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Quite many SP and PS members think that their party was, in the beginning, before the
First World War, a Marxist party engaged in the class struggle against capitalism. That is
a myth which is contradicted by the historical facts. From its coming into existence the
Belgian Workers Party offered opposition to both the revolutionary class struggle and the
Marxist view of the state and socialism.
The leaders of the SP and PS know the history of their party and they shamelessly tell
lies to their militants. On this May Day we heard such a lie, told to the teachers. In
Frameries Vande Lanotte, with Di Rupo alongside him, shouted: 'In one hundred and fifty
years the employers have not succeeded in bringing socialism to its knees. The teachers
will not succeed in doing so either.' (92) Destrée, supported by Busquin, said in
Verleine: 'If the left faces the rise of the extreme right dividedly, the worst is going
to happen.' (93) Every word in these sentences is a historical lie. The indisputable facts
which follow hereafter will be proof.
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Everything was inherent in the sentence César De Paepe spoke in 1890, five years after
the foundation of the party: 'We want universal suffrage to avoid the revolution. Reform
or revolution, universal suffrage or general unrest, that is the dilemma the Belgian
people are confronted with.' (94)
In 1886, 1887 and 1891 two food riots and a spontaneous strike for universal suffrage
broke out. The Belgian Workers Party did not support them. Worse, they distanced
themselves from them and called them 'premature.'
On 11 April 1893 the government rejected the universal suffrage and the BWP announced the
general strike. The workers came into conflict with the police force. Workers were
murdered in Jolimont and Jemeppes, in Brussels and Borgerhout. The socialist leaders
neither led nor supported the fight. They tried to convince the liberals to demand
universal suffrage in Parliament in their place. They even went so far as to promise the
liberals the end of the strike without universal suffrage (for men exclusively, that is).
They contented themselves with a plural voting right: three votes for a rich man, one for
a poor man and none for a woman! And so it was done.
On 9 April 1902 the second general strike in Belgian history broke out. Against the will
of the BWP! There were three hundred thousand strikers. People were killed in Houdeng, in
Leuven and in Brussels. The strike was five days old when the leadership of the party
'acknowledged' it in order to keep control and to end it six days later without having
obtained a single concession. VanderVelde recognized that he was 'the object of protests,
anger, extremely sharp criticism and even insults' from the part of the socialist basis.'
(95) Already 94 years ago the rank and file threw eggs and tomatoes at the social
democratic big wigs
From 1908 the BWP openly announced plans to form a government together with the liberals.
Day by day it became more hostile to the class struggle.
But the workers demanded the general strike to exact political equality. In the meantime
the bourgeoisie had realized perfectly well that universal suffrage was suitable to engage
the socialist leaders in the bourgeois order. In February 1913 the catholic Prime Minister
De Brocqueville told Vandervelde: 'I have decided to make universal suffrage possible'. He
also said that, in view of the danger of war, he was willing to make concessions to the
BWP to be able to realize national unity. De Brocqueville already had plans to use the
Socialist Party to involve the workers in the coming inter-imperialist war. For three
weeks Vandervelde tried to avoid a general strike.
When he was finally forced to announce the strike, it was one under strict control,
without demonstrations, meetings and fiery speeches, but sponsored - this is not a joke -
by the employers. In his memoirs Vandervelde boasts that the coal bosses and managers of
the Société Générale gave him several millions to support the strike! 'In the course
of the strike we received support from various sides, which indicates that some big
bourgeois had sympathy for the cause of the people. ( ) At the castle of Mariemont the
lord of the manor, Raul Warocqué, a personal friend of mine for years, gave his miners
full permission to lay down work. He fed the strikers' children during the entire period
of the conflict. ( ) A Société Générale manager, Emile Franqui, who later became
governor of the company, anonymously delivered a fat check to support the strikers. Mister
Marquet, the big boss of the casinos, gave 600,000 Francs.' (96)
For the bourgeoisie the big strike of 1913 was the proof hat the leaders of the Socialist
Party could control the masses' anger and that they were ready for the loyal collaboration
with the employers and the capitalist state. Mister Vande Lanotte, you may hear this for
the first time, but it is already 90 years ago that the employers stopped fighting your
bourgeois socialism.
So, from the beginning betrayal of the revolutionary class struggle.
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From the beginning also betrayal of the marxist conception of the state.
Marx showed that in a capitalist society there is a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie
and that the bourgeois state is the most important tool of that dictatorship. Marx showed
that the class struggle must be fought until the socialist revolution. The revolution must
destroy the state machinery and especially its tools of repression. The revolution must
create a new state, the state of the working classes which will enforce the dictatorship
of the workers over the small minority of exploiters.
