The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-19
Ninth InstaHment)

WHAT is the popularity Of the petty bourgeois pod
10y? Shortly expressed, It is: vacillation be-
tween labor and capital vacilation between the
struggle for the interests Of the toilers against
capital and the defense of capitalist private proper
ty against the proletariat! From this vaclation
it follows that the petty bourgeosie would like to
avoid the class struggle and wants to reconcile the
interests of labor and capital Such reconciliation,
however, is impossible. This is shown not least by
the so-called abolition of the class struggle by the
Natonal-Socialists in Germany which has led only
to a tremendous accentuation Of class contradic-
tons.
BY striving to attain reconciliation between
capital and labor the petty bourgeois policy serves
the capitalist class which is interested in seeing
that the workers do not wage a class struggle. 1t
is just this which constitutes the reactionary ele
ment in the petty bourgeois policy.
What was the result of the petty bourgeois pol
icy Of Social-Democracy in Germany?
WHAT HAPPENED IN GERMANY?
1t did not deal death blow at monopoly
capital the banks, the factory owners the Junkers
it showed that it desired peaceful collaboration be-
tween all classes and all social strata of the Weinar
Republic. 1t therefore placed itself on the side of
the bourgeoisie against the working class. This
alone provided a basis for the policy of Noske,
Ebert, zoergebel and Wells Social Democracy par
tcipated in the bourgeois governments; it "toler-
ated" the bourgeois government. Whom did the
Social-Democratc Party of Germany tolerate? The
governments which looked after the business of big
capital and the Junkers and which also exploited
the petty bourgeoisie and small peasants This
petty bourgeois policy of Social-Democracy with
the big capitalists and big agrarians thus denotes
a collaboration not only with the class enemy of
the proletariat but also with the enemies of the
urban petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry.
1t is true that the Communists have said hard
things about the ocial-Democratic Party; they
have said that it pursues petty-bourgeois policy
which is directed against the working class but
also against the middle classes. The Communist
Party has put forward and steadfastly upheld
proetarian policy against the common enemies of
the working class and of the middle strata against
the trust magnates, against the big agrarians. 1t
wanted united action the part of all workers
and all midde-class elements against capitalism.
The German working class was not split on the
question of whether it should join hands with the
middle-class elements against capitalism, but the
question of whether 1t should collaborate with the
big bourgeosie in the interests of big capital the
enemy of the workers and of the middle classes.
This collaboration of Social Democracy with cap
itai has not only split the working class, but has
also driven the middle class to the side of capital
CITES EVENTS IN AUSTRIA
The effects of petty-bourgeois policy on the
relation between the proetariat and the middle
classes in town and country may be seen still more
clearly in the case of Austria
Austrian Simultaneously yelled its policy with
revolutionary phrases 1t declared that its main
for rejecting the Bolshevik policy was that
this policy repealed the petty bourgeois masses
from The workers. 1t even proclaimed that it would
realize Socialism through its policy in Vienna 1t
boosted of the fact that by means of the taxation
policy of the weI-known Viennese City Councillor
Breitner the costs Of socialist construction" would
be covered without the appropriation of the CAPT
talist enterprises. What actually took place? 1t
was unable with its democratic socialism to de-
stroy the sources of capitalist exploitation, of the
unearned income of the capitalists The famous
progressive taxation, by means of which Breitner