist war was becoming a central part of the world picture. Among these conflicts were the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the subsequent insurgency in the Philippines, the Boer War beginning in 1899, and the Russo-Japanese War, which began in early 1904.

This world development left its mark on the Amsterdam Congress, attended by almost 450 delegates from twenty-five countries.

The main debate at the congress concerned the same question that had dominated the 1900 congress: the issue of socialist participation in bourgeois governments. There were two main counterposed resolutions.

The first of these was based on a resolution adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany at its 1903 congress in Dresden, which unambiguously condemned all socialist participation in capitalist governments. At the Amsterdam Congress, this same resolution was put forward, presented as the “Dresden-Amsterdam resolution.”

Counterposed to this was a resolution presented by Victor Adler and Émile Vandervelde. Endorsing the ambiguities of the Kautsky resolution adopted by the Paris Congress four years earlier, the Adler-Vandervelde resolution stated, “That the Social Democracy, in regard of the dangers and the inconveniences of the participation in the government in bourgeois society, brings to mind and confirms the Kautsky resolution, passed at the International Congress of Paris in 1900.”

The debate over these counterposed resolutions dominated the congress proceedings, highlighted by a verbal duel between August Bebel, on behalf of the Dresden-Amsterdam resolution, and Jean Jaurès, who supported the Adler-Vandervelde resolution.

In the congress commission taking up the question, the Adler-Vandervelde resolution was rejected by a vote of 24 to 16. The Dresden-Amsterdam resolution was then adopted by 27 votes to 3, with 10 abstentions. But when the question reached the congress floor, the vote was considerably closer. The Adler-Vandervelde resolution failed—but only by a tie vote of 21 to 21. (For the text of the Adler-Vandervelde resolution, see the appendix.) The Dresden-Amsterdam resolution was then adopted by a vote of 25 to 5, with 12 abstentions.

While the Dresden-Amsterdam resolution did not specifically criticize the 1900 resolution, it annulled a major piece of the earlier document by eliminating that resolution’s “exceptional circumstances” clause. But the closeness of the congress vote indicated the growing strength of the opportunist wing within the Second International.

The growth of reformist and opportunist tendencies was reflected elsewhere at the congress.

In the Commission on Immigration and Emigration, a debate occurred between a majority of the commission, which held the traditional socialist position of opposing all immigration restrictions, and a minority that adapted to anti-immigrant sentiment. (For the text of both resolutions, see the appendix.) Both resolutions from the commission were withdrawn after they reached the congress floor, to be discussed at the next congress.

A similar division was seen on the question of colonialism. Prior to the Amsterdam Congress, the Dutch party had submitted a resolution on colonialism, presumably drafted by Hendrick Van Kol, presenting the perspective of a “socialist colonialism.” This resolution (see the appendix) was not discussed at the congress, and Van Kol himself presented the commission’s resolution to the plenary, a resolution that strongly condemned capitalist colonial practices. But at the end of his report, Van Kol slipped in the remark that “a socialist state would also have colonies.”^[1] That same perspective is also embodied in the motion approved by the congress without discussion concerning British India.

The colonialism issue, too, would resurface at the 1907 congress in Stuttgart, where it would be the subject of a heated debate.

* * *

ON TACTICS
(DRESDEN-AMSTERDAM RESOLUTION)

The resolution below was originally drafted by August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, and Paul Singer for the congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany held in Dresden in September 1903. It was adopted there incorporating an amendment by Emmanuel Wurm and forty others that unambiguously condemned socialist participation in capitalist governments. The Dresden resolution was then submitted to the Second International’s Amsterdam Congress by the Socialist Party of France, where it became known as the Dresden-Amsterdam resolution. The congress commission in Amsterdam taking up the question also had before it a counterresolution by Victor Adler and Émile Vandervelde. (For the text, see the appendix.) The commission rejected the Adler-Vandervelde resolution by a vote of 24 to 16, and then approved the Dresden-Amsterdam resolution by a vote of 27 to 3, with 10 abstentions. Following a debate by the full congress, the Adler-Vandervelde resolution also failed, but this time only by the narrowest of margins: a tie vote of 21 to 21. The Dresden-Amsterdam resolution was then adopted by a vote of 25 to 5, with 12 abstentions.

The Congress condemns most energetically the revisionist attempts, in the direction of changing our tried and victorious tactics based on the class struggle, and of replacing the conquest of the public powers through the supreme struggle with the bourgeoisie by a policy of concession to the established order.

