Published 2010, Epilogue 2016
The article explores historical and contemporary uses of the lesser evil argument, including its role in justifying the status quo in capitalism and its tactical implications for revolutionary movements.
The author, Victor Wallis, is a self-identified Marxist and professor of Liberal Arts at the Berklee College of Music. For twenty years, he was the managing editor of Socialism and Democracy and has been writing on ecological issues since the early 1990s.
ABSTRACT: When should revolutionary movements support, and when should they not support, a “lesser evil” among hostile forces (or among alternative strategies)? I explore varying responses to this question since the time of Marx. I also consider the use of a “lesser evil” argument by defenders of capital in their effort to justify the status quo in the face of growing popular discontent.
Introduction
- “Lesser evil”ism (LE) has existed in a variety of contexts, all striving for the presumed good.
- Maximalists: Advancing the revolution eclipses all other goals. Criticize LE-ism.
- Minimalists: Focus on immediate threats, advocating for tactical compromises to mitigate harm. This approach risks falling into a reactionary rut, perpetuating the status quo.
Marx/Engels and electoral calculations
Summary
Marx and Engels were engaged in lesser evil politics from as early as the 1848 Prussian elections. Marx distinguished between the movement’s electoral tactics and its longer-range organizing. Marx and Engels saw a democratic state as a lesser evil compared to absolutist (authoritarian) regimes. However, as the political landscape changed by 1850, Marx urged workers not to be swayed by concerns of splitting the democratic party. This shows Marx and Engels engaged contextually / tactically in LEism.
The political debate over the lesser evil is as old as working-class politics.
Marx and Engels engaged with lesser evil scenarios early in their careers. During the 1848 Prussian elections, Marx distinguished between short-term electoral tactics and long-term organizing, advocating temporary alliances against greater threats while maintaining a relentless opposition to both government and official opposition.
Marx distinguished between the movement’s electoral tactics and its longer-range organizing: “Where it is a struggle against the existing government, we ally ourselves even with our enemies.… Now, after the election, we again affirm our old relentless standpoint not only against the government but also against the official opposition”.
Marx saw a democratic state as a lesser evil compared to absolutist regimes, as it allowed clearer social antagonisms to surface, facilitating a free fight towards resolution.
Underlying this approach was Marx’s conviction that a democratic state, compared to any absolutist regime, had the advantage for the proletariat of not artificially blurring social antagonisms and, hence, of providing the setting “in which they come to a free fight and thereby to a solution” (NRhZ, 29/6/1848; MEW 5: 136). In this sense, the democratic state, about whose social grounding and ultimate allegiance Marx had no illusions, was indeed for him a “lesser evil.”
By 1850, Marx and Engels insisted on promoting independent working-class candidates, rejecting arguments that this would split the democratic party and benefit reactionaries.
Initially, the democratic parliamentary system in Germany was seen as a lesser evil compared to absolutist regimes. This system allowed for more political freedoms and opportunities for the working class to organize and engage in political processes
Engels recognized that while democratic institutions offered a lesser evil compared to absolutism by providing a platform for political engagement, they could also pose a risk of co-optation. Therefore, under certain conditions, armed struggle and militant actions were deemed necessary and a lesser evil to prevent the dilution and neutralization of the revolutionary movement’s goals.
Following the May 1849 shutdown of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Engels “went to fight with the insurrectionary forces” (Draper 1978: 240); in 1895, contemplating the real possibility of the working class attaining power through the institutions of the democratic republic, Engels nonetheless sought to remind his readers, despite censorship by the editors of Die Neue Zeit, that the decisive struggles might still require armed confrontations
Lenin and bourgeois constitutionalism
Summary
Lenin’s tactical use of compromises, whether through participation in the Duma, negotiating peace treaties, or implementing economic policies like the NEP, highlights the complexity of revolutionary strategy. While maintaining a clear long-term vision of socialism, Lenin was willing to engage in lesser evil decisions to navigate immediate threats and ensure the survival and success of the revolutionary movement. LE tactics often have immediate, known effects for long term unknown effects.
Lenin viewed bourgeois constitutionalism as fundamentally different from revolutionary aims but acknowledged tactical compromises within this framework to maintain working-class connections.