Marx's work The civil war in France is 125 years old. After 100 years of
betrayal by the SP the words of Marx arrest the attention because of their topicality and
their impressiveness. After the failure of the Commune of Paris Marx took stock of the
past revolution and he wrote: 'The working class cannot content itself by taking over the
state machinery as such and make it function for her account. The centralized power of the
state with its omnipresent organs: standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy and
magistrature date from the time of the absolute monarchy. ( ) As the progress of modern
industry develops the class antagonism between Capital and Labour, the power of the state
increasingly takes the form of a national power of Capital over Labour, ( ) of an
apparatus for class domination. The purely repressive character of state power will become
increasingly visible. ( ) The state is nothing else than a machine to oppress one class by
another.' (97) '(Owing) to overt revolution the proletariat will establish its domination
by the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie.' (98) 'The working class must eliminate the
old oppression machinery which has been used against her until then.' (99)
The liberal policy of the present socialist leaders originates in 1900, with Emile
Vandervelde (1866-1938). Contrary to marxism Vandervelde maintained that the workers can
make the transition to socialism without breaking the bourgeois state.
He says that the bourgeois state has a bad side and a good side. The bad side is class
repression. The good side is the control of society. The bad side is 'the state as a
gendarme, a policeman, an army commander'. The good side is 'the state as a school teacher
or as an industrialist'. About the good side Vandervelde says furthermore: 'The state
organises labour inspection, the fight against tuberculosis and syphilis, promotes the
building of cheap houses, exploits local railways.' (100)
According to Marx the bourgeois state only acts in the interest of the capitalists. Its
role of repression and exploitation of the workers is essential. The bourgeois state must
also organise society in the interest of the capitalists, create all the conditions so
that the employers will be able to find enough well qualified and healthy workers to
realise a maximum profit. And finally the state sometimes has to make concessions due to
the revolutionary struggle of the workers. But these concessions remain partial and can be
annulled as soon as the power relations have changed.
With his theory of the good and the bad side Vandervelde denies the class character of the
state. He denies the fact that the bourgeois state is created by the bourgeoisie to defend
the power of the bourgeoisie. Vandervelde denies that the bourgeois state is essentially a
machinery of class repression and class domination which for that reason has to be broken
by the revolution and exchanged for a fundamentally different state which expresses and
defends the interests of the workers. Vandervelde develops his theory of the good and bad
side to deny the necessity of the socialist revolution. The socialist party would be
elected in the government and so diminish the bad side of the state and develop the good
side which eventually would lead to a socialist state. How will Vandervelde realise
socialism? His answer: 'By means of a number of inconspicuous changes the authoritarian
functions of the state will disappear peacefully, while its economic funtions will become
increasingly important.' (101) Thanks to progressive reforms the authoritarian aspects of
the capitalist state will disappear and the new, purely administrative and economical
state will be a socialist state.
For more than a hundred years the leaders of the SP and the PS have wittingly betrayed the
workers with this lie. The result: the capitalist state is infinitely more repressive,
anti-common people, violent and armed than in 1896.
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Finally the Belgian Workers Party has betrayed the socialist principles from the
beginning.
According to Marx capitalist exploitation is based on the private property of the means of
production and on the free market. A socialist revolution is necessary to expropriate the
exploiting minority. The means of production should belong to the community and the
production should be organized according to a plan and in function of the essential needs
of the workers.
In that field Vandervelde fought marxism in two ways. First he supported a thesis of the
anarchists who say that the workers should start their own production and trade
cooperatives. In this way, according to Vandervelde, 'they will found a state within the
state whose growing power will replace the capitalist domination by cooperative control'.
(102) In brief, without a revolution and in a society controlled by the free market the
workers' cooperatives will eliminate capitalist enterprises by means of competition.
History has shown how ridiculous this thesis is.
In the second place Vandervelde fought marxism by adopting a liberal plan for the
socialization of the production. The Liberal MP and industrialist Solvay indeed proposed
in 1899 a 'plan for the free socialization' which immediately received the support of the
'marxist' Vandervelde. Vande Lanotte maintained on May Day that the employers have wanted
to force down the SP and the PS for 150 years. But the overt alliance between the big
employer Solvay and Vandervelde dates from 1899.
According to the Solvay plan 'private initiative which is the creator of entrepreneurship
will go on existing completely while the state will nevertheless socialize more and more.'