The consequence of such revisionist tactics would be to change us from a party seeking the swiftest possible transformation of bourgeois society into socialist society—from a party strictly revolutionary in the best sense of the word—into a party contenting itself with the reform of bourgeois society.

Therefore the Congress, convinced, contrary to the present revisionist tendencies, that class antagonisms, far from diminishing, are intensifying, declares:

1. That the party disclaims any responsibility whatever for the political and economic conditions based on capitalist production, and consequently could not approve any methods tending to maintain the ruling class in power.

2. That the Social Democracy could accept no share in the government within capitalist society, as was definitely declared by the Kautsky resolution adopted by the international congress of Paris in 1900.

The Congress moreover condemns any attempt made to veil the ever-growing class antagonism, for the purpose of facilitating an understanding with bourgeois parties.

The Congress looks to the socialist parliamentary group to avail itself of its increased power—increased both by the greater number of its members and by the substantial growth of the body of electors behind it—to persevere in its propaganda toward the final goal of socialism, and, in conformity with our program, to defend most resolutely the interests of the working class, the extension and consolidation of its political liberties, to demand equality of rights for all; to continue with more energy than ever the struggle against militarism, against the colonial and imperialistic policy, against all manner of injustice, slavery, and exploitation; and, finally, to set itself energetically to improve social legislation to make it possible for the working class to accomplish its political and civilizing mission.

* * *

PARTY UNITY

Resolution presented by August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, Victor Adler, Edward Anseele, Enrico Ferri, Pieter Troelstra, and Émile Vandervelde, and adopted unanimously by the congress. In the commission discussion, Rosa Luxemburg submitted an amendment, which does not appear to have been voted on, stating that socialist unity can be achieved only on the basis of the class struggle.^[2]

The Congress declares:

That in order for the working class to develop its full strength in the struggle against capitalism, it is necessary that there should be but one Socialist Party in each country as against the parties of capitalists, just as there is but one proletariat in each country.

For these reasons, it is the imperative duty of all comrades and all socialist organizations to strive to the utmost of their power to bring about this unity of the party, on the basis of the principles established by international congresses, this unity that is necessary in the interests of the proletariat. They are responsible for the disastrous consequences of the continuation of divisions within their ranks.

To assist in the attainment of this aim, the International Socialist Bureau, as well as all parties within the countries where this unity exists, will cheerfully offer their services and cooperation.

* * *

THE GENERAL STRIKE

This resolution, submitted by the Dutch delegation, was presented to the congress by Henriette Roland-Holst and adopted by a vote of 36 to 4, with 3 abstentions. As with resolutions adopted at previous international congresses, the resolution largely dismisses even the possibility of a general strike. Alternate resolutions with different appreciations of the general strike’s prospects and importance were submitted by French delegates and by Raphael Friedeberg from Berlin.

The Congress, considering that it is desirable to define the position of the Social Democracy in regard to the “general strike”;

Declares:

(a) That the prime necessity for a successful strike on a large scale is a strong organization and a self-imposed discipline of the working class;

(b) That the absolute “general strike,” in the sense that all workers shall at a given moment lay down their work, would defeat its own object, because it would render all existence, including that of the proletariat, impossible; and

(c) That the emancipation of the working class cannot be the result of any such sudden exertion of force. Although, on the other hand, it is quite possible that a strike that spreads over a few economically important concerns, or over a large number of branches of trade, may be a means of bringing about important social changes, or of opposing reactionary designs on the rights of the workers; and

Therefore warns the workers not to allow themselves to be taken in tow by the anarchists, with their propaganda of the general strike, carried on with the object of diverting the workers from the really essential struggle that must be continued day by day by means of the trade unions, political action, and cooperatives; and

Calls upon the workers to build up their unity and power in the class struggle by perfecting their organization, because if the strike should appear at any time useful or necessary for the attainment of some political object, its success will entirely depend on that.

* * *

THE FIRST OF MAY

Commission resolution presented to the congress plenary by C. M. Olsen.

Whereas the demonstration of the workers on the First of May has for its object the common upholding—on a fixed day and in all the countries where there is a modern working-class movement—of the cause of the proletariat, especially the protection of workers by an eight-hour-day law, of class demands and universal peace, and of demonstrating the unity of the working-class movement and its demands in all countries;

Whereas the unity of the demonstration exists only in some countries; and in other countries not the First of May, but the first Sunday in the month, is celebrated:

The Amsterdam Congress reaffirms the resolutions adopted at the international socialist congresses held in Paris in 1889, in Brussels 1891, in Zurich 1893, and Paris in 1900, and invites all the socialist parties and trade unions of all countries to organize energetically the working-class demonstrations of the First of May, in order to demand the institution of the legal eight-hour day, and to maintain the interests of the working-class and the cause of universal peace.

