The Two Souls of Socialism

by Hal Draper

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Theory, Social Justice

Unknown Binding

About the author

Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of Karl Marx.

Draper was a lifelong advocate of what he called "socialism from below", self-emancipation by the working class, in opposition to capitalism and Stalinist bureaucracy, both of which, he held, practiced domination from above. He was one of the creators of the Third Camp tradition, a form ("the form", according to its adherents) of Marxist socialism.

Reviews

[Heleen.A.H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you want to be protected, or to be liberated from the need for protection??
Two souls of socialism: socialism from above and socialism from below.
.
How is it possible to collect different political movements(some tyrannical, violet, totalitarian), others (reformist, democratic and peaceful) under the same flag, label and called, socialism.
What is socialism? How this concept has been exploited through history to control rabble? And what is honest, productive, and positive form of socialism?

Hal Draper, tries to answer such questions elegantly and shortly throughout this short pamphlet.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent historical review by Draper of the different socialisms presented throughout history. Draper splits these into socialism-from-above and socialism-from below, and argues that all people in the socialism-from-above tradition ignore or misread Marx, who wrote that the only way for socialism to come about is through the self-activity of the working class.

Who Said What in Socialist History:


Antiquity according to Kautsy

Pythagoras: the landed aristocracy can administer the wealth of society equitably to all
Lycurgan: forerunner of facism
Plato: a refined aristocracy of philosophers can best run society
Catiline: had no ideas for running society collectively but was on the popular side of the class struggle

Germans:

Marx: only the self-activity of the working class can bring about socialism. CAPITAL is the economic basis of this proposition
Munzer: social movement with communistic ideas lead by popular democratic struggle from below
Lassalle: aimed to get socialism handed down by the existing state. The state will "achieve for each one of us what none of us could achieve for himself." Marx called Lassalle's politics "Royal Prussian Government socialism."

French:

Babeuf: socialism must be wedded to a popular movement, but we need a cabal on the left to get us there
Saint-Simon: against revolution, fascinated only by industry and technological advancement; a movement from below will only EFFECT socialism from above

Polish:

Rosa Luxembourg: "Mistakes committed by a genuinely revolutionary labor movement are much more fruitful and worthwhile historically than the infallibility of the very best Central Committee."

British Isles:

Robert Owen: it is for the rich and privileged, not the toiling working poor, to bring about revolutionary change
Proudhon (anarchist): in addition to being proto-eugenicist who wanted either to send the Jews back to Asia or exterminate them and also an anti-suffragist, Proudhon believed the masses were "savages" and that social change would only come from an elite. his ideas for an ideal society included oppressing all opposition groups and dismantling meettings of more than 20 persons and freedom of the press.
the Fabians (Sidney, Webb, Shaw): considered themselves an elite thinktank that would enlighten the powerful areas of society with their wisdom and thereby effect socialism from above.
Edouard Bernstein: presented socialism from above as a "revision" of Marxism, but also disjoined socialism and workers' democracy, wanted to gently change the bourgeois into "good" bureaucrats

Russians:

Bakunin (anarchist): not concerned with the creation of democratic control from below but with destruction of authority over the individual. "Anarchists do not advocate political freedom . . . they advocate freedom from politics" (Woodcock). Additionally he believed his vision of change in society would be achieved by a small elite carrying on violence on behalf of the working class.
Lenin: you already know

Americans:

Bellamy: technocrats administer society from above, sought a perfectly organized industrial system to be planned in advance and put into practice by a group of elite
Gronlund: Democray is "administration by the competent"
Debs: "I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds that there is noting you cannot do for yourselves."
Upton Sinclair: literally wrote a pamphlet titled "I, Govenor of Clifornia, and How I Ended Poverty"

[tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very bad. The main premise of either socialism 'from above' OR 'from below' is undialectical and philosophically idealist. Relies on anti-Soviet tropes and doesn't understand Marxism in theory or in practice. Regret wasting an hour of my life on this.

Also maybe it's best to not call MLs 'Stalinoids' given the racist history of the '-oid' suffix and the racist stereotypes about people from the Asian parts of the Russian empire (as well as the disproportionate amount of global south MLs).

[Radostinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the final message of this book: "How does a people or a class become fit to rule in their own name? - Only by fighting to do so." That pretty much sums it up.

