The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart¶
Core Argument¶
The Stuttgart Congress of August 1907, the Seventh Congress of the Second International, marked a decisive turn in the consolidation of international socialist tactics, adopting binding resolutions on questions previously left to national parties. Lenin’s report, written immediately after the Congress, identifies the central political battle as one between the revolutionary and opportunist wings of the movement, with the colonial question producing the sharpest confrontation.
The colonial debate exposed the depth of opportunist infection. The Congress Commission, dominated by Van Kol’s faction, inserted a clause suggesting that colonial policy was not condemned in principle, since under socialism it could play a “civilising role.” Bernstein and David, speaking for the German majority, urged acceptance of a “socialist colonial policy,” attacking the radicals for lacking a practical programme. Kautsky broke with the German delegation to oppose them, insisting the issue was not reform but concession to bourgeois plunder. The Congress defeated the Commission’s motion by 128 votes to 108, with the small nations—those suffering from or not practising colonial policy—outvoting the larger imperial powers. Lenin draws a devastating theoretical conclusion: the European proletariat is partly placed in a position where it lives at the expense of the colonies, not its own labour. The British bourgeoisie, for example, extracts more profit from India than from British workers, creating the material basis for colonial chauvinism within the working class. This is a temporary phenomenon, but must be recognised to combat opportunism.
On women’s suffrage, the only dissenter was a Fabian delegate seeking limited, property-based franchise for bourgeois women, excluding working women. The Congress rejected this outright. A secondary dispute saw Austrian Social-Democrats, in their campaign for universal male suffrage, downplaying the demand for women’s equality. Clara Zetkin and the Germans corrected this “excessive practicalism,” and the resolution insisted the demand be advanced simultaneously for both sexes.
The trade union resolution is of particular importance for Russia. Plekhanov defended the “neutrality” principle—non-party unions—endorsed by the Stockholm Congress. The Bolsheviks, led by Voinov, upheld the London Congress’s anti-neutralist position, demanding closer alignment of unions with the Party. The Stuttgart resolution contains no mention of neutrality; it recognises the need for permanent, close contact between unions and socialist parties. Lenin notes that the German trade-union half of the delegation was the most stubborn supporter of opportunist views, supporting Van Kol in Stuttgart despite opposing him at the purely party congress in Essen. Neutrality, he argues, plays into the hands of opportunists.
The resolution on immigration defeated attempts to defend narrow craft interests by banning workers from backward countries—coolies from China, etc.—a “spirit of aristocratism” among privileged workers in civilised countries.
The anti-militarism resolution was the most important. Hervé’s semi-anarchist position—answering every war with a strike and uprising—is criticised for three errors: failing to understand war as a necessary product of capitalism; ignoring that the proletariat cannot renounce participation in revolutionary wars; and reducing the task to replacing war with peace rather than capitalism with socialism. Yet Hervéism contained a sound purpose: to spur the movement beyond parliamentary methods and toward revolutionary action in war crises. Bebel’s resolution, orthodox but passive, could be read through opportunist spectacles—Vollmar demonstrated this. Rosa Luxemburg and the Russian delegates moved amendments: militarism as the chief weapon of class oppression; propaganda among youth; and the duty to utilise war crises to hasten the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. Jaurès suggested citing historical examples of proletarian action, from European demonstrations to the Russian revolution. The final resolution combines rigorous Marxist analysis with recommendations for resolute revolutionary action, foreclosing both Vollmar’s opportunist interpretation and Hervé’s naïve anarchism. The Stuttgart resolutions, Lenin concludes, should become a handbook for every propagandist.