But this demonstration can be most effective only by the suspension of work on the First of May.

The Congress therefore urges it upon all proletarian organizations, as a duty, to strive to secure the complete stoppage of work on May First, wherever that can be done without injury to working-class interests.

* * *

WORKERS’ INSURANCE

Commission resolution presented to the congress by Hermann Molkenbuhr on behalf of the German delegation.

Whereas the workers, under capitalist society, receive a wage scarcely sufficient to cover the most pressing necessities of life during the time they are working, while they are destined to poverty and misery once they are prevented from utilizing their labor power, whether by illness, accident, impaired health, old age, or lockouts, or in the case of women, when they are prevented from working by pregnancy or maternity; and

Whereas every man has the right to live and society has an evident interest in conserving his labor power, it is necessary to establish institutions designed to obviate the misery of the laborers and to prevent the loss of labor power caused by it:

In capitalist society, this result can best be achieved by laws establishing effective insurance for workers.

The workers of all countries ought, therefore, to demand insurance laws by means of which they may obtain the right to receive sufficient assistance during the time when it is impossible for them to avail themselves of their own labor power by reason of illness, accident, failing health, old age, pregnancy, maternity, or lockouts.

The costs of insurance, especially those for disability and old age, and for widows and orphans, will have to be met by taxes on capital, income, and inheritance. Where this is not the case, the costs of insurance fall on workers’ wages, even if the employers intervene. It is therefore workers’ duty to compensate for this loss of wages by strengthening their trade-union organizations.

The workers should demand that the institutions for their insurance be put under the control of the insured themselves, and that the same conditions be accorded for the [native-born] workers of the country and for foreigners of all nations [immigrant workers].

* * *

TRUSTS

Commission resolution presented by F. M. Wibaut, as amended by the congress, and approved by majority vote.

Trusts, in their complete development, eliminate competition among the masters of production. They gradually develop from loose associations of independent capitalists into gigantic and solidly organized corporations, national or even international, often leading to practical monopoly over various industries. They are the inevitable outcome of competition under a system of production by wage labor for capitalist profit. In these bodies, the great capitalists of all countries and of all industries are rapidly being welded into a compact unit on a basis of common material interest. Thus the conflict between the capitalists and working classes becomes ever sharper. Production is regulated, diminishing waste and increasing the productive power of labor. But the whole benefit goes to the capitalists, and the exploitation of labor is intensified.

In view of these facts and of the further fact that experience has amply proven the futility of antitrust legislation on the basis of our system of capitalist property and profit, the International Socialist Congress reaffirms and emphasizes the conclusions of the Paris Congress to the following effect:

1. That the socialist parties in all countries ought to refrain from participation in any attempt to prevent the formation of trusts or to restrain their growth, regarding such attempts as always futile and often reactionary.

2. That the efforts of the socialist parties should be directed to establishing public ownership of all the means of production on a basis of public utility, eliminating profit. The method of effecting this socialization and the order in which it comes into effect will be determined by our power at the time of action and by the nature of the industries trustified.

3. Against the growing danger that threatens their economic organization through this solidification of capitalist forces, the workers of the world must set their organized power, united nationally and internationally, as their only weapon against capitalist oppression and the only means of overturning the capitalist system and establishing socialism.

* * *

COLONIAL POLICY

Commission resolution, signed by Louis de Brouck.re, Hendrick Van Kol, and Alexandre Bracke, and adopted by the congress. Prior to the congress, the Dutch party had submitted a resolution, presumably drafted by Van Kol, which openly proclaimed a policy of “socialist colonialism.” (See the appendix.) That call is not included in the resolution below, although point 5 does open the door to the idea of colonialism’s “civilizing mission.”

That this Congress, considering the ever-more-costly capitalist exploitation of an ever-extended colonial territory—exploitation not regulated and not restrained, which wastes capitals and natural riches, exposes the colonial populations to the most cruel, most terrible, and often the bloodiest oppression, and serves only to aggravate the misery of the proletariat;

Mindful of the resolution of the Paris Congress (1900) on the colonial question and imperialist policy;

Declares that it is the duty of the national socialist parties and of the parliamentary groups:

1. To oppose without any compromise every imperialist or protectionist measure, every colonial expedition, and all military expenses for the colonies.

2. To fight every monopoly, every concession of vast territories, to prevent the wealth of the colonial territory from being appropriated by the all-powerful capitalists.