[Rory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, apart from the ahistorical caricature of anarchism presented.

[Finn Penter · Rating 5 out of 5]

All hits. No Notes. Loved the reference to the Posadists

[Dan Sharber · Rating 5 out of 5]

socialism from below is the fundamental belief in everyone's capabilities. and even when it may not appear so, people can (and will) become fit to rule.

No one will grant us deliverance,
Not god, nor tsar, nor hero.
We will win our liberation,
With our very own hands.

[Romany · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Morris vs. Bernard Shaw, William Morris vs. Bellamy, William Morris vs. THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD.

[Sinta · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What then is the meaning of socialism when it first came into the world? From the very beginning, it was divided between the two souls of socialism, and there was war between them.”

This is the best thing I have read in a long long time. At the end I found I had copy-pasted most of it into my notes to include in this review. In a mere forty pages Hal Draper addressed my biggest concerns about Marxist theory/socialist praxis, and through a distinction I already believed in but had never fattened out. There is nothing more satisfying than finding a text that articulates and elucidates a core framework you see the world through. It is as simple as the distinction between Socialism-from-Above and Socialism-from-Below. He has provided a rigorous blueprint for critical engagement with any person who claims to be a "socialist". It is always about worker self-emancipation, and never about an "Educational Dictatorship" or any other form of equating statification and socialism.

My "notes" (aka half the book):
There are not enough characters so I will continue quotes in my comments.

Front-footing the Six Strains of Socialism-From-Above as they are a helpful framework:
- Philanthropism (Socialism/freedom is to be handed down, in order to Do the People Good, by the rich and powerful out of the kindness of their hearts)
- Elitism (socialism is the business of a new ruling minority, non-capitalist in nature and therefore guaranteed pure) (an Educational Dictatorship by benevolent despots or Saviour-Leaders) (“with up-to-date terms and new verbal screens which can be hailed as fresh social theory as against “nineteenth-century Marxism.”)
- Plannism (Socialism is reduced to social-engineering)
- Communionism (“craving to dissolve the Self into communion with Something Greater.” “those yearning with a mixture of religious mysticism and animal gregariousness for human solidarity.” “seeking for submersion in a Totality, seeking to lose himself in the bosom of a substitute for God.”)
- Permeationism (“permeating the centers of power in the existing society in order to metamorphose it – gradually, inevitably – into a statified collectivism” “based on a theory of mechanical inevitability: the inevitable self-collectivization of capitalism from above, which is equated with socialism”) (in contrast to overthrowing the present, capitalist hierarchical society in order to replace it with a new, non-capitalist type of hierarchical society based on a new kind of elite ruling class)
- Socialism-From-Outside (change from outside the social struggle at home.) (in war, through military invasion, in peace, through socialism-by-model-example e.g. communes or through success in other nations)

Marx started as a “leading spokesman of liberal democracy” before becoming a socialist! “When this leading spokesman of liberal democracy became a socialist, he still regarded the task as the championing of democracy – except that democracy now had a deeper meaning. Marx was the first socialist thinker and leader who came to socialism through the struggle for liberal democracy.” 

"In another part of the world picture, there are the Communist states, whose claim to being “socialist” is based on a negative: the abolition of the capitalist private-profit system, and the fact that the class which rules does not consist of private owners of property. On the positive side, however, the socio-economic system which has replaced capitalism there would not be recognizable to Karl Marx. The state owns the means of production – but who “owns” the state? Certainly not the mass of workers, who are exploited, unfree, and alienated from all levers of social and political control. A new class rules, the bureaucratic bosses; it rules over a collectivist system – a bureaucratic collectivism. Unless statification is mechanically equated with “socialism,” in what sense are these societies “socialist”?"

"The social democracy has typically dreamed of “socializing” capitalism from above. Its principle has always been that increased state intervention in society and economy is per se socialistic. It bears a fatal family resemblance to the Stalinist conception of imposing something called socialism from the top down, and of equating statification with socialism."

"What unites the many different forms of Socialism-from-Above is the conception that socialism (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) must be handed down to the grateful masses in one form or another, by a ruling elite which is not subject to their control in fact. The heart of Socialism-from-Below is its view that socialism can be realized only through the self-emancipation of activized masses in motion, reaching out for freedom with their own hands, mobilized “from below” in a struggle to take charge of their own destiny, as actors (not merely subjects) on the stage of history."

