Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/163

 The opposition since its very start met with complete success. The chairman of the parliamentary club of the Czech Social Democratic deputies in the former Reichsrat, Dr. Šmeral, had to resign, and the present Minister of Education in the Czechoslovak government, Gustav Haberman, was elected in his place. Thus the opportunist policy was definitely abandoned as the result of Modráček’s opposition and the victory of the anti-Austrian tendency prevented also the break-up of the party and materially contributed to the peaceful outcome of the Czechoslovak revolution of October 28, 1918.

But the prevailing differences in the Social Democratic party did not cease with victory of Modráček’s opposition. In the above mentioned Modráček’s manifesto a new orientation was demanded not only as regards national policy, but also as regards economic policy. The declaration criticized the Socialist policy which emanated from Berlin and Vienna, and ended in the betrayal of the International and in Bolshevism; it called for a new Socialist and Labor orientation. Since then Modráček has been working for the reform of the party as regards both theory and policy, and his views are voiced by the weekly journal “Socialistické Listy”, published at Prague. It goes without saying that his views gave rise to considerable opposition among the conservative members of the party who did not want to adapt the old traditions of the party to the requirements of the new times.

It may be of general interest, if I attempt to outline the principles of Modráček’s views and theory. But first of all let me state that Czech workers are not greatly inclined to endless theorization. As a matter of fact theoretic discussions were but little practiced in Bohemia. The intellectual requirements of the Czech workers were satisfied mostly by translations from foreign authors. Thus it can be explained that abroad there was no knowledge of the theoretic and intellectual currents in the Czech Socialist movement. Efforts were, of course, made to emancipate the Czech Socialist movement from German intellectual influences, but these efforts, apart from Modráček, remained without any results worth mentioning.

Modráček’s group has therefore an indisputable importance, because it constitutes the first independent intellectual body in Czech Socialist movement which has its own ideas and theories, based upon the teachings of Fourier, Proudhon, Marx, Bernstein and other Socialist thinkers. The foreign element cannot therefore be denied, yet Modráček’s group represents as regards Socialist theory an original and independent body of Socialist thinkers.

Modráček elaborated his ideas in a scholarly book entitled: “The Self-Government of Labor” published at the end of last year, and also in a book called “The Republic and Socialism,” and in many articles which appeared in the Socialist Review “Akademia” and “Socialistické Listy”. His views can be summed up as follows:

Modráček considers the policy pursued by the Social Democratic parties as incompatible with the new times. Russian Bolshevism and the collapse of the International at the outbreak of the war is according to him, the result of the wrong Social Democratic policy. Socialism, says Modráček, does not mean only class-war and struggle of laboring classes for power, but it means at the same time an administrative problem, a problem of intellectual capacity of the working classes to manage the industrial establishments and to rule the society. State Socialism as preached by the Social Democratic parties would be economically inefficient and is in a large measure impossible to realize. Besides it does not solve social problems and it does not abolish class struggle. State collectivism and capitalist establishments have a common defect—they are not based on personal responsibility of the workmen, and consequently their organization represents a hegemony of the State or the capitalists over labor. Modráček therefore advises the workers not to rely too much upon the State, as the proletarians of Old Rome did, not to expect everything from Parliament, because Socialism will not be realized in ministerial offices, but will emerge from human society, from practical education and democratization of our economic and social life. Thus Modráček puts in place of the Socialist State a co-operative Socialist Society.

For the realization of this co-operative Socialist Society it is necessary to work by three methods: (1) by assisting co-operative societies; (2) by trades unionism, and (3) by political democracy. All these ef-