3. To denounce incessantly the deeds of oppression of which the natives are the victims, to obtain for them the most efficacious measures of protection against military acts of cruelty or capitalist exploitation, to prevent them from being robbed of their possessions, either by violence or by deceit.

4. To propose or to favor all that is conducive to the amelioration of the natives’ conditions of life, public works, hygienic measures, schools, etc.; to do their utmost to withdraw them from the influence of the missionaries.

5. To claim for the natives that liberty and autonomy, compatible with their state of development, bearing in mind that the complete emancipation of the colonies is the object to pursue.

6. To try to bring the control of international policy—which, as the natural consequence of the capitalist system, is more and more influenced by financial gangs—under parliamentary control.

* * *

ON BRITISH INDIA

Motion read out by Samuel George Hobson of the British Fabian Society, and at least partially drafted by Henry Hyndman. Although asserting the right of colonial conquest and incorporating a “socialist colonialism” perspective, the motion was nevertheless adopted unanimously, without debate.

Resolved:

That this Congress, while recognizing the right of the inhabitants of civilized countries to settle in regions where the people are in lower stages of development, protests against and condemns, and urges all socialists to work to overthrow the capitalist system of conquering colonization under the capitalist regime of today. The results of this system are seen in the universal oppression by the most civilized nations of Europe—France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, England—of nations who come under their rule in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. England is only the largest and most successful of such depredating nationalities. But the results in the case of British India are so much greater and more terrible than elsewhere.

That this meeting of the delegates of the workers of the civilized world, having heard from the representatives both of England and of India how British rule—by unceasingly and ever-increasingly plundering and drawing away the resources of the people, deliberately causes extreme impoverishment, and creates famines, plagues, and starvation on an ever-increasing scale for upwards of 200,000,000 of people in British territory in India—calls upon the workers of Great Britain to enforce upon their government the abandonment of the present nefarious and dishonorable system, and the establishment of self-government in the best form practicable by the Indians themselves (under British paramountcy).

* * *

SUPPORT FOR MINERS OF COLORADO

Adopted upon a motion by Keir Hardie and Herbert Burrows.

That this International Congress expresses its sincere sympathy with the locked-out trade union miners of Colorado, America, and most emphatically condemns the brutal outrages committed on them by the state authorities acting in the interests of the capitalist class, who have employed soldiers and armed police to break up the workers’ organization, to arrest men and women and deport them for no cause except their membership of or sympathy with the miners’ union, to enter and demolish homes and generally to crush by the use of armed force the peaceful attempt of the workers to ameliorate their position by combination and organization.^[3]

* * *

SOLIDARITY WITH ITALIAN PRISONERS

Adopted upon a motion by Enrico Ferri.

The Congress expresses its solidarity sympathy for the work of the Comité, which organizes in Italy an agitation to realize the release of those who are condemned for the revolts of 1898 and who are still in prison—ardently wishing that they should be set at liberty.^[4]

* * *

UNIVERSAL WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

Adopted upon a motion by the German delegation.

In the struggles that the proletariat wages for the conquest of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage to parliament and municipal councils, socialist parties must put forward the demand for women’s suffrage. This demand must be maintained as a principle in agitation and defended energetically.

* * *

ON HUNGARY

Adopted upon a motion read by Victor Serwy.

The International Socialist Congress of Amsterdam of 1904, basing itself, firstly, on written reports, and secondly, knowing of the shameful political and social conditions of Hungary, condemns the Hungarian ruling classes and their government due to their vile conduct toward the emancipation of the working class, and expresses its active sympathy for the conscious socialists in Hungary.^[5]

* * *

THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

Motion proposed by the French Socialist Party, adopted unanimously.

The Congress:

Considering that the agreement and concerted action of working people and socialists of all countries is the essential guarantee of international peace;

At a moment when tsarism is confronted simultaneously by war and by revolution:

Sends its fraternal greetings to Japanese and Russian proletarians, being massacred by the crimes of capitalism and its governments.^[6] And urges socialists and workers of all countries, guardians of international peace, to oppose by every means any extension of the war.

* * *

ANTI-SEMITIC PERSECUTION IN RUSSIA

Resolution submitted by August Bebel, Karl Hjalmar Branting, Eduard Bernstein, Hendrick Van Kol, Keir Hardie, and Edward Anseele. While the published proceedings in both German and French indicate that the resolution was adopted and greeted by prolonged applause,^[7] the text itself is not found in the official record. The text of the resolution printed here appeared in the Yiddish-language newspaper of the Jewish Workers Bund.^[8]

Millions of Russian Jews are being forced, through extreme government statutes, to live in the Pale of Settlement.^[9] By these terrible means Jews are thus oppressed in their struggle to make a living, such that each year thousands of them are thrown into physical and moral ruin, according to the opinion of the Russian intelligentsia.