"It is the conception of Socialism-from-Above which accounts for the acceptance of Communist dictatorship as a form of “socialism.” It is the conception of Socialism-from-Above which concentrates social-democratic attention on the parliamentary superstructure of society and on the manipulation of the “commanding heights” of the economy, and which makes them hostile to mass action from below."

"...the yearning for emancipation-from-above is…. the permanent promise held out by every ruling power to keep the people looking upward for protection, instead of to themselves for liberation from the need for protection."

"The history of socialism can be read as a continual but largely unsuccessful effort to free itself from the old tradition, the tradition of emancipation-from-above."

"In our pre-history there is a collectivist tendency without democracy, and there is a democratic tendency without collectivism but nothing yet which merges these two currents."

Babeuf origins of socialism from above: This means a temporary dictatorship, admittedly by a minority; but it will be an Educational Dictatorship, aiming at creating the conditions which will make possible democratic control in the future. (In that sense we are democrats.) This will not be a dictatorship of the people, as was the Commune, let alone of the proletariat; it is frankly a dictatorship over the people – with very good intentions."

Saint-Simon: a movement-from-below to effectuate a Socialism-from-Above. But power and control must remain where it has always been – above.

The Utopians: The [popular movement] was the flock to be tended by the good shepherd. It must not be supposed that Socialism-from-Above necessarily implies cruelly despotic intentions.
- Utopianism was elitist and anti-democratic to the core because it was utopian – that is, it looked to the prescription of a prefabricated model, the dreaming-up of a plan to be willed into existence.

Marx synthesised the line of the Socialist Idea and the line of Democracy-from-Below. “the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself.” “This is the Law; all the rest is commentary.”
"one of his first immunizations was achieved by catching the most pervasive disease of all, the illusion of the Savior-Despot"

“Superstitious authoritarianism”

Marx: “The minority ... makes mere will the motive force of the revolution, instead of actual relations. Whereas we say to the workers: ‘You will have to go through fifteen or twenty or fifty years of civil wars and international wars, not only in order to change extant conditions, but also in order to change yourselves and to render yourselves fit for political dominion,’ you, on the other hand, say to the workers: ‘We must attain to power at once, or else we may just as well go to sleep.’”

Proudhon: anti-semitic, racist, loves war, thinks women belong in their place, hates unionism, wants to suppress all opposition groups, press and elections, wants to condemn people to forced labour. Thinks the masses are corrupt and hopeless. He elaborated a detailed scheme for a “mutualist” business, cooperative in form, which would spread to take over all business and then the state. Schemed about being a dictator of that business.

Bakunin: Also schemed about being a dictator

Anarchism is ;n principle fiercely anti-democratic, since an ideally democratic authority is still authority. …its unlimited freedom for each uncontrolled individual is indistinguishable from unlimited despotism by such an individual, both in theory and practice.

Laselle: the prototype of the state-socialist – which means, one who aims to get socialism handed down by the existing state. Built a mass movement from below to achieve a Socialism-from-Above. Lassalle sees socialism arising “from the ‘state aid’ that the state gives to the producers’ cooperative societies and which the state, not the worker, ‘calls into being.’” Marx derides this. “But as far as the present cooperative societies are concerned, they are of value only insofar as they are the independent creations of the workers and not proteges either of the government or of the bourgeoisie.”

Marx made no fetish of “total planning.” He has so often been denounced (by other Marx-critics) for failing to draw up a blueprint of socialism precisely because he reacted so violently against his predecessors’ utopian “plannism” or planning-from-above. “Plannism” is precisely the conception of socialism that Marxism wished to destroy.

"The thread that unites this whole spectrum, through all the differences, is the conception of socialism as equivalent merely to state intervention in economic and social life."