In 1907, despite criticisms, Lenin supported participation in the Duma, a weak parliamentary body established by Tsar Nicholas II following the 1905 Revolution.
Some Bolsheviks (revolutionary Marxist group) saw this as a betrayal of revolutionary principles. Lenin countered that engaging with the Duma was a strategic necessity to maintain influence and mobilize the working class within the existing political constraints.
When opportunities for legal agitation multiplied in 1907, Lenin insisted that the party should make use of them, so as not to become detached from its working-class base. In voting at that time for participation in the Duma (the weak parliamentary body allowed by the czar after 1905), Lenin aroused criticism from party comrades who saw this as an act of betrayal.
Lenin’s essay “On Compromises” (1917) highlighted the need for tactical compromises, like supporting a Menshevik/SR coalition to avoid the greater evil of Bolshevik suppression.
Post-revolution, Lenin’s compromises included signing an unfavorable peace treaty with Germany and implementing the New Economic Policy (NEP) to address immediate threats and ensure Bolshevik power.
Lenin prioritized the survival of the revolutionary regime over maintaining all territorial gains, viewing the treaty as a lesser evil compared to the risk of military defeat.
Lenin to Trotsky regarding unfavorable peace treaty with Germany: “better a split in the party than the danger of a military defeat of the revolution”.
On the production front, Lenin clearly presented his calls for “iron discipline” and for reliance on bourgeois experts as being “a compromise” and “a step backward” (“The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government,” 4/1918; CW 27: 248f), but considered this approach less risky than the alternative, which he saw as dominated by “the element of petty bourgeois anarchy” and leading to “indiscipline, laxity and chaos”
In response to economic collapse and widespread opposition, Lenin introduced the NEP in 1921. This policy reintroduced limited market mechanisms and allowed some private enterprise, which was a retreat from earlier socialist policies.
Lenin called for strict factory discipline and reliance on bourgeois experts to address inefficiencies and chaos in production. This step back from worker control was seen as a lesser evil necessary to ensure productivity and stability.
While these measures helped stabilize the regime, they also had long-term implications, such as stifling the potential for worker control movements and contributing to bureaucratic rigidities.
Lesser evil decisions often involve immediate tactical, short-term compromises. These choices have unforeseen long-term consequences, making the LE choice not always a clear calculus.
For example, the Bolsheviks took power under significant challenges: economic hardship, political instability, and foreign interventions. These contributed to the development of a repressive and authoritarian state apparatus, as Soviet leadership prioritized survival over democratic principles. Additionally, Soviet authoritarianism and economic inefficiency have been a significant hurdle for other socialist movements.
Can compromise ward off the “greater evil”?
Summary
Lenin’s distinguishes between acceptable and unacceptable compromises, explicitly mentioning “lesser evil.” The 1930s German left’s response to Nazism highlights the challenges of lesser evilism, showing how compromises intended to ward off a greater evil can sometimes fail or even exacerbate the situation. The ultimate lesson is the importance of strategic judgment, ensuring tactics align with long-term goals while addressing immediate threats.
Lenin explicitly mentions “lesser evil” in distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable compromise.
Lenin’s fullest discussion of compromise is in “Left-Wing” Communism… (1920), where he draws examples both from the Bolshevik experience and from the politics of parliamentary regimes. In distinguishing acceptable from unacceptable forms of compromise, he explicitly uses the notion of “lesser evil” to describe the former: “One must distinguish between a man who has given up his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to lessen the evil they can do … and a man who gives his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to share in the loot” (CW 31: 38).
Lenin on an acceptable compromise:
- Brest-Litovsk Treaty: The Bolsheviks ceded territory to Germany to secure peace and focus on internal consolidation.
Lenin on unacceptable compromise:
- Second International (1914-1920): Lenin condemns parties of Second International for supporting their governments’ war efforts during WWI.
Trotsky argued for a united front against the Nazis, emphasizing tactical decisions.
The split between the German Community Party (KPD) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) weakened their ability to counter the growing fascist threat.
In 1932, the only viable candidate against Hitler was Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. He was viewed as the lesser evil but ultimately appointed Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, underscoring a potential pitfall of LEism.