(103) Capitalism was expanding strongly and Solvay wanted the state to produce capital for
his enterprises. Vandervelde supported this idea and cloaked it in a pseudo Marxist
jargon. He said: 'The participation of the state in the enterprises will have the same
result as the integral socialization of the large industries. ( ) The penetration system
put forward by Solvay enables the transition from the capitalist regime to an integral
socialist regime.' (104)
Today we know what has become of this socalled transition to socialism, now that the
social-democrats are privatizing that part of the capitalist production which was
controlled by the bourgeois state.
In 1919, when the workers all over the world sympathized with the October revolution,
Vandervelde presented the liberal Solvay's plan as a revolution.
In 1919 Vandervelde indeed took part, with other representatives of the victorious
imperialist powers in the Commission for international labour legislation from which the
International Bureau for Labour originated. In a commentary on the conclusions of the
Commission Vandervelde said: 'The regime it proposes is a transition from the absolutism
of the employers to the sovereignty of labour. There are several ways possible to go from
the one to the other. By means of revolution and violence or on the contrary with a
minimum of clashes. There are two ways to make the revolution that is going on in the
world today: the Russian and the British method. The British method is the one I prefer.'
(105) So Vandervelde claimed that he was going to organize 'a slow and progressive
transition' from the dictatorship of capitalism to socialism, from private ownership to
the collective ownership of the means of production. Vandervelde said that this way to
socialism was taken in Great Britain, the largest imperialist and colonial power of that
time! And because the Belgian workers longed for revolution Vandervelde had to lie to them
that this way would lead to the same result as the Soviet revolution: socialism.
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The First World War opposed two equally bloodthirsty imperialist blocks to each other.
The bourgeoisie of the two sides fought war for a redistribution of the colonies. England
and France wanted to keep their colonial dominions against Germany, the new, growing power
which claimed its part of the colonial booty. Belgium wanted to keep the Congo which was
immediately threatened by Germany. Russia joined them to take part of the Balkans from
Austria and to get control of the Bosphorus and the passage to the Mediterranean. Germany
wanted to reinforce itself with regard to the superpower England by controlling part of
Europe, including Belgium, the north of France, the Baltic states and the Balkans. Germany
also wanted the extension of its colonies to match its economic power.
But Vandervelde exclaimed that this imperialist war '(was) a holy war for justice, freedom
and civilization. We fight for the selfdetermination of the peoples.' (106)
On the other side the boss of the German socialists also supported his 'own' imperialist
bourgeoisie. This fellow, Scheidemann, wrote: 'For our people and for its free future a
victory over Russian despotism means a lot, if not everything. We have to keep the culture
and the independence of our country. In the hour of need we shall not let our fatherland
down.' (107)
The bourgeoisie on both sides also fought the war to break the revolutionary powers in
their own countries. In Belgium the bourgeoisie gave the socialist leaders the choice:
either adhere to Marxist principles and go to jail, or collaborate with the bourgeois
regime and defend its interests. The leaders of the BWP had long made their choice ad the
bourgeoisie knew that. When in the first days of the war Prime Minister De Brocqueville
proposed Vandervelde to become a member of the bourgeois government Vandervelde replied:
'I have only one answer, Mr. Chairman: I accept!' (108) It is with these words that the
formal transition was sealed of the SP and the PS to the side of the capitalist order, to
the side of the imperialist order, to the side of the monarchy, to the side of the powers
of war. So that was what happened exactly 82 years ago.
Let us have a look to see what that meant.
The war caused very sharp social contrasts because 700,000 workers lived on unemployment
benefits, and 3,500,000 people, that is half of the population, lived on international
help. (109) But Vandervelde denied the class struggle and forced the poor workers to
support their employers. 'We were divided, he said, due to the class struggle. ( ) Well!
The German threat was enough to unite us.' (110) 'There are no more Republicans in the
Belgian Parliament, or monarchists, or soialists, or liberals, or Catholics, or Flemings,
or Walloons. There is one unanymous people!' (111) Everybody united to plunge the workers
and the farmers in a criminal war of plunder, the largest butchery in history! today, in
1996, many leftwing people are aware that there is no essential difference at all between
the socialist, liberal and Catholic leaders. But this was already so in 1914
Socialism has always been republican. It cannot live within feudal monarchist structures.