Fabianism: bureaucratic collectivism. managerial, technocratic, elitist, authoritarian, “plannist.”
They thought of themselves as a small elite of brain-trusters who would permeate the existing institutions of society, influence the real leaders in all spheres Tory or Liberal, and guide social development toward its collectivist goal with the “inevitability of gradualness.”
The people, who should be treated kindly, were fit to be run only by competent experts.
Supported Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin

He likes William Morris!
“that individual men cannot shuffle off the business of life on to the shoulders of an abstraction called the State, but must deal with it in conscious association with each other ... Variety of life is as much an aim of true Communism as equality of condition, and ... nothing but an union of these two will bring about real freedom.”
“... people will have to associate in administration, and sometimes there will be differences of opinion ... What is to be done? Which party is to give way? Our Anarchist friends say that it must not be carried by a majority; in that case, then, it must be carried by a minority. And why? Is there any divine right in a minority?”

Eduard Bernstein: reversion to Socialism-from-Above (“die alte Scheisse”) had to be presented as a “modernization”, a “revision”. “revisionism” found its socialism in the inevitable collectivization of capitalism itself. Equation of Statification = Socialism is not the invention of Stalinism; it was systematized by the Fabian-Revisionist-State-socialist current of social-democratic reformism.
negative definition of democracy as “absence of class government.” (No need for workers democracy)
Imperialist
“the class struggle softens into harmony as a beneficent state gently changes the bourgeoisie into good bureaucrats” (led to nazi Germany lol)
Rosa Luxemburg as legit socialism-from-below

America -
Laurence Gronlund - “Administration by the Competent,” as against “government by majorities,” 
Edward Bellamy, - the army as the ideal pattern of society – regimented, hierarchically ruled by an elite, organized from the top down, with the cozy communion of the beehive as the great end
the transition as coming through the concentration of society into one big business corporation, a single capitalist: the state
assumption that the elite will be superhumanly wise and incapable of injustice
Technocracy

Charles P. Steinmetz. - America and the New Epoch Congress has been replaced by direct senators from DuPont, General Motors and the other great corporations as the ultimate in industrial efficiency

Eugene Debs as socialism-from-below
“ I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds that there is nothing you cannot do for yourselves.”

The New Deal, often rightly called America’s “social-democratic period,” was also the liberals’ and social-democrats’ big fling at Socialism-from-Above, the utopia of Roosevelt’s “people’s monarchy.” The illusion of the Rooseveltian “revolution from above” united creeping-socialism, bureaucratic liberalism, Stalinoid elitism, and illusions about both Russian collectivism and collectivized capitalism, in one package.

“the revolutionary-democratic advocates of Socialism-from-Below have also always been a minority, but the chasm between the elitist approach and the vanguard approach is crucial, as we have seen in the case of Debs. For him as for Marx and Luxemburg, the function of the revolutionary vanguard is to impel the mass-majority to fit themselves to take power in their own name, through their own struggles. The point is not to deny the critical importance of minorities, but to establish a different relationship between the advanced minority and the more backward mass.”

“effective democracy requires the right to vote, but the reduction of democracy merely to the right to vote once in a while makes it a fraud.”

“the separation of planning from democratic control-from-below makes a mockery of planning itself; for the immensely complicated industrial societies of today cannot be effectively planned by an all-powerful central committee’s ukases, which inhibit and terrorize the free play of initiative and correction from below”

“The tendency toward the collectivization of capitalism is indeed a reality: as we have seen, it means the bureaucratic collectivization of capitalism. As this process has advanced, the contemporary social-democracy has itself gone through a metamorphosis. Today, the leading theoretician of this neo-reformism, C.A.R. Crosland, denounces as “extremist” the mild statement favoring nationalization which was originally written for the British Labor program by none other than Sidney Webb (with Arthur Henderson)! The number of continental social democracies that have now purged their programs of all specifically anti-capitalist content – a brand new phenomenon in socialist history – reflects the degree to which the ongoing process of bureaucratic collectivization is accepted as an installment of petrified “socialism.”

[Sylvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some moments where I did feel like 'I can use this' even if I disagree with a lot of this (esp. Draper's views on revolutions in Cuba, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia, his criticisms of those are very simplistic).

In between the sometimes grating polemics against the Soviet Union, there are some interesting ideas that look at the genealogy of socialism and making that point of how utopian socialisms failed in many ways (anti-democratic, pre-figurative, etc.), reiterating exactly why Marx's intervention was so important.