Lesser Evil as a system-induced imperative: The US model
Summary
The U.S. electoral system, characterized by a lack of proportional representation and a party duopoly, inherently fosters LE voting logic. While LEism can sometimes be justified as a strategic retreat, it often serves to entrench and legitimize existing power structures without significantly challenging them.
US examples: Nomination of John Kerry (2004), narrowing choice to Obama v Clinton (2008), and 2009-10 healthcare debate.
LEism is endemic to electoral frameworks which lack proportional representation. (The US has a winner-takes-all format.) It’s further entrenched by the USA’s party duopoly and single-round voting.
The “electability” argument, is used to justify economically conservative platforms by arguing that only centrist candidates can defeat right-wing opponents, since mainstream voters are more financially prosperous and likely to vote. This pulls mainstream consensus to the right, as Democrats play to people’s fears, rather than mobilizing for positive alternatives.
The electability argument assumes that mainstream voters, who are more prosperous and likely to vote, prefer economically conservative platforms.
- An example of “electability” dynamic was shown in the 2009-10 healthcare debate. Democratic leaders permitted steady weakening of the reform bill in the hope of attracting Republican support which they did not need.
A “good cop/bad cop” dynamic plays out in the US two-party duopoly.
In the US partisan framework, however, lesser-evilism reflects a virtual complicity between the two parties involved, comparable to the “good cop/bad cop” approach to interrogations. Thus, the electoral dynamic unfolds in a setting in which basic ideological assumptions are shared by the two parties and in which, despite any differences between their respective rhetorical stances (and their corresponding popular constituencies), major financial backers typically contribute not just to one of those parties but to both of them.
A vote for the lesser evil primarily legitimizes the existing system without significantly affecting policy. The power structures confirmed by these votes become increasingly resistant to legal restraints and accountability
Lesser evil or greater good?
Summary
After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, lesser evilism was used to justify capitalism, portraying it as the lesser evil compared to the purported unmitigated evil of communism.
The US ruling class employs the lesser evil argument to defend policies that often harm people globally, leveraging the notion that capitalism, despite its flaws, is preferable to alternatives.
Negative aspects of socialism were rationalized as transitional issues expected to diminish over time as expanding socialist presence would serve as a bulwark against capitalism.
- Lukács in 1968: “I have always thought that the worst form of socialism was better to live in than the best form of capitalism”
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, capitalism’s defenders shifted from extolling its virtues to arguing “there is no alternative.” By implicitly linking Communism with socialism, while divorcing Nazism from capitalism, and by disregarding the atrocities of capitalism, liberal democracy was positioned as the “lesser evil” compared to Communism.
Thinkers like Michael Ignatieff redefined the “greater evil” as terrorism instead of totalitarianism, justifying torture in counter-terrorism efforts.
Lesser evil argument now serves US ruling class interests, limiting policy debates and obstructing environmental and working-class priorities.
Thus, the United States is the country in which the power of capital is least restrained and in which, consequently, there is the highest level of obstruction to policies reflecting environmental and social-service or working-class priorities. Not coincidentally, it is also, as we have seen, the country in which the “lesser evil” calculus most fully defines the limits of policy debates, and in which, as a result, the opportunities for positive electoral alternatives are most fully closed off.
Marx and Engels noted ruling ideas reflect the ruling class’s interests. As capitalist politics loses its democratic façade, the argument of capitalism being “less bad” becomes intellectual desperation.
Epilogue, March 2016
That liberal democracy embodies a LE compared to “terrorism” underpins most US foreign policy and fosters fear-based voting. Meanwhile, the US upholds the status quo or shifts further rightward.
As the US and other governments wage “war on terror” in the name of liberal democracy, they are not only hurting people in the Islamic world; they are also subjecting majorities of their own citizenry to unpopular agendas of economic austerity. In the US case, the democratic paradigm has been further compromised by 1) legislation and prosecutions that conflate dissent with terrorism, 2) free rein to corporate money in electoral campaigns, and 3) new laws in various states tightening restrictions on the right to vote.
Sanders’ 2016 campaign challenged the LE paradigm by promoting anti-oligarchic messages, opening a potential shift away from rightward-leaning LE logic.