Vandervelde, who became a monarchist in the beginning of the war, greeted king Albert in
the following way: 'The courageous king (who) dreams of reconciling the monarchy with
democracy and perhaps with socialism.' (112) Just before the war Vandervelde had
fulminated against 'that class state, founded on power, with, against the enemy within and
the foreign enemy, its military apparatus.'(113) But from the beginning of the war
Vandervelde became a fervent militarist and he called out: 'This war should be waged until
the end. ( ) We want this war to continue in order not to be forced to start it again
soon.' (114) Vandervelde supported the expansionist policy of the Belgian bourgeoisie and
demanded the annexation of Eupen-Malmédy and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and later of
Rwanda and Burundi. (115)
Immediately after the war king Albert summoned the socialist boss Vandervelde to visit him
at Loppem castle. The king feared a socialist revolution in Belgium and to prevent one he
asked Vandervelde to take a seat in a government of national unity. The BWP boss accepted
immediately. (116)
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Vande Lanotte claims that the employers wanted to destroy the SP/PS a century ago.But
almost a century ago Vandervelde became a close friend of the big colonial employers, of
the leaders of the Société Générale, Albert Thys, Emile Franqui and Félicien Cattier!
In 1886 Albert Thys, captain of the general staff and orderly officer of king Leopold II,
founded the first large colonial holding, the Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et
l'Industrie (CCCI). After that he founded the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Congo, the
Compagnie du Katanga and the Banque d'Outremer. In 1906 in cooperation with the Société
Générale Thys founded the Union Minière, in 1909 the Banque du Congo Belge and in 1910
the Compagnie Maritime belge. (117) Vandervelde wrote: 'I entered into close contact with
colonel Thys and we became friends.' Vandervelde stressed 'the sensitivity' of colonel
Thys which formed the basis for 'his revolt against the leopoldist system'. (118)
What was all this about? Leopold II had received the state of Congo as his personal domain
during the Conference of Berlin of 1885. The Belgian capitalists were not interested in
this loss-making enterprise. Leopold II ran the Congo and said that all 'vacant' terrains
were his property. With military force he demanded that the blacks supplied him with
rubber and ivory. But as soon as it became clear that lucrative business could be done in
the Congo, the Belgian employers wanted their share. Vandervelde admitted: 'Thys'
interests were severely damaged by the expansion of the formidable state monopoly which
solely worked for the profit of the absolute monarch Leopold II, at the expense of the
private enterprises.' (119)
From 1903 Vandervelde chose the side of the big Belgian employers who wanted to turn the
Congo into a Belgian colony, against Leopold II who wanted to keep 'his' Congo for
himself.
In this way Vandervelde became a very close friend of Emile Francqui, the governor of the
Société Générale, chairman of Union Minière, deputy administrator of Forminière,
vice-chairman of the Banque du Congo Belge. (120)
In this way Vandervelde fought 'his' fight at the side of Félicien Cattier, the
vice-governor of the Société Générale, administrator of Union Minière.
The colonial texts of the liberal employer Cattier are almost identical to the ones of
Vandervelde. Félicien Cattier: 'The state exploitation regime must be abandoned as soon
as possible and replaced by free trade. The welfare of the natives, the economic
prosperity and the financial well-being of the state are at stake.' (122)
The social liberal Vandervelde: 'From a purely economic point of view the present system
is no longer right.'(123) 'To induce the blacks ( ) to work in a way that is profitable
for the Europeans they must be ( ) engaged at a just wage.( ) The system of free labour
must be made possible ( ) by payment in wages and products, by free trade.' (124)
Vandervelde had convinced the entire leadership of the BWP of the necessity and the
usefulness of Belgian colonization of the Congo. He explained to them that the initial
'sacrifices' could be compensated by the income from rubber, copper and diamonds. 'Will
the sacrifices everyone foresees for the beginning not be compensated by real advantages?(
) The economic future of the Congo will depend on a number of factors such as the price of
rubber, the success of the European and native plantations, the importance of mineral
riches in an area of which the reclamation has only just begun, the industrial and
agricultural development in districts as Katanga.' (125)
Within the BWP Vandervelde became the direct spokesman of the big Belgian capitalists who
wanted to enlarge their profits via colonialism. He said: 'Belgium, or if you like, the
Belgian bourgeoisie has gone to the Congo. They took interests in it. They founded
enterprises there of which the number is steadily increasing. Nobody can seriously believe
that after twenty-five years it will retreat and leave the country to others. It would
morally humiliate itself deeply.' (126)
Of course, Vandervelde justified the colonial exploitation and oppression with this
reprehensible 'social' rhetoric which is the true mark of the BWP. Here we find a
different form of bourgeois socialism: 'a go ahead for the colonization in the name of the
interests of the blacks, in the name of civilization, humanism and socialism!'