A 'socialism from above' approach makes you think Draper is critical of anything associated with cadres or vanguards, but he looks at Eugene Debs in particular and the question of 'Can the workers fit themselves?' It's not a total rejection but acknowledging something that's been on my mind amidst discussions on new party formations. What are people in this for? Can workers and oppressed people fit themselves into these things when faced with socialists with chauvinistic views or trying to find opportunist movements to lead. I agree that socialist cadres should avoid a 'belonging' that totally absorbs people into movements, instead, cadres should think about how socialist organising is about the necessity to uplift all working class and oppressed people.

However, the framing of socialism as either above or below is not for me though. This pamphlet gave me some ideas to think about though.

[Camille McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who feels confused about the particular strains of socialism and anarchism, especially comparing Statism and Socialism, this book is very clarifying. This is a thirty-page pamphlet which explains the difference between Socialism-From-Above and Socialism-from-Below, something that everyone who calls themselves "socialist" should read so that you can ask, as he does, whatside are you on? True Marxism clearly involves Socialism-from-Below, with radical democracy at the root of socialism's identity and formation. Socialism-from-Above involves philanthropy, statism, and many strains of elitism. I enjoyed the historical background on all these different 'theories' of socialism and Draper is excellent at eviscerating the socialism-from-above idea. Should be high on your political reading list.

[V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This small book lays out in clear terms the theory of socialism from below.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good historical review of the different strains of socialism. And, yes, there are a lot of types of socialism.
Using those, the author examines the two souls of socialism: authoritarian "Socialism-from-above" (a group of people, however good-intentioned, imposing their will from above) or radical democratic "Socialism-from-below" (worker-led fights to end their exploitation and be self-determined).

"When the demonstrations and boycotts of the Southern Negroes threatened to embarrass President Johnson as he faced an election, the question was: which side are you on? When the Hungarian people erupted in revolt against the Russian occupier, the question was: which side are you on? When the Algerian people fought for liberation against the “socialist” government of Guy Mollet, the question was: which side are you on? When Cuba was invaded by Washington’s puppets, the question was: which side are you on? and when the Cuban trade unions are taken over by the commissars of the dictatorship, the question is also: which side are you on?"

[Jude R · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Since the beginning of society, there has been no end of theories "proving" that tyranny is inevitable and that freedom-in-democracy is Impossible; there is no more convenient ideology for a ruling class and its intellectual flunkies. These are self-fulfilling predictions, since they remain true only as long as they are taken to be true. In the last analysis, the only way of proving them false is in the struggle itself. That struggle from below has never been stopped by the theories from above, and it has changed the world time and again. To choose any of the forms of Socialism-from-Above is to look back to the old world, to the "old crap." To choose the road of Socialism-from-Below is to affirm the beginning of a new world"

[Eric Hamell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting work in that it puts the idea of socialism in a much broader context than usual, tracing it back almost to the beginning of recorded history. It's thought-provoking to realize that some of the questions that have divided the modern socialist movement have much older antecedents.

My only complaint, as someone schooled in historical materialism, is that the contrast between socialism-from-above and socialism-from-below is almost too abstract; attempting a generalization across such a broad stretch of time seems to come at the expense of really situating the individual examples in their historical contexts.

[Lookout · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hal Draper was a talented writer. His word choice was for the mst parent. My least favorite is on anarchism because it comes off as bad faith. Draper chastises Proudhon and 6aka for being anti-semitic but Karl Marx called LaSalle a racial and ethnic slur. But Draper is willing to criticize his fellow Marxists for being opportunists. It should be longer and came up with stronger when he talks about socialism from above and socialism from below. He calls the new deal fascistic without much evidence

[Cyn Huang · Rating 5 out of 5]

My fourth time reading Two Souls. Draper's world no longer exists, but the political forces he was responding to are still very much alive, albeit in new forms. Socialism from below remains a useful analytical framework and thread to tie all of my politics (rank and file democracy, political independence, working class internationalism) together.

The meaning of Two Souls deepens with every encounter, as living by and more fully realizing the principle of working class self-emancipation has been the highest aspiration of my life.

[Amar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible pamphlet. It does a very good job of criticizing the popular current of Socialism-from-Above. Also, I had no idea about the history of the so-called "Educational Dictatorship," and how socialists just keep reinventing the idea -- to no avail of course, just constant failure.

[pantea]

The struggle from below has never been stopped by the theories from above, and it has changed the world time and again.