In order to divert the Russian people’s attention away from the robbery and oppression they themselves face at the hands of the tsarist regime everywhere in the life of the country, the Russian government, from time to time, calls for pogroms against Jews, as evidenced by the savage Kishinev bloodbath, marshaled by Von Plehve, in order to snuff out and repress the dissemination of the ideas of socialism, which had in recent years begun to take deep root among Jewish workers of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia.^[10]

Taking this into consideration, the International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam upholds its proud traditions and protests, in the name of freedom, the immoral hatred and unjust treatment of Russian Jews. We express our full and total sympathy with our Jewish comrades in Poland, Lithuania, and Russia—who are fighting for the realization of socialism in Russia—as well as our condemnation of all the other persecutions perpetrated by the “Paternal” Russian Government.

* * *

SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN PROLETARIAT

Adopted upon a motion by Henriette Roland-Holst.

The Congress, in light of the innumerable difficulties that the proletariat of Russia encounters on the road to its liberation, along with the unheard-of sacrifices imposed on it, salutes the heroic proletarians who fight in fraternal unity without distinction of nationality, under the glorious banner of international socialism, against the yoke of absolutism and for the conquest of political liberties, and sends assurance of its deepest admiration and sympathy.

The Congress declares to the proletariat of Russia that the workers of the entire world are on their side in the struggle against absolutism, and that, in fighting for its own deliverance, it fights at the same time for the emancipation of the world proletariat.

Footnotes

For Van Kol’s remarks about a socialist state and colonies, see Sixième congrès socialiste international tenu à Amsterdam du 14 au 20 août 1904 (Brussels: Gand, Imprimerie Coopérative “Volksdrukkerij,” 1904), p. 44. In German, Internationaler Sozialistenkogress zu Amsterdam, 14. bis 20. August 1904 (Berlin: Verlag der Expedition der Buchhandlung Vorwärts, 1904), p. 23. ↑
For Luxemburg’s amendment, see Sixième congrès socialiste international tenu à Amsterdam du 14 au 20 août 1904, p. 148. ↑
A series of strikes and labor battles were waged in Colorado by the Western Federation of Miners in 1903 and 1904, involving gold and silver miners, as well as other mill workers. ↑
Some 1,500 Italian working people were sentenced to prison following a popular uprising that took place in Milan, Italy, in May 1898, which broke out after government troops opened fire on demonstrators protesting skyrocketing food prices. Several hundred people were killed. The Comitato Pro Vittime Politiche (Committee in Support of Political Victims) campaigned for the imprisoned victims. Most of the sentences were eventually commuted. ↑
Hungary was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The socialist movement within the empire was organized federally, and the Hungarian socialists had their own structure and organization. ↑
The war between Russia and Japan, which grew out of a rivalry for dominance in Korea and Manchuria, lasted from February 1904 to September 1905. It ended in a victory for Japan. ↑
The German-language proceedings (Internationaler Sozialistenkogress zu Amsterdam, 14. bis 20. August 1904) refer to the passage of the resolution on anti-Semitic persecution in Russia on page 44. The French-language proceedings (Sixième congrès socialiste international tenu à Amsterdam du 14 au 20 août 1904) refer to it on page 94. ↑
Translated here from the Yiddish by Myra Mniewski. ↑
The Pale of Settlement was an area in the western region of the tsarist empire where Jews were legally compelled to live, being forbidden to live outside of it. Even within this region, Jews were often barred from living in certain cities or towns. The borders of what became the Pale of Settlement first began to be established in the 1790s. The restrictions were not abolished until the Russian Revolution of 1917. ↑
As social tensions rose in Russia on the eve of the 1905 revolution, a wave of anti-Semitic pogroms was organized by monarchist elements, with the support and complicity of the tsarist regime. Several thousand Jews were killed in these murderous onslaughts during the 1903–06 period. In addition, thousands of Jews were expelled from towns and cities. The Kishinev pogrom of April l903, in particular, received wide coverage in the world press, provoking an international outcry. On May 20, 1903, the International Socialist Bureau issued a manifesto about the Kishinev pogrom. For the text, see Haupt, ed., Bureau Socialiste Internationale, vol. 1 1900–1907: Comptes rendus des réunions, manifestes et circulaires (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1969), pp. 75–76. ↑