Vandervelde: 'The only form of civilizing intervention we can permit is this one which is
in the direct interest of the natives and only in the indirect (!) interest of the ones
who 'bring' civilization. If the Belgian proletariat had shrunk from the task of reform,
it would have been unfaithful to the great humanitarian tradition of socialism. The
socialists were unanymous.( ) The workers should not be negative in a sterile way
regarding capitalist colonial policy but should follow a national socialist policy.' (127)
Vandervelde approvingly cites Charles Gide: 'For most developed countries colonization is
not as much a right as a duty towards the retarded peoples.' (128)
Vandervelde is the spiritual father of the 'right of intervention' and the 'humanitarian
interventions' put into practice by our Tobback, Coëme and Busquin in Iraq and Rwanda.
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After Vandervelde Paul-Henri Spaak and Hendrik de Man became the two great stars of the
SP/PS.
At the age of 28 Spaak, who flirted with trotskyism, critized the reformist tendency of
Vandervelde. 'Reformism, thàt is our enemy. We do not accept the principle of private
ownership, nor that of wage labour. We do not only aspire the radical transformation of
society, but we also think it will be violent. By supporting the dictatorship of the
proletariat we shall turn over the entire political superstructure of today.' (129) No
less! Is this not the model to be followed by those who claim to be working around
Moureaux and the Young Socialists towards a 'radical turn to the left'?
In 1934 Hitler is in power in Berlin. Spaak is 35 years old and he says: 'We have to
eliminate our fascists now that it is still possible. Only power will decide between
socialism and fascism.'(130) And he goes on: 'We cannot accept that some of us accept to
become minister under a capitalist regime. Away with the government of bankers. Power to
the working class!' (31) What trotskyite could put it better?
Well, exactly three months after this declaration, Spaak became minister in the government
of national unity under Van Zeeland..
One year later, in 1936, Spaak is now Foreign Secretary, he refuses to support the legal
Spanish government against the fascist revolt of Franco. In Parliament he declares: 'I
have decided to forget my ideological preference completely.' (132)
When in 1938 the war became increasingly imminent Spaak said: 'Some people want to drag us
into a policy of solidarity of the democracies against the fascist states. I do not want
to participate in that.' Spaak also refused to unite with the Soviet Union against nazism.
And he came to the conclusion: 'If Great Britain and France want to come to the aid of
Czechoslovakia by invading Germany via Belgium, they will be regarded as invaders here.'
(133)
PS chairman Busquin said that 'The division within the leftist camp will only benefit the
extreme right'. This statement aims to conceal the historical fact that social-democracy
actively assisted fascism. Belgian social democarcy stabbed the Spanish republican
government which fought against the fascist revolt, in the back. social-democracy fought
agianst the unity with the Soviet Union and even the alliance with England and France to
prevent Hitler's war plans.
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In the years 1935-1939 Spaak and De Man formed an inseparable duo. In May 1939 De Man
was chosen as chairman of the party thanks to the support of Spaak. Together they defended
their program of 'national socialism' which 'preached that socialism was only inspired by
common wellfare and national interest' and that 'it put all productive classes on the same
footing'. (134)
'In 1939', said De Man, 'Spaak and I demanded an 'authoritarian democracy'. We said that
it was wrong to regard the 'fascist' movements as attempts at restoration by the reaction
whereas in reality they played a revolutionary role.' (135)
When Hitler occupied Belgium, Hendrik de Man, the chairman of the SP/PS, published a
Manifesto in the name of his party: 'This is what I ask you to do. Do not believe that
resistance should be offered to the occupying forces. Rather, accept the fact of their
victory and try to learn from it. For the working classes and for socialism this collapse
of a decayed world is a liberation rather than a disaster. The road is open to the two
aims in which the people's aspirations are summed up: peace in Europe and social justice.'
(136)
They say that the Workers' Party of Belgium 'plays the game of the extreme right' by
criticizing and opposing the capitalist and imperialist policy of the SP/PS leaders. That
is simply brainwashing. Already in 1939 the two thinkers of the SP/PS, Spaak and De Man,
were such tenacious defenders of capitalism and imperialism, that they saluted the
'revolutionary role' of the fascist parties! In 1940 the socialist party had become so
degenerated that it formed an alliance with Hitler fascism. On the 23 August 1940 Achiel
van Acker, who was to become Prime Minister of a 'democratic' government, signed the
Manifesto of De Man and he pronounced himself 'in favour of the new order.' (137)
Workers' Party of Belgium (WPB)
171 Boulevard Lemonnier
B-1000 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: + 32 2 513 77 60
Fax: + 32 2 513 98 31
E-mail wpb@wpb.be